Thieves on Thursday raided one of the world's greatest Bronze Age gold collections in the latest of a series of high-profile heists on European museums in recent months.
The early morning raid on Villena Museum in eastern Spain lasted just a few minutes.
A group of thieves described by one official as "super-fast and super-professional" made off with almost the entire Treasure of Villena collection, leaving behind only a few items.
What happened in the heist?
"The alarm at the Villena Museum went off around 5:20 a.m.," said a spokesman for the town council, adding that within four minutes, they had all left the building again in an extremely rapid and professional operation.
The collection of Bronze Age gold, some of which we now know hailed from a meteorite, was a centerpiece at the small museum in the Alicante province.
"They've taken most of the treasure," the mayor of Villena, Fulgencio Cerdan told journalists. "We are absolutely devastated, I'm even trembling. The truth is that for those of us from Villena, this destroys us. It's part of our heritage, our wealth."
The thieves arrived in several vehicles and apparently entered the museum "through a window," according to the Spanish government's deputy representative in Alicante, Manuel Pineda.
Mayor Cerdan said that only three silver vessels, a bracelet, an earring and one of four crowns in the collection — which the thieves appeared to have "dropped" while making their exit — remained behind.
"All security systems were activated," according to the Villena spokesman, who insisted there had been "no failure" by the museum.
What is the Treasure of Villena?
The Treasure of Villena is a collection of more than 50 mainly gold objects, discovered in 1963 by archaeologist Jose Maria Soler in a sunken vessel in a dried out riverbed.
They are dated to between 1300 and 1000 BCE.
The gold pieces include 11 bowls, three bottles and 28 bracelets.
The collection has been exhibited beyond Villena in cities including Madrid, Alicante, Tokyo and Kyoto, and two sets of replicas were later made to showcase the collection without taking it away from the armored display at the Villena Archaeological Museum.
The relics' historical value is incalculable, although thieves might struggle to sell them even on the black market after having famously lifted them from a well-known display. The mayor said the gold alone would be worth around €1.7 million or $2 million.
According to the museum's website, specialist researchers consider it the most important collection of gold tableware from the Bronze Age. It also represents the earliest known example of iron use in Western Europe, two pieces crafted from a metal that recent studies showed hailed from a meteor.
Several slick heists on European museums recently, most famously the Louvre
Thursday's lightning dawn raid is the latest in a series on European museums in the last year.
Most famously, the Louvre Museum was hit in broad daylight last October, escaping in less than 10 minutes with jewelry worth millions. This led to the director's eventual resignation and a protracted political scandal, as well as forcing part of the museum to close for an extended period.
Italy's Culture Ministry announced on Sunday that four works of "extraordinary value" by Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina were stolen from a museum in Sicily.
Shortly before that, Italian police said they had recovered three paintings by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse stolen from a museum near Parma. Again this involved a highly-organized group of thieves who were in and out in a matter of minutes.
