Thieves broke into a municipal museum in Villena, Spain, almost 250 miles southwest of Barcelona, and stole 3,000-year-old gold artifacts rediscovered in the town in 1963.
City officials said that an alarm went off at the town’s sports center at 5:16 a.m. local time Thursday, followed by alarms at the Museum of Villena at 5:20 a.m., with the suspects gone from the museum by 5:24 a.m., according to El Pais. The thieves are thought to have entered through the museum’s side windows.
The stolen artifacts were part of the “Treasure of Villena,” a collection of metal objects dating to 1000 B.C. found in Villena in 1963, according to the museum website. The hoard consisted of 11 gold bowls, 28 gold bracelets, three gold bottles, other miscellaneous gold objects, three silver bottles, an amber-and-gold button, an iron-and-gold finial and an iron bracelet.
Villena Mayor Fulgencio Cerdan said that the thieves took all of the gold pieces, leaving only the silver bottles, the iron bracelet and pieces of a staff, according to El Pais. Based on the weight of the gold, the stolen objects would be worth almost $2 million.
The thieves also made off with three religious artifacts honoring the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus, according to Euronews.
David Cerdan, the spokesperson for the Villena city council, told the New York Times that “it is impossible to put a price on a 3,000-year-old burial hoard.” The paper did not specify whether the spokesperson is related to Villena’s mayor.
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