As Egyptian police are preoccupied with fighting the Muslim Brotherhood, looters and vandals are taking advantage of the security gap at Egypt’s museums.

More than 40 people have been killed in Minya, about 250 kilometers south of Cairo, keeping police busy and unable to protect the Malawi Museum. 

Looters made off with with a prized 3,500-year-old limestone statue of the daughter of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled during the 18th dynasty; ancient beaded jewelry; and more than 1,000 other artifacts including gold and bronze Greco-Roman coins.  It’s the biggest theft to hit an Egyptian museum in living memory.  What couldn’t be carried off was then trashed and burned by armed teenage vandals.

Internationally recognized archaeologist Monica Hanna and a lone security guard braved sniper fire and rescued five ancient Egyptian sarcophagi, two mummies and several dozen other items left behind by the thieves, all while confronted by armed teens.

“I told them that this is property of the Egyptian people and you are destroying it,” she said in an interview Monday.  “They were apparently upset with me because I am not veiled.”

The youths also said they were doing it in retaliation for the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo.  Accounts like that led the government to directly blame the Brotherhood for the looting.

The treasures rescued by Hanna are being sent to Egypt’s main Ministry of State of Antiquities to be restored.