File Photo: The Egyptian Museum in Cairo s Tahrir Square.
On Thursday, Egypt’s Ministry of Interior announced the arrest of four suspects in the theft of the ancient golden bracelet that dates back to King Amenemope. The 3000-year-old bracelet is made of a solid gold and lapis lazuli piece.
According to prosecution findings declared on Sunday, the primary suspect—an employee at the museum’s conservation lab—confessed to embezzling the artefact from her workplace and handing it over to a second defendant to sell as a gold bracelet.
She admitted to damaging the embedded gemstones before the item was passed on to a third defendant, who in turn sold it by weight to a fourth.
Investigations concluded that the latter two acted in good faith, believing they were trading in ordinary gold.
The Public Prosecution also ordered a specialised committee to review the museum’s artefact handling procedures.
The committee’s report flagged multiple violations, including failure to comply with the 2023 regulations of the Supreme Committee of Egyptian Antiquities.
The report found that artefact transfers were recorded only in movement logs without proper handover signatures, and the conservation lab’s safe was not subject to daily inventory checks.
It recommended stricter safeguards, including maintaining dedicated registers for artefact movement and safe inventory, securing staff signatures on all transfers, prohibiting personal bags inside conservation labs, conducting staff searches upon exit, and installing surveillance cameras.
Investigations are ongoing to determine the responsibility of museum officials in connection with the case.
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