Priceless missing statuette of Tutankhamun's sister found

Statuette of ancient Pharoah's sister which went missing in looting during riots protesting overthrow on ex-president Morsi found in three pieces

By Richard Spencer, Cairo

A priceless statuette of the sister of the Pharaoh Tutanhkhamun which went missing during mass looting of a museum in central Egypt in the summer has been found, the antiquities ministry said on Sunday.

The statuette had been broken into three pieces, said Monica Hanna, an archaeologist who has led a campaign to protect Egypt's historical sites. However, the breaks appeared to be along the lines of previous restoration work and it seemed likely it could be put back together, she said.

The statuette was the highlight of the museum in the city of Mallawi, near the archaeological remains of the new capital established by Tutankhamun's father Akhenaten in the 14th Century BC.

Egyptian police and Unesco put out an alert through Interpol and to international museums and dealers after the museum was smashed and looted during Islamist riots protesting the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammed Morsi, in August.

More than 1,000 items went missing, but some experts believed that the protests were used as cover by professional thieves of Pharaonic exhibits to target the statuette, a small limestone figure of the princess holding an offering.

Tutankhamun's sister goes missing

Alert issued after 'Daughter of the Pharaoh Akhenaten' - Tutankhamun's sister - is stolen alongside hundreds of other exhibits in Egypt

By Richard Spencer, Mallawi, Egypt

Egypt has issued an international alert for the return of an exquisite statuette of Tutankhamun's sister, stolen with hundreds of other exhibits when a museum was looted amid clashes between police and Islamists this summer.

The carved limestone figurine of "A Daughter of the Pharaoh Akhenaten", dating from the 14th Century BC, has not been found since the destruction in August of the Mallawi City Museum in central Egypt.

Photocredit: The Telegraph

Experts fear that under the cover of days of riots it was stolen to order. It was Mallawi's prize exhibit, and due to be transferred to a new museum currently being built nearby to honour the family of Akhenaten, one of Egypt's most celebrated and unusual pharaohs as well as Tutankhamun's father.

During the riots in the town which followed the violent dispersal of protests in Cairo on Aug 14 and the killing of hundreds of Islamist supporters of the president, Mohammed Morsi, looters walked off with everything that could be carried from the museum - around 1,000 pieces in all.

More than 600 have been returned or seized by police. But hundreds of fine pieces, including a collection of Greek gold coins, statues of ibises, the birds still common to the region which were held in reverence in pharaonic times, and the figure of the princess have still not been recovered.

Some archaeologists believe the raid may have been orchestrated with her statue in mind. Relics of the Akhenaten era, source of the most celebrated finds of ancient Egypt, fetch the highest prices on the international black market and families of antiquities smugglers are known to operate in the area.

"I think the looters knew what they were taking," said Monica Hanna, an Egyptian archaeologist prominent in the campaign to prevent the desecration of its historic sites.