Mummies vandalized at Cairo museum during Tahrir Square protest (VIDEO)
Vandals ripped the heads off two mummies and tossed relics onto the ground in Cairo's Egyptian Museum, the country's antiquities chief said Sunday.
But the group of about nine people did not manage to steal anything from the museum's collection, according to Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.
TheEgyptianMuseum is on the edge of Tahrir Square, the epicentre of protests.
Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel laureate and leading opposition figure, joined thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Sunday in continued demonstrations demanding an end to the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak.
They were searching for gold, but caught, arrested and jailed, Hawass said. The museum has stepped up security and is now guarded by Egypt's army, he said.
The antiquities chief said 10 small artifacts were also damaged, but can be restored.
But Egyptologists described the smashing of the irreplaceable artefacts as "devastating."
"It's is absolutely appalling," Robert Connolly, an anthropologist and Egyptologist from the University of Liverpool, told The Telegraph. "If Egyptians are looting their own heritage then it is truly terrible."