Nevine El-Aref, No case to answer. Al-Ahram Weekly 24 Feb-3march 2011
The newspaper Al-Wafd has published an article accusing Zahi Hawass of smuggling ancient antiquities abroad on behalf of the family of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Hawass says the claims are foundationless and has asked the country’s Procurator-General to investigate.
The source of the allegations is disgruntled SCA employee archaeologist Nour Abdel Samad. His reliability as a source is however questionable. Since he was employed in 1987, he has apparently written frequent complaints and filed various lawsuits against colleagues and others. According to Al-Ahram has also faced a number of disciplinary actions in recent years. One of the affairs he has been associated with was the disappearance of a gold earring from an excavation carried out with the Polish Mission at the Marina archaeological site. He claimed the object went missing while under his charge when rats ate their way through a wooden storage box in which the object had been kept, he was brought before a disciplinary court in 2004. The matter of responsibility for the rats’ actions has yet to be resolved.
Samad has also accused Hawass of “enabling a group of Zionists and suspect Jewish Zionist organizations such as National Geographic to enter the Egyptian Museum eight years ago and mishandle ancient Egyptian mummies”
It is interesting to speculate what kind of antiquities the Mubarak family are accused by Samad of smuggling. Would they be a few top-dollar pieces destined for the prestigious auction houses, or would they be bulk shipments of more ‘minor’ artifacts such as shabtis and scarabs easier to slip onto a no-questions-asked market? I bet Samad has just about as much possibility of demonstrating the existence of such transactions from ‘the bottom up’ in the source country as we would have in the market countries searching (‘from the top down’) for the origins of material coming freshly onto the market. The utter lack of transparency of the antiquities market would hinder such attempts. It is very difficult for collectors to avoid buying potentially stolen artifacts in such conditions. Which is why I guess so few even try with any conviction.
What I Deduce from What I Saw in Cairo Museum
.
As a result of two days (almost solid) spent mooching around the Egyptian Museum in Cairo comparing the images of the vandalism and looting that appeared in the press with the actual traces in the places where they happened, I came to a number of conclusions and formulated a number of questions. I have actually been promised a meeting with “somebody who can answer your questions” by a member of the Museum’s directorate when I go back to Cairo. Until then I have written down what I currently think and the draft is twelve pages without the insertion of any of the Al Jazeera and other generally available images to which it refers. Since I am currently promised some more information where it is currently lacking, I will not release that text at this stage. I would like however to state some of the conclusions I have drawn on the basis of what have learnt to date:
1) I think the situation is more complex than has been assumed. I think that on that night four (or five) different processes were played out in and around the Museum which produce the reported effects.
2) Obviously, the first was a looting of the Museum shop, in the courtyard outside the main building. Items were stolen. It is not clear whether this looting was spontaneous or incited by government agencies to compromise the protests. The looters had probably largely dispersed when the army arrived outside the museum gates. Nevertheless, nine of the individuals involved appear to have been caught.
3) At the same time (when the museum security staff were presumably involved dealing as best they could with the crowd in the shop) a small group of men clearly went on a rampage through the Museum, smashing cases and scattering artifacts. Some “seventy” artifacts were displaced in a chaotic fashion. I believe the evidence in the museum shows:
a) these men did not enter through the skylight in room 37 by abseiling down makeshift ropes as officially claimed,
b) The pattern of scattering of objects shows clearly that instead of beginning here and working east, they in fact started their activities with a specific case in the Tutankhamun galleries and moved westwards through the museum.
It is unclear how they entered the museum, at this stage it cannot be excluded that they had keys (allowing them to exit, which they could not have done if they abseiled in through the roof).
I am sure from looking at the damage done and the pattern in which it was apparently carried out, and the relatively small number of objects currently reported as missing, the aim of this original operation was not a search for “gold” or “red mercury” or even antiquities, but it is apparent it was to create the impression of chaotic and catastrophic looting or vandalism. On the other hand, one gets the impression that the intention was to keep the actual damage to a minimum, and the majority of the cases were smashed without the actual intent of taking anything. The operation had probably been planned several hours (at least) in advance and many factors suggest it was government-inspired, and had as its aim compromising the anti-government protestors outside the museum.
If so, we must consider the possibility that the next day, the Museum staff could have been assured at a high level (ie from the people that had ordered it) that the damage was worse than it looked, which was the origin of the early statements that nothing was missing.
I would like to stress that there is no reason to suspect that the Museum’s curatorial staff and SCA/Ministry were forewarned of this or in any way involved.
4) Despite the apparent intent of this activity, it seems that among the intruders that night however was an individual or individuals who used the rampage as an opportunity to steal certain items with substantial resale value. Since the missing items which we have been informed about were related to one family and period, it cannot be excluded that they had a ‘shopping list’ and were stealing to order.
From the area where the damage was going on, someone took ten shabtis of Yuya, the heart scarab (four are now in the case). From a totally different part of the museum from the area damaged (downstairs at the other end of the museum) four figures from the Amarnan case.
5) I suspect it may possibly have been another person who (independently of the other thief) garnered two fragments of the smashed gilded wood statuary of Tutankhamun from the floor, possibly with an eye to resale. I have not heard any news of the items from the fan case in the Tutankhamun gallery, what happened to the bit broken off? the case is empty, where is the famous trumpet?
6) There are some aspects of the story that do not tie up. It is possible that faced with such a security crisis, the Museum’s staff probably hoped an international outcry would ensure the continuation of longterm military security measures while the situation is unstable. One of the things I am seeking refutation of is a suspicion that towards this aim certain items may have been moved before the Al Jazeera journalists were allowed in on 29th Jan and (maybe) something altered between the Al Jazeera filming and the CNN visit two days later (watch this space).
7) Consideration of the way this unfolded and the above reconstruction suggests that Zahi Hawass who stepped in as spokesman for the Museum has been unlucky in his informants and some of the statements which have led to him being accused rather roughly by the international community were in fact based on information he had been ‘fed’ by others with various motives.
8) The several completely variant stories about the discovery of the Akhenaton statue need verification and may hold the key to understanding the background to the first set of thefts.
9) The Museum holds material which is not just Egyptian patrimony, but world cultural heritage (which is why we go to see it and pay 60 Egyptian pounds a head to do so). As such the Egyptian Museum owes the world a full and detailed report about the course of events on the night of the 28th January 2011 and all that was done previously and subsequently to ensure the safety and well-being of the collection. This includes full details of the actual damage done and full details of the objects currently thought to be missing.
As a result of two days (almost solid) spent mooching around the Egyptian Museum in Cairo comparing the images of the vandalism and looting that appeared in the press with the actual traces in the places where they happened, I came to a number of conclusions and formulated a number of questions. I have actually been promised a meeting with “somebody who can answer your questions” by a member of the Museum’s directorate when I go back to Cairo. Until then I have written down what I currently think and the draft is twelve pages without the insertion of any of the Al Jazeera and other generally available images to which it refers. Since I am currently promised some more information where it is currently lacking, I will not release that text at this stage. I would like however to state some of the conclusions I have drawn on the basis of what have learnt to date:
1) I think the situation is more complex than has been assumed. I think that on that night four (or five) different processes were played out in and around the Museum which produce the reported effects.
2) Obviously, the first was a looting of the Museum shop, in the courtyard outside the main building. Items were stolen. It is not clear whether this looting was spontaneous or incited by government agencies to compromise the protests. The looters had probably largely dispersed when the army arrived outside the museum gates. Nevertheless, nine of the individuals involved appear to have been caught.
3) At the same time (when the museum security staff were presumably involved dealing as best they could with the crowd in the shop) a small group of men clearly went on a rampage through the Museum, smashing cases and scattering artifacts. Some “seventy” artifacts were displaced in a chaotic fashion. I believe the evidence in the museum shows:
a) these men did not enter through the skylight in room 37 by abseiling down makeshift ropes as officially claimed,
b) The pattern of scattering of objects shows clearly that instead of beginning here and working east, they in fact started their activities with a specific case in the Tutankhamun galleries and moved westwards through the museum.
It is unclear how they entered the museum, at this stage it cannot be excluded that they had keys (allowing them to exit, which they could not have done if they abseiled in through the roof).
I am sure from looking at the damage done and the pattern in which it was apparently carried out, and the relatively small number of objects currently reported as missing, the aim of this original operation was not a search for “gold” or “red mercury” or even antiquities, but it is apparent it was to create the impression of chaotic and catastrophic looting or vandalism. On the other hand, one gets the impression that the intention was to keep the actual damage to a minimum, and the majority of the cases were smashed without the actual intent of taking anything. The operation had probably been planned several hours (at least) in advance and many factors suggest it was government-inspired, and had as its aim compromising the anti-government protestors outside the museum.
If so, we must consider the possibility that the next day, the Museum staff could have been assured at a high level (ie from the people that had ordered it) that the damage was worse than it looked, which was the origin of the early statements that nothing was missing.
I would like to stress that there is no reason to suspect that the Museum’s curatorial staff and SCA/Ministry were forewarned of this or in any way involved.
4) Despite the apparent intent of this activity, it seems that among the intruders that night however was an individual or individuals who used the rampage as an opportunity to steal certain items with substantial resale value. Since the missing items which we have been informed about were related to one family and period, it cannot be excluded that they had a ‘shopping list’ and were stealing to order.
From the area where the damage was going on, someone took ten shabtis of Yuya, the heart scarab (four are now in the case). From a totally different part of the museum from the area damaged (downstairs at the other end of the museum) four figures from the Amarnan case.
5) I suspect it may possibly have been another person who (independently of the other thief) garnered two fragments of the smashed gilded wood statuary of Tutankhamun from the floor, possibly with an eye to resale. I have not heard any news of the items from the fan case in the Tutankhamun gallery, what happened to the bit broken off? the case is empty, where is the famous trumpet?
6) There are some aspects of the story that do not tie up. It is possible that faced with such a security crisis, the Museum’s staff probably hoped an international outcry would ensure the continuation of longterm military security measures while the situation is unstable. One of the things I am seeking refutation of is a suspicion that towards this aim certain items may have been moved before the Al Jazeera journalists were allowed in on 29th Jan and (maybe) something altered between the Al Jazeera filming and the CNN visit two days later (watch this space).
7) Consideration of the way this unfolded and the above reconstruction suggests that Zahi Hawass who stepped in as spokesman for the Museum has been unlucky in his informants and some of the statements which have led to him being accused rather roughly by the international community were in fact based on information he had been ‘fed’ by others with various motives.
8) The several completely variant stories about the discovery of the Akhenaton statue need verification and may hold the key to understanding the background to the first set of thefts.
9) The Museum holds material which is not just Egyptian patrimony, but world cultural heritage (which is why we go to see it and pay 60 Egyptian pounds a head to do so). As such the Egyptian Museum owes the world a full and detailed report about the course of events on the night of the 28th January 2011 and all that was done previously and subsequently to ensure the safety and well-being of the collection. This includes full details of the actual damage done and full details of the objects currently thought to be missing.
Deep zooming a large 2D tree
Here's a quick demo of a 2D large tree viewer that I'm working on. The aim is to provide a simple way to view and navigate very large trees (such as the NCBI classification) in a web browser using just HTML and Javascript. At the moment this is simply a viewer, but the goal is to add the ability to show "tracks" like a genome browser. For example, you could imagine columns appearing to the right of the tree showing you whether there are phylogenies available for these taxa in TreeBASE, images from Wikipedia, sparklines for sequencing activity over time, etc. I'll blog some more on the implementation details when I get the chance, but it's pretty straightforward. Image tiles are generated from SVG images of tree using ImageMagick, labelling is applied on the fly using GIS-style queries to a MySQL database that holds the "world coordinates" of the nodes in the tree (see discussion of world coordinates on Google's Map API pages), and the zooming and tile fetching is based on Michal Migurski's Giant-Ass Image Viewer. Once I've tidied up a few things I'll put up a live demo so people can play with it.
Deep tree zooming from Roderic Page on Vimeo.
Why 3D phylogeny viewers don't work
Matt Yoder (@mjyoder had a Twitter conversation yesterday about phylogeny viewers, prompted by my tweeting about my latest displacement activity, a 2D tree browser using the tiling approach made popular by Google Maps.
As part of that conversation, Matt tweeted:
Well, Matt's imagination has gone into overdrive, and he's blogged about his ideas.
This issue deserves more exploration, but here are some quick thoughts. 3D has been used in a number of phylogeny browsers, such as Mike Sanderson's Paloverde, Walrus, and the Wellcome Trust's Tree of Life. I don't find any terribly successful, pretty as they may be. I think there are several problems with trees in general, and 3D versions in particular.
Trees aren't real
Trees aren't real in the same way that the physical world is (or even imagined physical worlds). Trees are conceptual structures. The history of web interfaces is littered with attempts to visualise conceptual space, for example to summarise search results. These have been failures, a simple top ten list as used by Google wins. I don't think this is because Google's designers lack imagination, it's because it works. Furthermore, this is actually a very successful visualisation:
I think elaborate attempts to depict conceptual spaces on screens are mostly going to fail.
Trees are empty
Compared to, say, a geographic map, trees are largely empty space. In a map every pixel counts, in that it potentially represents something. Think of the satellite view in Google Maps. Each pixel on the screen has information. Trees are largely empty, hence much of the display space is wasted. Moving trees to 3D just gives us more space to waste.
Trees don't have a natural ordering
Even if we accept that trees are useful visualisations, they have problems. Given the tree
Phylogenies are unordered trees in the sense that I can rotate any node about it's ancestor and still have the same tree (compare the two trees above). Phylogenies are like mobiles:
The practical consequence of this is that different tree viewers can render the same tree in very different ways, making navigation across viewers unpredictable. Compare this to maps. Even if I use different projections, the maps remain recognisably similar, and most maps retain similar relationships between areas. If I look at a map of Glasgow and move left I will end up in the Atlantic Ocean, no matter if I use Google Maps or Microsoft Maps. Furthermore, trees grow in a way that maps don't (at least, not much). If I add nodes to a tree it may radically change shape, destroying navigation cues that I may have relied on before. Typically maps change by the addition of layers, not by moving bits around (paleogeographic maps excepted).
Trees aren't 3D
There's nothing intrinsically 3D about trees, which means any mapping to 3D space is going to be arbitrary. Indeed, most 3D viewers simply avoid any mapping and show a 2D tree in 3D space, which seems rather pointless.
Perhaps it's because I don't play computer games much (went through an Angry Birds phase, and occasionally pick up an X-Box controller, only to be mercilessly slaughtered by my son), but I'm not inspired by the analogy with computer games. I'm not denying that there are useful things to learn from games (I'm sure the controls in Google Earth owe something to games). But games also rely on a visceral connection with the play, and an understanding of the visual vocabulary (how to unlock treasure, etc.). Matt's 3D model requires users to learn a whole visual vocabulary, much of which (e.g., "Fruit on your tree? Someone has left comment(s) or feedback. ") seems forced.
My sense is that the most successful interfaces make the minimal demands on users, don't fight their intuition, and don't force them to accept a particular visualisation of their own cognitive space.
I'll write more about this once I get my 2D tree viewer into shape where it can be shown. It will be a lot less imaginative than Matt's vision, all I'm shooting for is that it is usable.
As part of that conversation, Matt tweeted:
RT @rdmpage: @mjyoder - I think 3D is the worse thing we could do, there's no natural mapping to 3D. <- meh, where's the imagination?
Well, Matt's imagination has gone into overdrive, and he's blogged about his ideas.
This issue deserves more exploration, but here are some quick thoughts. 3D has been used in a number of phylogeny browsers, such as Mike Sanderson's Paloverde, Walrus, and the Wellcome Trust's Tree of Life. I don't find any terribly successful, pretty as they may be. I think there are several problems with trees in general, and 3D versions in particular.
Trees aren't real
Trees aren't real in the same way that the physical world is (or even imagined physical worlds). Trees are conceptual structures. The history of web interfaces is littered with attempts to visualise conceptual space, for example to summarise search results. These have been failures, a simple top ten list as used by Google wins. I don't think this is because Google's designers lack imagination, it's because it works. Furthermore, this is actually a very successful visualisation:
I think elaborate attempts to depict conceptual spaces on screens are mostly going to fail.
Trees are empty
Compared to, say, a geographic map, trees are largely empty space. In a map every pixel counts, in that it potentially represents something. Think of the satellite view in Google Maps. Each pixel on the screen has information. Trees are largely empty, hence much of the display space is wasted. Moving trees to 3D just gives us more space to waste.
Trees don't have a natural ordering
Even if we accept that trees are useful visualisations, they have problems. Given the tree
((1,2),(3,4)); we have a lot of (perhaps too much) freedom in how we can depict that tree. For example, both diagrams below depict this tree. In the x-axis there is a partial order of internal nodes (the ancestor of {1,2} must be to the right of the ancestor {1,2,3,4}), but the tree ((1,2),(3,4)); says nothing about the relative ordering of {1,2} versus {3,4}. We are free to choose. A natural linear ordering would be divergence time, but estimates of those times can be contested, or unavailable.
Phylogenies are unordered trees in the sense that I can rotate any node about it's ancestor and still have the same tree (compare the two trees above). Phylogenies are like mobiles:
The practical consequence of this is that different tree viewers can render the same tree in very different ways, making navigation across viewers unpredictable. Compare this to maps. Even if I use different projections, the maps remain recognisably similar, and most maps retain similar relationships between areas. If I look at a map of Glasgow and move left I will end up in the Atlantic Ocean, no matter if I use Google Maps or Microsoft Maps. Furthermore, trees grow in a way that maps don't (at least, not much). If I add nodes to a tree it may radically change shape, destroying navigation cues that I may have relied on before. Typically maps change by the addition of layers, not by moving bits around (paleogeographic maps excepted).
Trees aren't 3D
There's nothing intrinsically 3D about trees, which means any mapping to 3D space is going to be arbitrary. Indeed, most 3D viewers simply avoid any mapping and show a 2D tree in 3D space, which seems rather pointless.
Perhaps it's because I don't play computer games much (went through an Angry Birds phase, and occasionally pick up an X-Box controller, only to be mercilessly slaughtered by my son), but I'm not inspired by the analogy with computer games. I'm not denying that there are useful things to learn from games (I'm sure the controls in Google Earth owe something to games). But games also rely on a visceral connection with the play, and an understanding of the visual vocabulary (how to unlock treasure, etc.). Matt's 3D model requires users to learn a whole visual vocabulary, much of which (e.g., "Fruit on your tree? Someone has left comment(s) or feedback. ") seems forced.
My sense is that the most successful interfaces make the minimal demands on users, don't fight their intuition, and don't force them to accept a particular visualisation of their own cognitive space.
I'll write more about this once I get my 2D tree viewer into shape where it can be shown. It will be a lot less imaginative than Matt's vision, all I'm shooting for is that it is usable.
On the Trail of the Revolution and the Looters
My Mum when she heard the news I was going after all to Egypt said that I was not to talk to any Arabs... I have been to Tahrir, got pulled into a demonstrating group, been chatting with all sorts of folk. Came to the conclusion that the TV gave us a distorted view. Series of slides of Archaeological Traces of Revolution.
Best of all spent the whole day wandering round the Egyptian Museum trying to correlate what we have been told with the traces left. It was quite an eyen opener, more here later. Quite by chance after I had almost given up trzing to corelate the Al Jayeera photos with what I saw, I was able to tag onto a conducted tour of the looting trail by a member of the Museum direction, who seemed to get the impression that I was not believing everzthing he was telling us and he abruptlz called off the tour after we saw the Akhenaton figure.
Then even more exciting for me, again by chance I bumped into Salima Ikram who then walked round with me pointing out things I had not thought of. Wonderful, I have always wanted to meet her.
There is more I want to say, I understand a lot more now I have seen it with my own eyes, and now have a much clearer idea what probalz went on (and its not what weąve been told) but the computer from which I am writing this in Cairo is not in the best of moods today, so will update from hand written notes when I get to Luxor.
Best of all spent the whole day wandering round the Egyptian Museum trying to correlate what we have been told with the traces left. It was quite an eyen opener, more here later. Quite by chance after I had almost given up trzing to corelate the Al Jayeera photos with what I saw, I was able to tag onto a conducted tour of the looting trail by a member of the Museum direction, who seemed to get the impression that I was not believing everzthing he was telling us and he abruptlz called off the tour after we saw the Akhenaton figure.
Then even more exciting for me, again by chance I bumped into Salima Ikram who then walked round with me pointing out things I had not thought of. Wonderful, I have always wanted to meet her.
There is more I want to say, I understand a lot more now I have seen it with my own eyes, and now have a much clearer idea what probalz went on (and its not what weąve been told) but the computer from which I am writing this in Cairo is not in the best of moods today, so will update from hand written notes when I get to Luxor.
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