Egyptian artifacts in danger: antiquities chief

Le Saboteur said:
Irony is a dead scene. And has been since at least the eighties.

Le Saboteur said:
I use the archaic definition of lightness of weight.
How incongruous...got to get a hold of your 2011 Rule Book!

Le Saboteur said:
The way I understand it, this began well before you and I were conscious of anything outside of Saturday Morning Cartoons. Dr. Hawass requested a loan of the Rosetta Stone and the Bust of Nefertiti. For various reasons, the British and the Germans refused. It has since escalated into a demand for full repatriation, one that isn't hard to sympathize with.
I guess unless we know more, emotions will continue to rule our decisions, antiquities be damned!

Le Saboteur said:
The primary reasons seem to be security and fragility. I find them specious at best.
My impression is that security is the prime factor, to which Hawass has only supplied rhetoric.

Le Saboteur said:
The Rosetta Stone is a 1,700 pound rock. It's weight virtually guarantees it's security, and a good crate combined with quality packing material takes of care of the (laughable) fragility concerns.
Sure, the Stone is currently in PERFECT shape...and complete! But before discussing it's propensity for chipping/cracking, what measures does Hawass have in place to prevent the entire stone from sprouting legs and walking away? Wait, according to Stoo, the Rosetta Stone is aready IN The Egyptian Museum! Well, that's what Museum employees SAY on the tour...hmmm. So much for rhetoric.

Le Saboteur said:
I agree that the Bust of Nefertiti is fragile, but not nearly enough that it can't take a five hour plane ride. If the Terracotta Warriors (an arguably more significant discovery) can circumnavigate the globe for two years without incident, I fail to see why similar precautions cannot be made for a single transfer between museums.
I wouldn't argue that these artifacts CAN be transported safely.

Le Saboteur said:
No museum is totally secure.
But the question remains, HOW secure is the Egyptian Museum? So far these priceless works of "art" are safe.

Le Saboteur said:
Hell, European thieves semi-routinely walk into European art museums and walk off with the paintings from the wall.
WOW! Now here is a topic worthy of more discussion! "Semi-routinely." Please tell me more...that's an interesting point!

Le Saboteur said:
If this country was in open revolt against the government, I can guarantee any number of opportunists would be breaking into the Smithsonian, the Met, AMNH, the Field Museum, etc.
"If all the ifs and buts were candy and nuts, what a wonderful Christmas it would be..."

Silly premise for what Museum "security" is or should be, not to mention thin rhetoric for a guarantee and "repatriation"...another hollow term adopted to elicit your base emotions instead of facts.

Le Saboteur said:
Let's not forget that Egypt has had the contents of King Tutankhamen's tomb for roughly eighty years, including the gold funerary mask, without incident.
Let's not forget the BILLIONS the United States GIVES to Egypt every year to keep it stable...

Le Saboteur said:
And given that approximately 11% of Egypt's GDP comes from tourism, I would suspect that they have a healthy respect for the antiquities on hand. Without that respect, we wouldn't have heard these stories of ordinary citizens going out of their way to do what they can to protect the Cairo Museum.
You're right! Let's take their word for it. Your impassioned defense of their intentions are enough! Send it all back. Give the child his crayons! Maybe it will shut him up!

Words are cheap. What plan has Hawass provided that ensures their continued well being?



Originally Posted by Zahi Hawass
It seems that the thieves simply threw these five objects in the desert...

To date, 293 objects have been returned to the Qantara East Magazine, but as I have previously stated, we will not be able to know the exact number of the stolen objects until the current situation calms down. A committee will be formed in order to inventory the contents of the magazine. I believe that it will be impossible for the people who stole the objects to sell them. No museum or private collector will buy Egyptian antiquities now, they will be too scared. I am very happy that my calls for the return of these objects on television and in newspapers were successful.

Thrown in the desert...:rolleyes:

They can't even perform an inventory?

He saved those antiquities with his words!:rolleyes:

All praise and honor to Hahi's Zan-ass!
 
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Stoo

Well-known member
Rocket Surgeon said:
Sure, the Stone is currently in PERFECT shape...and complete! But before discussing it's propensity for chipping/cracking, what measures does Hawass have in place to prevent the entire stone from sprouting legs and walking away? Wait, according to Stoo, the Rosetta Stone is aready IN The Egyptian Museum! Well, that's what Museum employees SAY on the tour...hmmm. So much for rhetoric.
Just to clarify...It was not a 'museum employee'. She was a hired guide from a tour service who took our gang to the Egyptian Museum one day & then the Pyramids the next day. (She did meet Dr. Hawass as all Certified Egyptologists must do. I asked her...)

However, Rocket is correct in that she *did* try to pass off the Rosetta Stone as the real McKoy!:eek: Not being able to let that slide, I interrupted her rigmarole with the fact that the real deal was sitting comfortably in the British Museum in London. Embarssingly, she acknowledged the fact and that the one we were looking at was, indeed, a replica...

Antiquities aside, the looting went as far as the New Cairo suburb, southeast of the city. The parents of my friend's wife had 3 TANKS on the street outside their house.
Le Saboteur said:
Hell, European thieves semi-routinely walk into European art museums and walk off with the paintings from the wall.
Rocket Surgeon said:
WOW! Now here is a topic worthy of more discussion! "Semi-routinely." Please tell me more...that's an interesting point!
Believe or not, that does happen!
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Le Saboteur said:
And given that approximately 11% of Egypt's GDP comes from tourism, I would suspect that they have a healthy respect for the antiquities on hand. Without that respect, we wouldn't have heard these stories of ordinary citizens going out of their way to do what they can to protect the Cairo Museum.
I'll buy that for a dollar (or the equivalent of $everal Egyptian pounds).;)
 
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Indy's brother

New member
Le Saboteur said:
Because this couldn't happen anywhere else. :rolleyes:

Just saw this. Sure, I suppose any museum in the world could be looted at any time due to political unrest.

Because that's totally where I was going with that. :rolleyes:

If all egyptian artifacts were in Egypt, they would have all been in danger at the same time.
 
Protesters target Egypt's antiquities chief
CAIRO (AP) ? The man in charge of Egyptian antiquities starred in a TV show about his exploits, sports an "Indiana Jones"-style fedora and triumphantly declared that the nation's heritage was mostly unscathed after the revolt that toppled the president. On Monday, however, he was under siege, the target of angry protesters who want him to quit.

"Get out," a crowd of 150 archaeology graduates chanted outside the office of Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass, who threw in his lot with the old order when he accepted a Cabinet post in the last weeks of Hosni Mubarak's rule.

Whether Hawass, entrusted with preserving Egypt's museums and monuments, will go the way of Mubarak and resign is uncertain. But the scorn directed him at personifies the messy business of transition in a nation, now ruled by the military, where much of the old governing structure remains intact.

The demonstration in a leafy enclave of Cairo was one of many protests and strikes that have sprung up in Egypt as people voice their grievances for the first time after Mubarak's heavyhanded reign over the last three decades.

The archaeologists' protest was also deeply personal, with protesters saying Hawass was a "showman" and publicity hound with little regard for thousands of archaeology students who have been unable to find work in their field.

"He doesn't care about us," said 22-year-old Gamal el-Hanafy, who graduated from Cairo University in 2009 and carried his school certificates in a folder. "He just cares about propaganda."

Hawass has maintained that his first love is Egypt's heritage, not himself, and that courting publicity raises the national profile.

The rally was raucous but peaceful. Several soldiers blocked protesters from entering the Supreme Council of Antiquities building in the Zamalek district on an island in the Nile that was largely spared the chaos that gripped Cairo. An armored personnel carrier parked in the street, a helmeted soldier poking out of a hatch.

The minister did not appear, and a roar of disapproval swept the crowd when someone said he had slipped out the back door. Then there was a rumor, unconfirmed but no less damaging to his image, that his car had clipped a pedestrian. The protesters dispersed at dusk, and promised to return.

The graduates said the antiquities ministry had offered them three-month contracts at 450 Egyptian pounds ($75) a month, hardly enough to survive. They noted that Egypt's tourism industry is a major foreign currency earner, and yet it was unclear how exactly the government was spending the income.

A foreign tourist spends up to 160 Egyptian pounds ($27) to visit the pyramids of Giza and descend into a tomb there, said 25-year-old Said Hamid. Multiply that, he said, by the thousands who used to visit daily until upheaval drove away foreign visitors and plunged the lucrative industry into crisis.

"Where is the money?" said Hamid, a 2007 graduate who works in a travel agency but specialized in restoration of artifacts as a student.

Unlike lawyers or doctors, who have private options, archaeologists in Egypt mostly rely on the government for jobs. Protesters also complained that less-qualified people secured posts in the antiquities office through "wasta," which translates roughly as connections or influence.

Hawass' low profile Monday contrasted with his frequent appearances in the past two weeks, inviting international media to the Egyptian Museum where he displayed artifacts damaged by looters and showed how they had bypassed padlocked treasures from the tomb of King Tutankhamun. On Sunday, he said a full inventory found that thieves escaped with 18 items, including two gilded wooden statues of the boy pharaoh.

Hawass is passionate about his calling, and long campaigned to bring home ancient artifacts spirited out of the country during colonial times. But his flamboyant style is viewed by some as the preening of a self-promoter.

He wears a handkerchief in the breast pocket of his suit jacket, and sells signed companies of his signature explorer's hat. He featured in a reality-based show on the U.S.-based History Channel called "Chasing Mummies," which includes a scene in which an intern gets locked in a pyramid.

The government that employs Hawass is a caretaker one, its lifespan limited as Egypt prepares for elections. On Feb. 1, 10 days before Mubarak resigned, Hawass said in an interview with The Associated Press that Egyptians should give the president a chance to reform.

That was a misjudgment of the hunger for change in the streets, but Hawass inadvertently hit the mark with a personal quotation posted on his website.

"Many people make the mistake of thinking that dreams cannot come true, but they can," he wrote. "You have to believe, and know that they are more than just imagination."
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
As the fallout from the Egyptian Revolt continues, more information comes to light. In addition to the sites that are now being reported or damaged, the following eight items were officially reported as missing from the Cairo Museum.

Zahi Hawass said:
1. Gilded wood statue of Tutankhamun being carried by a goddess

2. Gilded wood statue of Tutankhamun harpooning. Only the torso and upper limbs of the king are missing

3. Limestone statue of Akhenaten holding an offering table

4. Statue of Nefertiti making offerings

5. Sandstone head of an Amarna princess

6. Stone statuette of a scribe from Amarna

7. Wooden shabti statuettes from Yuya (11 pieces)

8. Heart Scarab of Yuya

It was later reported that #3, the limestone statue of Akhenaten, had been found and subsequently returned to the museum by a professor at the American University in Cairo.

Other items found during the search were the heart scarab of Yuya, a shabti of Yuya, the figure of the goddess Menkaret carrying Tutankhamun.

Director_office_Akhenaten_2011_02_16_0.jpg


Other reports have been filtering out detailing continued attacks on various archeological sites around the country.

Bloomberg said:
Gang members tied up and threatened to kill six guards and a policeman in the area, the Cairo-based news agency said, citing an antiquities ministry statement. The ministry is waiting for prosecutors to inspect the scene and has yet to take an inventory of the items remaining in the warehouses, MENA said, citing antiquities official Ali al-Asfar.

Full article here.

Zahi Hawass said:
The statue was found in a good condition. Those who broke into the museum were not professionals, they were only looking for gold. And it was not just in Cairo; there were also two burial chambers broken into in Sakkara and Abusir, and there the damage was visible. Overall, we have to thank God that we got off relatively lightly.

Full interview can be read at Spiegel Online.

Rocket Surgeon said:
The man in charge of Egyptian antiquities starred in a TV show about his exploits, sports an "Indiana Jones"-style fedora and triumphantly declared that the nation's heritage was mostly unscathed after the revolt that toppled the president. On Monday, however, he was under siege, the target of angry protesters who want him to quit.

This, however, still appears to be a tempest in a teapot. Two days after the protest, Dr. Hawass met with representatives and appeared to work out a deal.

Zahi Hawass said:
This first phase of recruitment will provide the newly hired archaeologists and restorers paid training within the Ministry for a period of 5 months. A second phase will provide the same paid training for 500 additional recruits, and will be followed by a third phase in which 500 more graduates will be hired and trained.

Ahram Online corroborates the meeting's outcome.

Nevine El-Aref said:
According to a report released by the ministry even before becoming the minister at the end of January, Hawass had been seeking funding in order to create new jobs for the country?s many graduates.

During the meeting, which Ahram Online attended, the students made it clear that their protests were only held because there had been a lack of information about how the ministry, formerly known as the Supreme Council of Antiquities, was trying to address the lack of jobs available for newly-qualified archaeologists and restorers.
 
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