#mallawi

~ Goblet.

Place of origin: Mallawi, Egypt

Period: New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty

Amid the deadly chaos that has erupted in Egypt, the country's cultural heritage took a hit last week when looters ransacked the archaeological museum in the town of Mallawi.

Located about 190 miles (300 kilometers) south of Cairo, the museum was opened in 1963 to showcase the finds from excavations at nearby sites.

"The museum contained irreplaceable artifacts, many not yet studied," says Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. "The looting leaves enormous gaps in our understanding of ancient Egyptian religious and funerary rites."

A wooden sarcophagus with a gilded face, likely from the Ptolemaic period (305 to 30 B.C.), was toppled in the melee but seems to have suffered little damage.

Hieroglyphic texts cover the side of a wooden coffin left behind by the looters. This artifact likely was excavated at Tuna el-Gebel, an ancient pilgrimage site that includes a private cemetery from the Greco-Roman period (305 B.C. to A.D. 300).