An ancient Egyptian royal bracelet which had gone missing from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo’s restoration laboratories was sold to a gold merchant for EGP 180,000 EGP (USD 3,733), Egypt’s Ministry of Interior revealed on its social media pages.
Despite detaining the crime’s perpetrators, the bracelet has been melted by a gold foundry worker.
Investigations revealed that a restoration specialist at the museum stole the bracelet on 9 September before passing it on to a silver shop owner in El-Sayeda Zeinab, Cairo. The latter sold the bracelet to a gold workshop owner also in El-Sayeda Zeinab for EGP 180,000. The gold workshop owner subsequently sold it to a gold foundry worker for EGP 194,000 (USD 4,027) who melted the bracelet down along with other jewelry to reconstitute it.
The disappearance of the bracelet was made public on September 17, as per a statement by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. Belonging to King Amenemope of Dynasty 21, the golden bracelet adorned by lapis lazuli was meant to be part of a collection en route to a temporary exhibition in Italy.
Main perpetrators of the theft and their accmplices confessed to the crime, while the money obtained from the sale of the bracelet was seized by Egypt’s prosecutors. The Ministry’s video reveals three men and a woman complicit in the crime, as well as CCTV footage of the sale of the bracelet to the gold workshop owner.
Laws meant to protect antiquities from traffic or illegal export exist within Egypt’s legal framework; in specific Law No. 117 of 1983 on Antiquities Protection stipulates different sentences ranging from EGP 50,000 (USD 1,087) to EGP 100,000 (USD 2,075) in fines as well as several years of jail time. In 2020, the Egyptian parliament added a new article to the antiquities protection law, imposing imprisonment and fines of EGP 1 to 10 million on those possessing or selling antiquities abroad without official documentation.
Nonetheless, looting and traffic of antiquities remain perseverant thorns in Egypt’s protection of cultural heritage efforts.
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