A 3,000-year-old gold bracelet that vanished from an Egyptian museum this month was stolen and melted down, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday. The Antiquities and Tourism Ministry had earlier reported the loss of the piece, which belonged to King Amenemope of the Third Intermediate Period, around 1,000 BC.
The bracelet, decorated with spherical lapis-lazuli beads, disappeared from a safe in a conservation lab on Sept. 9. Investigators traced the theft to a museum restoration specialist, who sold the artefact to a silver trader; it was then passed to a workshop owner and ultimately to a gold smelter who recast the metal, the ministry said.
Police arrested suspects and seized sale proceeds worth about 194,000 Egyptian pounds (roughly $4,000), according to the statement. The incident comes weeks before a planned November opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza Pyramids.