{"id":154904,"date":"2025-09-19T18:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T18:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/154904\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T18:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T18:27:09","slug":"pharaohs-priceless-bracelet-stolen-from-museum-melted-down-and-sold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/154904\/","title":{"rendered":"Pharaoh’s priceless bracelet stolen from museum, melted down and sold"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 3000-year-old gold bracelet was stolen from an Egyptian museum and irreversibly destroyed, authorities say.<\/p>\n

The priceless artefact, which once belonged to King Amenemope, was discovered missing from a laboratory’s safe. It had been lost since September 9.<\/p>\n

Now, \ufeffaccording to Reuters, the country’s Interior Ministry has confirmed the bracelet was melted down and sold.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe bracelet was 3000 years old. (The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities)<\/p>\n

The bracelet, adorned with blue lapis lazuli beads, was a significant piece from Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period.<\/p>\n

Its disappearance prompted the formation of a special committee to scrutinise the lab’s inventory.<\/p>\n

Officials also took action to prevent the bracelet from leaving the country, distributing its image to border control points.<\/p>\n

However, the artifact had already been tracked down to a museum restoration specialist who had allegedly taken it, Reuters reported the ministry as saying.<\/p>\n

The specialist sold the item to a silver trader, who then sold it to a workshop owner.<\/p>\n

In the final act, the bracelet was sold to a gold smelter where it was melted down and recast. <\/p>\n

The ministry announced that all suspects have been apprehended, and the proceeds from the sale, approximately 194,000 Egyptian pounds (about $6100), have been confiscated.<\/p>\n

This incident has cast a shadow over the upcoming Grand Egyptian Museum’s opening in November. <\/p>\n

Tourism is a key industry for Egypt’s economy, and the new museum, located near the Pyramids of Giza, is designed to be a major attraction showcasing the country’s ancient heritage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 3000-year-old gold bracelet was stolen from an Egyptian museum and irreversibly destroyed, authorities say. The priceless artefact,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-154904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}