9 people receive jail sentence for stealing artifacts from Egypt's Great Pyramid

An Egyptian court has sentenced three Germans and six Egyptians to five years in jail for stealing an ancient scroll, as well as rock samples, from Egypt's Great Pyramid.

The Germans apparently said they were "researchers" in order to avoid suspicion. The six Egyptians included three employees of the country's antiquities ministry, as well as two pyramid guards and the director of a travel agency.

Experts believe the Germans may have been trying to prove that the pyramids are older than historians have posited.

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The stolen scroll bore the name "Pharoah Khufu." The Great Pyramid, the largest of the three pyramids of Giza, was built as a tomb for the Pharoah Khufu and was completed around 2,560 B.C.E.

Egyptian authorities discovered the theft in 2013, and they announced in August that the stolen artifacts were returned.