Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced on September 17 that a gold bracelet disappeared from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, without specifying when it was last seen. The ministry said it delayed the announcement to ensure an appropriate environment for the progress of the investigations and published the statement on Facebook. A special team was formed to review artifacts that had been in the restoration laboratory, and the incident was reported to law enforcement and the Public Prosecutor’s Office. A full inventory of the laboratory collection was opened as part of the probe.
Following the discovery, authorities put major points of entry on alert and circulated an image of the bracelet at airports, seaports, and land border crossings. “An image of the missing bracelet was distributed to these units to prevent any attempts at smuggling,” the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities stated, according to CBS News. The search is ongoing to locate the piece.
The General Director of the Egyptian Museum said images circulating on social media showed a different bracelet that remained on display.
The missing object was described as a gold bracelet formed as a simple circle with spherical lapis lazuli beads. Egyptian press reported that staff discovered the loss during a routine inventory check, though the ministry did not confirm that detail. The bracelet was among artifacts being prepared for shipment to Italy for the exhibition Treasures of the Pharaohs at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome, scheduled from October 24 to May 3, which planned to present 130 artifacts across multiple historical periods.
There are conflicting accounts about the dating of the bracelet. Some reports dated it to the reign of Amenemhat II, while others linked it to King Amenemope of the 21st Dynasty (1070–945 BCE). “A little-known but historically interesting sovereign of the XXI Egyptian dynasty,” according to the museum’s website. The site also states that Amenemhat was a pharaoh of the 21st Dynasty who ruled Egypt from 993 to 984 BCE.
The disappearance sparked controversy in cultural circles weeks before the planned November 1st inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza. The treasures of Tutankhamun are being prepared for transfer for a comprehensive display of more than 5,000 artifacts. The inauguration follows a 2021 parade that moved 22 royal mummies to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization as part of an effort to modernize museum infrastructure and boost tourism.
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The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square houses about 170,000 artifacts, including the gold funerary mask of Tutankhamun and the wooden funerary mask of Amenemope. Amenemope was originally buried in a single-chamber tomb in the royal necropolis of Tanis in the eastern Nile Delta. His tomb was later moved next to Psusennes I and was rediscovered in 1940.
Security experts and archaeologists called for tighter procedures. “The irregularity of inventory operations in the restoration laboratories is a gap; they are currently done on a receipt and handover system, and the inventory should be done every period not exceeding 15 days,” said Dr. Ahmed Amer, an archaeological expert and inspector at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, according to Asharq Al-Awsat.
“The outlet where I work monitors and inspects any parcels suspected of containing any archaeological pieces,” said Amer. “There are gaps in the security procedures for the artifacts in Egyptian museums, including that most restoration laboratories did not have cameras because they were among the security systems recently introduced,” said Amer, who urged installing night-vision cameras in labs and storerooms.
“The incident of the disappearance of the Egyptian Museum bracelet is still mysterious, and this is something that the investigations of the concerned authorities will reveal, but it requires reviewing the security procedures for the pieces as part of the daily work routine,” said Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud. “The presence of the bracelet in the restoration laboratory was not strange and did not involve any violation; every piece preparing to participate in any exhibition must enter the restoration laboratory, but no one knew what happened: Did it leave the museum or was it hidden?” said Abdel-Maqsoud. “The recurrence of incidents of disappearance of some artifacts required more security measures to close the gaps,” said Abdel-Maqsoud, who added that the Public Prosecution’s investigation would determine the gaps that needed to be turned into additional measures.
Egypt faced a series of thefts and attempted thefts of heritage items in recent years. During the January 2011 Revolution, the Egyptian Museum was stormed and artifacts were stolen. “Eighteen archaeological pieces were looted in the storming operation, including a statue made of gilded wood of King Tutankhamun carried by one of the goddesses on her head, and parts of another statue of King Tutankhamun fishing with a spear,” said then-Minister of Antiquities Dr. Zahi Hawass. Last year, several Grand Egyptian Museum employees were tried after the theft of a bronze statue of Osiris from storerooms, and in a separate case, authorities arrested two men who attempted to remove artifacts from the seabed in Abu Qir Bay near Alexandria. Earlier this year, the United States returned 25 stolen artifacts to Egypt after a three-year recovery effort by the Egyptian Consulate in New York. News of the bracelet’s disappearance came the same day authorities in France announced that thieves stole gold samples worth $700,000 from the Natural History Museum in Paris.