The search for gold in the Egyptian Museum

Ahram Online (Zahi Hawass)

Archaeologists spend their lives excavating sites and making major discoveries, and at the end of their dig seasons they bring all of their finds to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. I, myself, used to come to Cairo all the time when I was excavating at Kom Abou Bellou in the Delta. For more than six years I would come with trucks full of treasures, such as statues and gold jewellery.

Now, for the first time, the Egyptian Museum was broken into by a group of criminals who tried to steal from their own country in an attempt to ruin the revolution for freedom and democracy. I visited the museum the morning after the break-in and at first glance it did not look like any items were missing: all of the masterpieces seemed to be in place. There were many broken objects scattered throughout the galleries and it appeared that the criminals just broke cases and threw objects on the ground. I believed then that nothing had been stolen.