Egypt says 3,000-year-old bracelet was stolen and melted down [View all]

[muriel_volestrangler]

Sure, in the rest of current news, this don't amount to a hill o' beans, but it's so depressing that someone would steal a 3,000 year old piece of jewellery for its gold value alone.

A 3,000-year-old gold bracelet that disappeared from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo was stolen and melted down, Egypt's interior ministry says.

A restoration specialist took the artefact - which dates back to the reign of King Amenemope, a pharaoh who ruled Egypt around 1,000BC – from a safe at the museum nine days ago, according to the ministry.

The woman contacted a silver jeweller she knew, who sold the bracelet to a gold jeweller for $3,735 (£2,750), it said. He then sold it for $4,025 to a gold foundry worker, who had melted it down with other jewellery, it added.

The ministry said the four individuals confessed to their crimes after being arrested and that the money was seized.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1kw8dwy4dro

You yearn for some megalomaniac collector who would have hidden it to see it all for himself, and then it could re-appear decades later.