Queensland police say they’ve recovered 4 priceless artifacts of ancient Egyptian antiquity that had been stolen from a museum earlier this month.
The world is experiencing a rash of unsolved museum break-ins lately, but thanks to superb policing, this one wasn’t added to the list.
At approximately 3 a.m., a police report stated, a man smashed a window of The Abbey Place Museum and took several artifacts before leaving the scene.
Just a day later, however, police apprehended a certain Miguel Monsalve, after the artifacts were discovered in his camper van near a ferry terminal on Russell Island, Australia.
The artifacts included a 2,600-year-old cat figurine, a funerary mask that would have adorned a mummified noble, a bead necklace, and a 3,300-year-old collar.
On the underground antiquities market, the items might be worth as much as $100,000, but some minor damage the objects sustained could have depleted that substantially.
Museum curators sent a message to the thief through ABC News AU that the objects were held at the Abbey Museum for the educational benefit of the community and the state of Brisbane, and that being exposed to the Australian climate would put them at risk of irreparable harm.
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Fortunately, the short manhunt resulted in an arrest and a recovery of the artifacts. Mr. Monsalve is now being held without the possibility of bail for counts that include breaking and entering and three counts of willful damage.
The Abbey Museum boasts a collection that chronicles “1 million years of human history,” and the artifacts, now recovered, will return to the original purpose of aiding in the telling of that story.
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