CAIRO – Nearly a hundred small artifacts, some dating back to the time of the pharaohs, have gone missing from a museum in southern Egypt, officials said Wednesday.

The Ministry of Antiquities said 96 artifacts, mostly small figurines and beads, disappeared from the Aswan Museum’s storehouse.

Employees noticed a number of artifacts missing, the statement said. A committee looking into the objects’ disappearance checked the storehouse’s inventory and found that the lock on the inner door had been broken.

Officials in Aswan, who spoke anonymously, said the disappearance was a first for the museum, which hasn’t experienced the thefts that have plagued some other museums around the country throughout the unrest of the past three years.

They said evidence pointed to an insider theft.