Kim Kardashian is plenty of things, but crusader of obscure causes isn’t really her schtick. Still, by some divine, boozy stroke of luck, Kardashian helped blow the top off an artifact trafficking ring according to a recent podcast episode of Art Bust: Scandalous Stories of the Art World, run by renowned journalist Ben Lewis. After a 2018 Met Gala photo was taken of the star – hip-popped, looking dazed – next to a solid gold sarcophagus, authorities began work on a case years in the making. Unwittingly, Kardashian had broken an international case wide-open. The artifact she had benignly set herself up against was none other than the looted, gilded coffin of Nedjemankh, a Ptolemaic priest whose Minya tomb had been raided in 2011; the sarcophagus was among the many dug-up and trafficked items smuggled out of Egypt during the chaos of revolution. The coffin, which dates back to the first century BC, was sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for $4 million dollars by way of fake documentation. A Middle Eastern informant was quick to notify Manhattan’s Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos of the photo. Irritated that they…
