Cairo, Egypt Reuters —

A 3,000-year-old gold bracelet that disappeared from an Egyptian museum earlier this month was stolen and melted down, the country’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

The Antiquities and Tourism Ministry had earlier reported the loss of the bracelet, which belonged to King Amenemope of the Third Intermediate Period, who ruled Egypt around 1,000 BC.

The piece, decorated with spherical lapis lazuli beads, vanished from a safe in a conservation laboratory on September 9.

The bracelet was 3,000 years old. The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

Yet, the Interior Ministry tracked down the theft to a museum restoration specialist who took the artifact and sold it to a silver trader, who passed it on to a workshop owner in Cairo’s historic jewelr

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