[nickcarraway]

ping

[bwteim]

"**disappeared** from a storage area in Cairo's Egyptian Museum."

This is tip of the iceberg. Curators are now falling all over themselves to make sure they have proper provenance on their own items.
Years ago, countries like Egypt or Italy that should have been guarding their own relics were probably looking the other way and/or were working with smugglers. Now they want to be seen as protectors of their culture. I am surprised these whiners have not turned to 'mother' UN yet for help.

[blam]

Tell them we'll return it if Zahi Hawass will send SunkenCiv a 36" X 36" autographed poster of himself.

[PsyOp]

Call me a sceptic, but this smells like a scam.

It goes like this: The curator of the egyptian antiquities storage "sells" the mask to two Lebanese brothers, who then sell it to a US museum. The curator then sends someone to the museum who "finds" the missing mask and reports it the government, who demands it back. Meanwhile the Curator feigns ignorance.

This little conspiracy, however, depends on the timelines involved. As in the length of time from sale to the museum to its "discovery" by the wanderiing egyptologist that happened to "know" that the mask he saw had been stolen from a storeroom in egypt.

That raises another question. How did this guy know that the mask was stolen and/or missing?