Two pharaonic statues were stolen and three guards injured when a group of armed men attacked an artifact storehouse near Luxor early Saturday morning.
An antiquities source said that 15 armed men attacked the temporary storehouse for the German mission operating in the temple of Amenhotep III and Wadi al-Hitan area.
One of the stolen artifacts is the upper part of the statue of Egyptian goddess Sekhmet and the other is a 28-by-23-centimeter black statue of a pharaonic god.
The thieves fled the scene and their whereabouts is unknown, the source added.
Several such incidents have occurred lately. Around 60 thieves broke into the Selim Hassan artifact storehouse near the Pyramids and the Tal al-Farain antiquities storehouse in Kafr al-Sheikh was attacked by more than 40 armed men. Other similar attacks also took place in other places due to the absence of police.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
