CAIRO: A 3,000-year-old gold bracelet has gone missing from a restoration laboratory of Cairo’s Egyptian Museum, the country’s antiquities ministry said.
The bracelet, described as a golden band adorned with “spherical lapis lazuli beads,” dates to the reign of Amenemope, a pharaoh of Egypt’s 21st Dynasty .
The ministry, in its statement issued late Tuesday, did not specify when the piece was last seen.
Egyptian media outlets said the loss was detected in recent days during an inventory check ahead of the “Treasures of the Pharaohs” exhibition scheduled in Rome at the end of October.
An internal probe has been opened, and antiquities units across all Egyptian airports, seaports and land border crossings nationwide have been alerted, the ministry said.
The case was not announced immediately to allow investigations to proceed, and a full inventory of the lab’s contents was underway, it added.
The ministry did not respond to an AFP request for comment.
According to Jean Guillaume Olette-Pelletier, an Egyptologist, the bracelet was discovered in Tanis, in the eastern Nile delta, during archaeological excavations in the tomb of King Psusennes I, where Amenemope had been reburied after the plundering of his original tomb.
“It’s not the most beautiful, but scientifically it’s one of the most interesting” objects, the expert, who has worked in Tanis, told AFP.
He said the bracelet had a fairly simple design but was made of a gold alloy designed to resist deformation. While gold represented the “flesh of the gods,” he said, lapis lazuli, imported from what is now Afghanistan, evoked their hair, he said.
The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square houses more than 170,000 artefacts, including the famed gold funerary mask of King Amenemope.
The disappearance comes just weeks before the scheduled November 1 inauguration of the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum.
One of the museum’s most iconic collections — the treasures of King Tutankhamun’s tomb — is being prepared for transfer ahead of the opening, which is being positioned as a major cultural milestone under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s government.
In 2021, Egypt staged a high-profile parade transferring 22 royal mummies, including Ramses II and Queen Hatshepsut, to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Old Cairo — part of a broader effort to boost Egypt’s museum infrastructure and tourism appeal.
Egypt says 3,000-year-old gold bracelet missing from museum
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Egypt says 3,000-year-old gold bracelet missing from museum
Israel says it launched pre-emptive attacks against Iran
- An Israeli defense official said the operation had been planned for months in coordination with Washington
Israel said it launched a pre-emptive attack against Iran on Saturday, pushing the Middle East into a renewed military confrontation and further dimming hopes for a diplomatic solution to Tehran’s long-running nuclear dispute with the West.
The New York Times, citing a US official, reported that US strikes on Iran were underway. A source said that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was not in Tehran and had been transferred to a secure location.
An apparent strike in Iran’s capital Saturday happened near the offices of Khamenei. State television acknowledged an explosion in the area of the offices.
Israeli media reported attempts to assassinate Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during the attacks, and have not ruled out Khamenei being targeted.
Several missiles have struck University Street and the Jomhouri area in Tehran, while explosion likely occurred in the northern Seyyed Khandan area of Tehran, state media reported. Thick smoke was also rising from the vicinity of Pasteur Street in downtown Tehran, ISNA said.
The attack, coming after Israel and Iran engaged in a 12-day air war in June, follows repeated US-Israeli warnings that they would strike again if Iran pressed ahead with its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
“The State of Israel launched a pre-emptive attack against Iran to remove threats to the State of Israel,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said.
An Israeli defense official said the operation had been planned for months in coordination with Washington, and that the launch date was decided weeks ago.
The US military declined to immediately comment on the attack.
Explosions were heard in Tehran on Saturday, Iranian media reported, and sirens sounded across Israel around 08:15 local time in what the military said was a proactive alert to prepare the public for the possibility of an incoming missile strike.
The Israeli military announced the closure of schools and workplaces, with exceptions for essential sectors, and a ban on public airspace. Israel closed its airspace to civilian flights, and the airports authority asked the public not to go to any of the country’s airports.
The country’s airspace will reopen and flights to and from Israel to resume ‘as soon as the security situation allows,’ the airport authority said.
Iran’s airspace has been closed, Tasnim news agency reported.
The US and Iran renewed negotiations in February in a bid to resolve the decades-long dispute through diplomacy and avert the threat of a military confrontation that could destabilize the region.
Israel, however, insisted that any US deal with Iran must include the dismantling of Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure, not just stopping the enrichment process, and lobbied Washington to include restrictions on Iran’s missile program in the talks.
Iran said it was prepared to discuss curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions but ruled out linking the issue to missiles.
Tehran also said it would defend itself against any attack.
It warned neighboring countries hosting US troops that it would retaliate against American bases if Washington struck Iran.
In June, the US joined an Israeli military campaign against Iranian nuclear installations, in the most direct American military action ever against the Islamic Republic.
Tehran retaliated then by launching missiles toward the US Al Udeid air base in Qatar, the largest in the Middle East.
Western powers have warned that Iran’s ballistic missile project threatens regional stability and could deliver nuclear weapons if developed. Tehran denies seeking atomic bombs.
