Cultural authorities in Cairo have launched a nationwide search for a 3,000-year-old solid gold bracelet which has disappeared from the Egyptian Museum.
The missing artifact once belonged to King Amenemope of the 21st Dynasty (1077 BCE to 943 BCE). It is adorned with beads of blue lapis lazuli, a gemstone which in Pharaonic Egypt was revered above gold for its associations with divine rule. It was last seen in the museum’s restoration laboratory in Tahrir Square, Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced in a statement. The matter is now under the purview of law enforcement and the public prosecution office, the statement, posted on Facebook, added.
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The laboratory was considered a secure location to prepare the piece for the “Treasures of the Pharaohs” exhibition in Rome, an exhibition of 130 artifacts set to open later this year. A photograph of the bracelet has been distributed to all Egyptian airports, seaports, and land border crossings “as a precautionary step to prevent smuggling attempts,” the statement said. The museum’s director general clarified that some of the images circulating among authorities do not depict the missing item, but a similarly crafted bracelet from the collection.
According to the museum’s website, King Amenemope was “a little-known but intriguing sovereign of Egypt’s 21st Dynasty” who was “originally interred in the modest single-chamber tomb NRT IV within the royal necropolis at Tanis, in the eastern Nile Delta.” Several years after Amenemope’s burial, his mummy was reinterred to lie beside Psusennes I, one of the most influential pharaohs of the period.
The ministry said in its statement that every artifact currently in the restoration laboratory will be inventoried and reviewed by a specialist committee.