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A 3,000-year-old gold bracelet has gone missing from a restoration laboratory of Cairo’s Egyptian Museum, the country’s antiquities ministry said.
The bracelet, described as a golden band adorned with “spherical lapis lazuli beads,” belonged to King Amenemope, a pharaoh of Egypt’s 21st Dynasty (1070-945 BC).
The ministry, in its statement issued late Tuesday, did not specify when the piece was last seen.
Egyptian media outlets said the loss was detected in recent days during an inventory check, though this could not be confirmed.
An internal probe has been opened, and antiquities units across all Egyptian airports, seaports and land border crossings nationwide have been alerted, the ministry said.
“In addition, an image of the missing bracelet has been circulated to antiquities units across all Egyptian airports, seaports, and land border crossings nationwide as a precautionary step to prevent smuggling attempts,” the ministry said, while posting an photo of the bracelet on social media.
Egyptian antiquities ministry
The case was not announced immediately to allow investigations to proceed, and a full inventory of the lab’s contents was underway, it added.
The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square houses more than 170,000 artifacts, including the famed gold funerary mask of King Amenemope.
The news of the bracelet came on the same day authorities in France announced that thieves stole gold samples worth $700,000 from Paris’s Natural History Museum.
The bracelet’s disappearance also comes just weeks before the scheduled Nov. 1 inauguration of the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum.
One of the museum’s most iconic collections — the treasures of King Tutankhamun’s tomb — is being prepared for transfer ahead of the opening, which is being positioned as a major cultural milestone under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government.
In 2021, Egypt staged a high-profile parade transferring 22 royal mummies, including Ramses II and Queen Hatshepsut, to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Old Cairo — part of a broader effort to boost Egypt’s museum infrastructure and tourism appeal.
Earlier this year, the United States returned to Egypt 25 stolen artifacts, including fragments of what is believed to be a temple of Queen Hatshepsut. The rare pieces — spanning centuries of Egyptian civilization — were handed over following a three-year recovery effort by Egypt’s consulate in New York.
