Hunt on for pharaoh's missing 3,000-year-old gold bracelet

Egypt's border crossings were on high alert Wednesday as authorities searched for the 3,000-year-old artifact, which belonged to King Amenemope and is missing from a Cairo museum.

A nationwide hunt is underway after a priceless gold bracelet belonging to an ancient pharaoh disappeared from a museum in Cairo, Egyptian authorities have said.

The 3,000-year-old bracelet was being restored in a laboratory when it went missing from the Egyptian Museum, the country’s Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said.

A photo of the item has been sent to airports, seaports and land border crossings across Egypt to help prevent it from being smuggled out of the country, the ministry said in a statement shared with NBC News on Wednesday. It is “adorned with spherical lapis lazuli beads, belonging to King Amenemope from the Third Intermediate Period,” the ministry said.

Known for its deep blue hue and golden flecks, lapis lazuli was highly prized in ancient Egypt for its association with the gods and supposed healing powers.

The bracelet was among a collection of artifacts being prepared to be transported to Italy ahead of an exhibition titled ‘Treasures of the Pharaohs’ at a museum in Rome starting next month.

The museum's director-general warned that some images circulating on social media were of a different artifact.

The ministry said it had deliberately delayed the announcement of the bracelet's disappearance to avoid compromising the investigation. A specialized committee had been formed to inventory and review all artifacts kept in the museum’s restoration laboratory to ensure no other artifacts had gone missing, it said.

Amenemope was a pharoah of the 21st dynasty who ruled Egypt from 993 to 984 B.C., according to the Egyptian Museum. His burial was notable for being one of three entirely intact royal burials known from ancient Egypt.

His tomb was discovered by French Egyptologists Pierre Montet and Georges Goyon in April 1940, but its excavation was delayed by World War II, the museum says on its website.

Egypt is no stranger to high-profile art and antiquities thefts.

Vincent van Gogh’s painting Poppy Flowers, valued at around $55 million, was stolen from Cairo’s Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in 1977, recovered two years later, then stolen again in 2010. It has not yet been recovered.