The Scene:
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, Cairo
The Crime:
Theft of a prized copy of the
Book of the Dead, an ancient Egyptian funerary text, consisting of magic
spells intended to assist the dead as they journeyed through the underworld and
into the afterlife. The oldest spells
date back to the third millennium B.C.
There was no single, canonical Book
of the Dead, making each surviving copy unique. The stolen artifact was written in
hieroglyphics on a papyrus scroll and is both extremely fragile and incredibly
valuable.