Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• A large relief was stolen from the tomb of Old Kingdom royal vizier Khentika in the necropolis of Saqqara.
• The relief depicts a rare scene of the vizier painting the three Egyptian seasons of flooding, planting, and harvest.
• This is one of the few tombs from the period that bears a curse threatening intruders with divine punishment.

Rising from Egypt’s vast ocean of sand, Saqqara is the country’s most expansive necropolis. Among the Old Kingdom monuments in this city of the dead is the famed step pyramid of the pharaoh Djoser. There are also several mastabas (rectangular tombs built of mudbrick, or limestone), the oldest of which is a relic from the First Dynasty that dates back to the reign of Hor Aha.

But there has been a disturbance. Something from one of these funerary edifices is missing.

In October 2025, another artifact vanished from Egypt, not even a month after a 3,000-year-old bracelet that once belonged to the pharaoh Amenemope was stolen from Cairo’s Egyptian Museum, trafficked on the black market and melted down for its gold. This time, a limestone relief from the mastaba of Khentika—royal vizier to the Sixth Dynasty pharaoh Teti during the last years of his reign, sometime between 2700 B.C.E. and 2200 B.C.E—disappeared.

“All necessary legal actions have been taken and the matter has been forwarded to the public prosecutor for investigation,” the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities said in an official statement, reinforcing its resolve to ensure that “the Egyptian archaeological heritage is preserved and protected from any violations or illegal practices.”

This particular relief is an especially rare find, as it is one of only two known reliefs that depicts the illustration of the seasons. Khentika is shown at an easel, brush in hand, painting the three seasons on the Egyptian calendar that follow the ebb and flow of the Nile. Akhet was the season of the inundation, when the Nile flooded and restored nutrients to the soil in its floodplains. The planting season was Peret (when the Nile receded), and Shemu began the harvest.

Viziers (most famously Imhotep) often came close to their pharaohs in prestige. Khentika’s titles included “Priest of the Goddess Maat” and “Overseer of the Royal Palace,” and his tomb (and its rare relief) was originally discovered by British Egyptologist T.B.H. James in 1952. Room I—where the relief was located—is thought to be the entrance chamber of the mastaba. The relief covered a large monolith on the south wall of this room, blocking a doorway that was supposed to lead to Room V.

James observed some differences between the reliefs of Khentika and Mereruka, a fellow vizier and the husband of one of Teti’s daughters, whose tomb was built only a few years before. While both reliefs are at the entrances of their respective tombs, the personified versions of the seasons in Khentika’s relief are kneeling as opposed to sitting in chairs, and are also not marked by their corresponding hieroglyphs. Khentika also does not have a second easel behind his shoulder, or an ink palette over his shoulder as Mereruka does.

While both he and Mereruka have water pots before them, only Khentika has an object that appears to be a stand for the pot. Khentika also has three attendants—his son Djedi-teti, his official Mesi, and an unidentified third attendant are bringing writing materials to him.

“The tomb is distinguished by its remarkable reliefs portraying scenes of daily life in ancient Egypt,” archaeologist Ali Abu Deshish told CBS News, declaring the theft “a catastrophe by all standards” and announcing that Egypt’s antiquities “are not for sale. They belong to the heritage of all humanity.”

Whoever stole this relief might have not been aware that Khentika’s mastaba is one of the few to be inscribed with a curse. Divine punishment threatens intruders, so trespass at your own peril.