Police have recovered a trove of ancient Egyptian artifacts stolen from a museum north of Brisbane, Australia, after a short inves...

Police have recovered a trove of ancient Egyptian artifacts stolen from a museum north of Brisbane, Australia, after a short investigation and manhunt. The day after the artifacts vanished from the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology, officials arrested 52-year-old Miguel Simon Mungarrieta Monsalve. “The defendant believed it was his duty to acquire the artifacts and return them to their rightful place,” prosecutors explained in court earlier this week. The items recovered from the van sustained only minor damage, though they will need to be professionally assessed before they are put back on display. Other objects suffered more serious harm. Several ushabtis—small figurines that were placed in tombs and believed to be servants and manual laborers for the deceased in the afterlife—were damaged beyond repair during the heist, according to media. “To find somebody has taken [the artifacts] using violence … smashed the glass to take them without any care or thought or any consideration for their fragility or their age—they’re all in temperature-controlled displays—to expose them to the Queensland weather at the moment is just a horrendous thing,” Michael Strong, a curator at the museum, tells media. https://lnkd.in/gyYui9Dk