CAIRO (Reuters) -A 3,000-year-old gold bracelet that disappeared from an Egyptian museum earlier this month was stolen and melted down, the country’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

The Antiquities and Tourism Ministry had earlier reported the loss of the bracelet, which belonged to King Amenemope of the Third Intermediate Period, who ruled Egypt around 1,000 BC.

The piece, decorated with spherical lapis lazuli beads, vanished from a safe in a conservation laboratory on September 9.

Following the theft, a special committee was set up to review artefacts in the laboratory, and images of the missing bracelet were circulated to antiquities units at Egypt’s airports, seaports and land border crossings, fearing it would be smuggled abroad.

Yet, the Interior Ministry tracked down the the

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