4 Ptolemaic tablets seized by disguised officers

CAIRO – 10 May 2017: Four Ptolemaic tablets were seized before selling them for 100 million EGP by two officers disguised as antiquities traders Wednesday in in Sharqia governorate.

Secret investigations had revealed that Salah M., an antiquities smuggler who resides in Qalyubia governorate, will offer the tablets for sale at the mentioned price.

Lt. Colonel Mohamed Ragab, head of the Tourism and Antiquities Investigations department, and Lt. Colonel Mahmoud al-Nemr, an officer in the same department, met the defendant in the town of Mashtoul al-Souk and arrested him.

The Hellenistic Ptolemaic kingdom was based in Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great from 323 BC until the Roman conquest in 30 BC and the suicide of Cleopatra VII. In the generally prosperous era, Egypt stretched from southern Syria to Cyrene in Libya, and included the Ancient Library of Alexandria.

Additional reporting by Fathiya al-Deeb


Ptolemaic tablet – Fathiya al-Deeb