UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova toured the Egyptian Museum and praised the physical actions Egypt's youth took in attempts protect the museum from looters during the revolution says Nevine El-Aref ('UNESCO director general tours the Egytian Museum', Al-Ahram Tuesday 14 Jun 2011). The text says she "inspected the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square to check the damage after it was robbed during the chaos of the January 25 Revolution".
Guided by Tarek El-Awadi, director general of the Egyptian Museum, Bokova visited the golden treasures halls, the mausoleum of mummies as well as the artefact showcases, which were reported missing but recovered. Talking to the press Bokova expressed her satisfaction with what she saw during her tour and the restoration work carried out on the objects that were reported missing and then recovered. She said that the Egyptian museum is safe and sound.Hooray. They got the security cameras working then? According to Al-Masry Al-Youm,
Bokova is on an official visit to Egypt partly in a show of solidarity for Egypt's January 25th Uprising and partly to meet with Egyptian officials on allegedly looted artifacts during uprising.which is odd because one of them, Zahi Hawass is out of the country, touring America at the moment. An interesting snippet of information comes from the soundtrack of an unedited Reuters video found here. They are by the case in the Yuya-Thuya gallery with the canopic and Tarek E-Awady is showing her the isolated head.
"These are really masterpieces. They [the robbers] found that this is stone and alabaster - they left it. They didn't take it and there was a piece of, there was a blood spot on the head."Well, they did not exactly "leave it" did they since the Al Jazeera video shows us quite clearly that it was found on the floor of gallery 42 - you know the one where the skylight entry was supposedly undertaken. So they came in, ran to the Yuya-Thuya galleries, took this head and ran back to the room where they had entered where it was then bled upon? There are a whole number of pieces of evidence that the official story of the break-in is false. Why don't the Museum just come clean and produce a report telling everyone (including their own citizens) what really happened?
Bokova is shown "inspecting" the case said to have been broken by the red mercury raiders abseiling through the-skylight-which-they-broke-but-was-miraculously-then-intact (must be the magical effects of all that red mercury). I wonder if she looked up and saw the dirty windows - or has one now had its glass replaced to make it look as if the story was true?
Photo: Tarek El-Awadi points out the bloodstains. I do not know who the guy is on the left, but he seems to be having trouble biting his lip, doesn't he?