A limestone pharaonic art piece has gone missing from Egypt’s famed Saqqara necropolis, Egyptian antiquities officials said.
It comes weeks after a famous golden bracelet was snatched from the Egyptian Museum, before being melted down and sold.
This time, a limestone in the tomb of Khentika, dating to the sixth dynasty of the Old Kingdom, roughly from around 2700 BC to 2200 BC, was taken.
The tomb was discovered in the 1950s and had not been opened since 2019.
Local news reported that a British team working in the tomb discovered the relief was missing in May.
The art shows reliefs portraying daily life in ancient Egypt, archaeologist Ali Abu Deshish told CBS.
The theft has been dubbed a ‘catastrophe’, after the stone was cut out of the wall.
Security around Egypt’s antiquities has been heightened after the limestone painting theft and the gold bracelet debacle.
Pharaoh Amenemope’s lapis lazuli bead jewellery was snatched from Cairo’s Egyptian Museum on September 9, before being sold for the equivalent of roughly £2,819.
A restoration specialist from the museum is said to have taken the artefact, which then passed through a chain of dealers before being melted down.
Four suspects have been arrested, including the restoration specialist, while prosecutors continue to investigate.
Monica Hanna, a prominent Egyptian archaeologist, called for ‘better control’ of artefact security, after it emerged there were no security cameras in the lab where it was stolen.
In 2023, a British Museum employee was sacked over ‘stolen’ items, including gold, jewellery and gems of semi-precious stones and glass dating from the 15th century BC to the 19th century AD.
The London museum said the majority of the items were small pieces kept in a storeroom belonging to one of the museum’s collections.
Hartwig Fischer, director of the British Museum, said at the time: ‘The museum apologises for what has happened, but we have now brought an end to this – and we are determined to put things right.
‘We have already tightened our security arrangements and we are working alongside outside experts to complete a definitive account of what is missing, damaged and stolen. This will allow us to throw our efforts into the recovery of objects.’
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