Elham Salah, head of the Museums Department at the Ministry of Antiquities, has told Ahram Online that claims published on social media that an ancient royal golden ring has been stolen from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square are "unfounded." The ring remains in the store galleries of the museum.

Salah explained that the ring was among items selected to be on display in a special temporary exhibition in 2002 inside the museum, along with other objects from the museum's collection and artefacts from the store galleries of Saqqara and the Giza Plateau.

Regretfully, Elham continued, the ring was not put on show and returned to the store galleries.

A few days ago, a researcher reportedly arrived to the museum and asked to examine the ring. The museum's curator asked the researcher to give them time to remove the ring from its wooden box in the store gallery, while most curators at time were busy filing an inventory of all the musuem's treasured collection.

Rumours apparently started on social media saying that the ring had disappeared having been stolen.

An archaeological committee was then formed to open the box and photograph the ring in order to prove that the ring is safe in the museum's galleries and is not stolen as claimed.

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