Thieves stole around 1,000 relics from Egypt’s museums and archaeological sites after public protests against the country’s government broke out in January, a renowned Egyptologist has revealed.
According to an AFP report on Sunday, Egypt’s minister for antiquities Zahi Hawass told Spain’s El Mundo that the inventory of all the items that were stolen during the uprising and the weeks of unrest thereafter, will be given to UNESCO, the UN cultural agency.
“We are investigating all the incidents to find the items. Up until now we have identified many culprits, criminals who were looking for gold or mummies and who lacked knowledge of the value of the items they stole,” Hawass said.
According to AFP, Hawass told the Spanish daily that the thieves were not organised. “They lived near the archaeological sites where the objects were kept. They would take advantage of the night to enter the archaeological sites and pillage,” he said.
However, Hawass said that out of the 1,000-odd objects that were stolen, none of them were major items.
“There is an inventory of everything and it will be difficult for the items to leave the country,” AFP cited the minister of antiquities telling El Mundo.
Prized artefacts, including a statue of King Tutankhamun and objects from the time of the rebel Pharaoh Akhenaten, are missing from the Egyptian Museum after looters broke in during unrest, the country’s top Egyptologist had told Reuters in February.
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