A priceless 3,000- year-old statue of King Tutankhamun’s sister has been looted from a museum in Egypt.
Egyptian authorities issued an international alert after the limestone carving – called Daughter of the Pharaoh Akhenaten – was stolen along with 1,000 other exhibits.
The statue vanished when the museum in the central city of Mallawi was looted amid clashes between police and Islamist extremists this summer.
Experts fear that the exquisite statuette, carved in the 14th century BC, was stolen to order under the cover of the riots and could now be sold abroad.
It was the museum’s most prized exhibit and was due to be transferred to a new museum dedicated to the family of Akhenaten – Tutankhamun’s father. More than 600 valuables have been returned or seized by police, but a collection of gold coins, statues of sacred ibis birds and the statue have still not been found.
Archaeologist Monica Hanna said: “I think the looters knew what they were taking.”
Robbers left just 46 items in the museum that were too heavy to carry off.
In the first days of the revolution in 2011 looters stole treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb on display at the Egyptian National Museum in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
Intruders also broke apart two mummies, removing their heads.
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