Four people arrested – Among them a Maintenance of Antiquities at the Cairo Museum – For the stealing of precious jewelry by the time of the Pharaoh which was sold for 3,400 euros and eventually resulted in a foundry, Egyptian authorities announced today.

The gold bracelet, decorated with Lapis Lazuli beaddated from the time of Sapphire; Pharaoh of the 21st Dynasty (1070-945 BC). It had disappeared from a treasury at the Cairo Museum’s restoration workshop, according to the Ministry of Culture.

Egyptian reports said that jewelry had been included in a list of antiquities that would travel to Rome in October to be exhibited as part of the “Pharaoh’s treasures” event.

The research revealed that the precious bracelet had been stolen from the museum, had been sold and ended up in a foundry where it melted with other jewelry, according to an interior ministry. In a security camera shots – released by the Egyptian authorities – a bracelet is exchanged with a beam of banknote and then cut in two by the buyer.

The maintenant “managed to steal the bracelet while working in the museum”, then contacted a jeweler who sold it to the owner of a goldsmith’s laboratory for 180,000 Egyptian pounds (about 3,100 euros). He sold it in a gold foundry for 194,000 Egyptian pounds (about 3,400 euros), according to the same announcement.

The four detainees confessed their guilt and the money was seized, he said.

The bracelet was discovered in Tanida, along with the golden dead mask of Pharaoh Amenmopi, which is on display at the Cairo Museum along with about 170,000 archaeological finds.

In August, an Egyptian former doctor, Ashraf Omar Eldarir, was sentenced to six months in prison in the US for smuggling Egyptian antiquities.