Museum Restorer Stole 3,000-Year-Old Pharaoh Amenemope Bracelet, Sold, Melted for 180,000 EGP

A gold bracelet that belonged to Pharaoh Amenemope, a ruler of Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period who reigned circa 993–984 B.C., was stolen from a safe in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo on Sept. 9 and irretrievably destroyed after being sold and melted down. The object, described in reports as a gold band decorated with lapis lazuli, survived three millennia only to be converted into bullion and recast into other jewellery for the equivalent of roughly $3,700 to $4,000.

Museum officials and investigators traced the loss to a museum restoration specialist who removed the bracelet from the conservation and restoration laboratory. The Interior Ministry’s inquiry mapped a short, rapid chain of custody: the restorer passed the bracelet to an acquaintance who runs or works in a silver shop, the silver trader sold it to the owner of a gold workshop in Cairo’s jewellery district, and the workshop owner sold it to a worker at a gold foundry who melted the metal with other items and reshaped it into new pieces.

Reported transaction figures vary by outlet but are consistent in scale. One account gives Egyptian-pound amounts of 180,000 EGP for the sale to the gold workshop owner and 194,000 EGP for the subsequent sale to the foundry worker. Other accounts convert those sums to dollars, listing intermediate sales at approximately $3,735 and $4,025. Authorities have seized the proceeds from the sales.

The theft was discovered while staff were preparing dozens of artefacts for transport to an exhibition in Rome, described in reports as the “Treasures of the Pharaohs” show, and weeks before the planned opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza pyramids. Images of the bracelet, which some sources describe as bearing a single blue round bead and others as decorated with spherical lapis lazuli beads, were circulated to airports, seaports and land border crossings in an effort to prevent smuggling.

Security questions followed quickly. Tourism and Antiquities Minister Sherif Fathy said he had referred the case to prosecutors and blamed “laxity” in implementing procedures at the facility. The AP reported that the restoration laboratory did not have security cameras; separately released CCTV footage, shown by authorities, captured a shop owner receiving, weighing and paying for the item outside the museum.

Arrests and confessions have been reported, though accounts differ on the number of suspects: BBC and CBS reported four individuals confessed and were arrested, while one account cited three suspects. The Interior Ministry announced that proceeds were seized and that legal action has been referred to public prosecutors. A specialized committee has been set up to inventory and review all artifacts held in the restoration laboratory as investigators pursue documentary evidence, transaction records and the formal charges that will follow.