Thieves stole gold from Paris’s Natural History Museum, weeks after other French museum heists, while in Cairo a 3,000-year-old gold bracelet vanished from the Egyptian Museum, raising global concerns over cultural heritage security.
Paris (France): Two major museum thefts in France and Egypt have rattled the cultural world, raising concerns about the security of priceless heritage collections. In Paris, thieves broke into Natural History Museum, making off with gold samples worth 600,000 euros ($700,000). Earlier this month, the Adrien Dubouché National Museum in Limoges was targeted, losing Chinese porcelain treasures worth €6.5 million. Last November, armed robbers stormed the Cognacq-Jay Museum in Paris, escaping with 18th-century works. In Cairo, a 3,000-year-old gold bracelet went missing from a restoration laboratory of the city’s Egyptian Museum. The disappearance comes at a sensitive time for Egypt, just weeks before the scheduled November 1 inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum, which will house iconic artefacts including treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb.
Museum Heist in France
Famed for its dinosaur skeletons and stuffed animals, the National Natural History Museum in the chic 5th district of the French capital also houses a geology and mineralogy gallery. A break-in was detected on Tuesday morning, with the intruders reportedly using an angle grinder and a blow torch to force their way into the river-side complex that is popular with Parisians and tourists. “The theft concerns several specimens of native gold from the national collections held by the museum,” the museum’s press office told AFP late on Tuesday. “While the stolen specimens are valued at around 600,000 euros based on the price of raw gold, they nevertheless carry an immeasurable heritage value,” it added. Native gold is a metal alloy containing gold and silver in their natural, unrefined form.
An unnamed police source told the Parisien newspaper that the museum’s alarm and surveillance systems had been disabled by a cyber attack in July, with the thieves seemingly aware of the vulnerability. “This incident comes at a critical time for cultural institutions and museums in particular. Several public collections have indeed been targeted by thefts in recent months,” the museum added. It did not elaborate on the other robberies, but the Adrien Dubouche National Museum in Limoges in central France is known to have suffered a break-in earlier this month. Thieves stole two dishes and a vase in Chinese porcelain classed as national treasures, with the losses estimated at 6.5 million euros. Last November, four men with axes and baseball bats smashed the display cases in broad daylight at the Cognacq-Jay museum in Paris, making off with several 18th-century works. The next day, jewellery valued at several million euros was stolen during an armed robbery at a museum in Saone-et-Loire in central France.
Museum Heist in Egypt
The 3,000-year-old gold bracelet, which went missing in Cairo was described as a golden band adorned with “spherical lapis lazuli beads”, dates to the reign of Amenemope, a pharaoh of Egypt’s 21st Dynasty (1070–945 BC). Egyptian media outlets said the loss was detected in recent days during an inventory check, though this could not be confirmed. An internal probe has been opened, and antiquities units across all Egyptian airports, seaports and land border crossings nationwide have been alerted, the ministry said. The case was not announced immediately to allow investigations to proceed, and a full inventory of the lab’s contents was underway, it added. The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square houses more than 170,000 artefacts, including the famed gold funerary mask of King Amenemope. The disappearance comes just weeks before the scheduled November 1 inauguration of the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum. One of the museum’s most iconic collections — the treasures of King Tutankhamun’s tomb — is being prepared for transfer ahead of the opening, which is being positioned as a major cultural milestone under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government. In 2021, Egypt staged a high-profile parade transferring 22 royal mummies, including Ramses II and Queen Hatshepsut, to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Old Cairo, part of a broader effort to boost Egypt’s museum infrastructure and tourism appeal.
(With inputs from AFP)