UNESCO director general tours the Egytian Museum

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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?

In Praise and Appraisal of Human Chains

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During her tour of the Egyptian Museum UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova "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).

Bokova [...] applauded the Egyptian youth for forming a human shield to protect the Egyptian Museum and the Library of Alexandria.

Many people have been talking about it ever since. For example archaeologist Nigel Hetherington in his jubilant post "Missing the revolution but making the party!" on Heritage Key writes:

at no time did the protestors in Tahrir square storm the museum or loot its contents, in fact the people tried their best to protect the museum even forming a human chain around the site.

Zahi Hawass was also among those reporting it (February 2, 2011 - The State of Egyptian Antiquities):

However, all the archaeological sites in the country were protected by Egyptian people of all ages; I am especially proud of the young Egyptians who formed a line around the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, to protect it from outlaws and further break-ins.

He has since returned to this as a leitmotif, the Egyptian people protecting their heritage. We've all heard about it, I even wrote about it at the time. When I was in Cairo just after the revolution I met a young man (an air conditioning installer) who insisted he'd formed part of it. It's a beautiful story. But to what extent is it true? And what do we know about it? Here's the photo usually used to illustrate the story.


Googling might give you another one on the north side of the Museum (the pink wall of which (and the infamous fire escape) can be seen in the left corner):
... but checking this one out it shows events a few days after the Museum looting and shows protesters trying to prevent the removal of a barricade, so nothing to do with the epic human chain to protect the Museum.

Let us take another look at the first photo. My first thought is these guys do not look much like protesters that have spent the night under the stars in the square. Yet if we are to believe that this is the famed human chain, that is what they should be. The photo is clearly taken in the morning, but the morning of the 29th, because there - large as life in the background is an army tank. The human chain, the story goes was set up to protect the museum from looting before the army got there. But here is a nice lineup of gentlemen after the army moved in (Also don't these guys look rather more like security men than students? They can't be though because they were all withdrawn the night before - so we are told). It looks posed doesn't it?

Even more interesting is where they are standing. Its the short red line on the picture below.

So this line is blocking the end of the street, a street actually already occupied by the army. But that is not what the story is, is it? The story says the chain went around the Museum. This is important because early reports state that:

About a thousand people began to jump over the wall on the eastern side of the museum into the courtyard. On the western side of the museum, we recently finished something I was very proud of, a beautiful gift shop, restaurant and cafeteria. The people entered the gift shop and stole all the jewellery and escaped;

The eastern wall is on the right of the picture below, along the street, here it is both a wall and cast iron railings. The gift shop is the L-shaped complex of structures in the middle, built up against the museum's western boundary wall which divides it from the (then burning) NDP headquarters. So to stop them jumping over the wall, where was this human chain? Right around the museum? Did it also prevent people from getting into the abandoned NDP compound and jumping over the wall dividing it from the museum?


Or did the human chain just enclose the Museum, leaving the west side open?


Or is "forming a human chain around the site" just a figure of speech? Are either of these green lines a realistic reflection of what happened on 28th January outside the gates, fence and wall of the Egyptian Museum? The longer line is about a kilometre in length. If there were that many people involved, there must be loads of photos they took with cell phones etc. recording their part in this heroic action. Where are they? Why is a Google search only turning up one photo (the same photo, which looks posed) taken the day after? I'd be glad to post up here (with proper acknowledgement) any photos readers who were there can send me of this human chain (or links to where we might find them).

Or is the "human chain" just a convenient myth - helping to assuage consciences about what REALLY happened inside the Museum that night?

Also one report has "a thousand people" running around the courtyard (garden) that night, while Nigel Hetherington appears to be saying that the protestors did no such thing. What is the truth, what really happened?

CPRI Shows its Hand

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The grandly-named Cultural Policy Research Institute (CPRI) in the US has shown its hand. Far from being the "research institute" it poses as, it has made a Freedom of Information demand, much like the numismatic trade associations have done over the US' Cyprus and China bilateral cultural agreements (Peter Tompa: "CPRI Files FOIA Request on Purported Egyptian Done Deal"). That is not really what bona fide research institutes do is it? That's the sort of thing an antiquity dealers' advocacy group would do. This is just another indicator that this "institute" is not at all what it purports to be. It looks like its an attempt to revive the defunct American Council for Cultural Policy from pre-Iraq yesteryear.

It seems to me that this "research Institute" is placing rather too much weight on to the precise wording of a statement made in English on a blog by Egyptian Zahi Hawass.

Dr. Hawass’ description of their discussion strongly suggests that the statutory requirements of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CCPIA) have been completely ignored and the decision-making role of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee to the President (CPAC) has been superseded.

But that is just Zahi Hawass isn't it? How much can this wording be trusted? This is just one reading of that short piece of gossip. Has the CPRI thought to contact anyone from the Capitol Archaeological Institute of George Washington University, the Archaeological Institute of America, the American School of Oriental Research at Boston University, or the National Geographic Society before submitting an FOI request to the State Department? As a "research institute" it would seem normal to contact colleagues in other bone fide research institutes, wouldn't it? Is that not actually the whole essence of being a research institute, keeping up with what other research institutes are doing in a given field?

Suppose what Hawass (or his blog ghost-writer) meant to say was that the "International Coalition to Support Protection of Egyptian Antiquities" would help draft a REQUEST for a bilateral agreement - much the same way as CPRI patron Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's "heritage workshops" coach interested organizations in how to fill out grant applications? How would that make the CPRI's kneejerk response look?

Peter Tompa alarms that the Coalition ("private group"):

has apparently guaranteed that the U.S government would sign an agreement with the Government of Egypt limiting access by all Americans to art from a founding civilization of the ancient world.

well, I do not think there was a guarantee, it's not "art" but portable antiquities and any eventual agreement would only limit them in response to the reports of ongoing looting to the extent of allowing import of only those legally exported.

UPDATE 14/6/11
This is so ridiculous. Tompa reveals that the reason for the CPRIA submitting an FOI request was that

As noted in my blog, the AIA initially had something about an agreement being negotiated by these groups on its website. Then, it took it down.

What that statement said was:

Zahi Hawass, Egypt's Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, said, "The Coalition will be drafting a formal agreement between the US and Egyptian governments, and, as soon as it is signed, all of these important projects will be implemented."

If however one turns to the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs webpage, there is a fairly full account of what was discussed and what agreement had to be drafted and why:

The Framework Agreement reflects partnership between the government sector (the Egyptian Foreign Ministry) and the Private Sector (the American Coalition) which would commit the American side to provide financial resources.[...] Ambassador Iman El Farr, Deputy Assistant Minister for Cultural Protocols and Agreements highlighted the cultural importance of perfect preparation reaching the final wording of the agreement to be signed so as to start implementing what agreed upon and facilitate the process of providing the necessary financial resources.

No mention is made there of any kind of US import restrictions. This seems therefore to be confirmed to be wishful thinking on behalf of Zahi Hawass (or his ghost blog-writer) who put it on his blog, and thus now forces the US taxpayer to support yet another two FOI requests from the antiquity dealing lobby. You have to laugh. As I said, a proper research institute would check out the facts at source before engaging in such an action - its as simple as telephoning the people concerned in the US, or doing a simple Google search to find the Egyptian MFA webpage.

Vignette: CPR on the ACCP

Bloodshed the Way to Get Tourists Back to Egypt?

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I think there are more things the Egyptian authorities need to do to entice the visitors back than just open a few more tombs and send Hawass on tour, allowing this is quite obviously not one of them. Al-Sayed al-Essawy wants to kill a caged lion for entertainment in an effort to "get tourists back to Egypt" - he says. Read about it here and then consider signing the petition.

UPDATE: I have received an email from an Egyptian tourist organization which informs me "this event will not happen". Frankly after all the conflicting and irresponsible story-telling passing for news from the Egyptian authorities concerning there being or not being any looting and the extremely dubious stories concerning the museum looting -or whatever was going on there - I really am disinclined just to take their word for it. There is conflicting information about what has happened and is happening.

For now, it is a waiting game as to whether the lion exists, the man is free or what is happening. Such is the nature of information regarding animal rights in Egypt, a country that has done little to support the existence of animals in its midst. Along the Red Sea, almost monthly reports of poisoning of stray animals, dogs, cats and others, are reported.

I'd urge anyone concerned about animal welfare in Egypt to sign the petition regardless of what we are being told.

"Egypt Repatriates Stolen Artefact from Britain"

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The temple of Isis at Behbeit el-Hagar lies in a village (31 01 40N 31 17 15 E) just to the north of the site of Sebennytos ( the home town of the Ptolemaic historian Manetho and which was the seat of Nectanebo II, Egypt's last native ruler). It is relatively rarely visited today, despite being on the supposed route of the Holy Family's journey to Egypt soon after the Nativity which is followed by some tourists. Bits of its reliefs taken from the ruins are scattered all over the place (including in the garden of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo). The English-language version of the newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm attempts a redefinition of the semantics of the transitive verb "repatriate" (MENA, 'Egypt repatriates stolen artifact from Britain', 6th June 2011):

Egypt on Monday announced the repatriation of a stolen artifact that was about to be sold at auction in London. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said its Cultural Relations Department received the artifact from the Egyptian Embassy in London. The artifact was illegally smuggled out of Egypt after it was stolen from the Behbeit el-Hagar Temple, located [near] the city of Saman[n]oud northeast of Cairo. The Ministry of Antiquities had requested Egypt’s embassy in London to intervene to stop the sale. The ancient stone piece comprises an incomplete human body, where only part of the shoulders are seen, with the head of a cow.

This is where it was knocked-off from:

and this is what the block looked like before collectable-hunters profiting from the no-questions-asked market got their hands on it. Here we see the context of the smashed-off geegaw.

(Photos from the Luxor Times). The theft was discovered the next day:

On Friday 5th January 1990, a guard working at the temple site reported that thugs attacked the site and stole some artefacts and next day the inventory showed missing pieces which were reported and the retrieved artefact is one of them.

According to the Al-Ahram online article (Nevine El-Aref, 'Granite depiction of cow-shaped deity returns to Egypt', 7 Jun 2011) the London auction house concerned was Bonhams, and the depiction is of "the ancient Egyptian goddess Akht".

The ruins at Behbeit el-Hagar are described (with pictures) by Thierry Benderitter on the OsirisNet website as "an ignored site of the delta, which could be restored, but which doesn't seem to receive the attention which it deserves". The ruins are contained in a modern walled enclosure some 120 x 170 m across, just on the southeastern edge of the village, despite this,

The site is currently very ruined, and continuously ravaged by the villagers in the vicinity, who have all cut all antiquity found there, from the blocks of granite, but associated with it also are more recent acts of vandalism with reliefs cut destined to be resold. [...] It is certain fact that the temple of Behbeit El-Hagar represents a unique site, including the blocks whose reliefs are of an exceptional quality. It therefore appears urgent to preserve and to restore this structure before the deteriorations linked to the actions the wind erosion, pollution and depredation cause the disappearance of one of the most beautiful monuments of the Delta. It is urgent that the Service of Antiquities of Egypt and the Egyptological community mobilise themselves for this safeguard.

See also
Favard-Meeks, C., 'The present state of the site of Behbeit el-Hagar', BMSAES 3 (2002), 31-41 [Download PDF: The present state of the site of Behbeit el-Hagar].

A fragment in the Metropolitan Museum of Art has "Rogers Fund, 1912" given as the reason why it is in New York. Examples are in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts ( Martha A. Willcomb Fund and EES), Brooklyn Museum.

For a fragment of the temple recently sold by the Bakarat Gallery in Beverley Hills California see here (note: absolutely no collecting history or documentation of licit provenance and export cited. Where did this come from, and when and how did it leave Egypt? )

In 2004 a piece of relief stolen from this temple was seen being sold by Christie's in New York (Robin Pogrebin, 'Stolen Artwork From Temple Will Be Returned to Egypt' New York Times, August 20, 2004)

The granite relief, valued at $5,000, was taken from the Temple of Behbeit el-Hagar in Gharbia in 1990, the government said. It was featured on Christie's Web site as Lot No. 294, to be auctioned in an antiquities sale on June 12, 2002. The suggested bid for the relief, along with several other objects, was $7,000 to $9,000, according to an affidavit in support of a seizure warrant filed by the government in Federal District Court in Manhattan last October. Before the sale, the Egyptian government notified Christie's and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, that the artifact had been looted sometime in 1990 from the temple site. Christie's withdrew the relief from the sale and has since voluntarily held it while the government investigated its provenance and made arrangements to seize it and send it back to Egypt. Mahmoud Allam, Egypt's consul general in New York, [...] Mr. Allam said that he would take the artifact back today, and it would be reinserted in the temple wall. Although the temple had been in ruins, it has since been restored.

Surely it should not be "the [US] government" who "investigated its provenance" after the sale was called off, but a reputable dealer before the sale was even considered.

The problem is that the temple has not been "restored" as it is a heap of collapsed granite blocks thrown down probably some two millennia or more ago, so it would be interesting to learn what actually happened to the New York piece, did it end up in one of the antiquity storerooms in the Delta region? Is it still there?


Photo EES.

Dealers and collectors like to pretend that the problem with looting is the "inadequate stewardship" of the source nations, which are incompetent in looking after the archaeological heritage. This site is one of many thousand in Egypt alone where sculpted blocks and other potentially collectable items lie scattered over comparatively large areas. In the case of Egypt, many of them lie in unpopulated deserts or mountains. Yet collectors blame the "source countries" for not placing armed guards on every single such site in the country. But Egypt is not the only "source country" for collectable antiquities which has many thousands of extensive archaeological sites scattered in remote locations which collectors and dealers say "need guarding" to prevent illicitly-obtained antiquities from circulating on the international antiquities market. It seems to me that there is a far more practical and economic solution to this problem; that collectors and dealers ensure by proper provenance research that illicitly-obtained artefacts do not circulate on the market.

If antiquity collectors and dealers (a minority group however you want to count them) want a licit market for antiquities then they should not be demanding that others create it for them, it is up to them - and nobody else - to create conditions in which one could exist. So far we have only seen that they are singularly unwilling to make a serious effort in this direction - part of the milieu making various excuses why this is "impossible".
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More Egyptian Monuments Destroyed?

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Kate Phizackerley has a post on her blog: Destruction of Amarna Boundary Stela (Unverified) (Thursday, June 02, 2011) which draws attention to - so far unverified - reports that 14 reliefs were destroyed by dynamite at Amarna about 6 months ago. See also Egyptian Dreams (hint of confirmation by Ministry sources) This would seem to have happened in January 2011. As she says:

If true, this story is more than just the destruction of a very important monument but the delay in the news would raise obvious concerns about what else might have happened without being reported.

UPDATE 5th June:
Andie Byrnes has more information including a comment by Barry Kemp: Damage to Amarna stela? It seems part of the problem lies in the inability of certain Egyptian newspapers to ascertain the facts of a case before publishing any old rubbish about them which we have seen here before. Though damage does seem to have taken place.

Jewish Claims Conference Gets University Antiquity Collection

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Leipzig University has a small but important collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities which are used as teaching material. Part of it is material that was collected for that purpose by Georg Steindorff, a professor of Jewish origin and had been bought from him by the University in 1936. A court in Berlin has now decided that the collection must be handed to the Jewish Claims Conference (JCC), considering that Steindorff had sold it under duress for a value far below its actual worth.

Leipzig university could produce no evidence to counter the charge that Steindorff had been forced to sell his collection under Nazi rule. It had taken the case to court in the hope of keeping the antique objects that the professor had collected on research trips. Steindorff, who held Leipzig's Egyptology chair, emigrated from Nazi Germany and died in the US in 1951.

Deutsche Press Agentur, 'German university loses Egyptian collection bought under Nazis', Monsters and Critics May 26, 2011,

So, now these well-provenanced objects will presumably be appearing on the market. What is interesting is that the wishes of Steindorff's family in the US have been disregarded as his legacy is split up and destroyed. Thomas Hemer, grandson of Georg Steindorff, wants the collection to stay in Leipzig. There is now a Georg Steindorff Initiative: Facebook page on this controversy. Over in Egypt, others have their eye on this once-partaged material:

Zahi Hawass Minister of State for Antiquities sent an official letter to the JCC demanding restitution of these objects, and threatened to file a lawsuit against it before German and international courts if the JCC did not comply.

- but there seems to be a misunderstanding among their cardboard-cutout journalists what this is all about ("Hawass seeks return of pharaonic piece in Israel").
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Cartoonish Relief in Egyptian Hands

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In 2006, Mexican police caught a Mexican citizen in possession of what appeared to be a stolen New Kingdom Egyptian sandstone relief. They hung on to it three years while they "investigated" this guy - nothing is known about the results of their enquiries (if anyone knows otherwise please let me know). Anyhow the 17x15cm relief fragment itself came back to Egypt from Mexico yesterday in a diplomatic bag.

An archaeological committee from the Ministry of State for Antiquities led by Ahmed Mostafa, head of the returned antiquities section, checked its authenticity. He will have the piece restored and placed in a special display at the Egyptian museum.

And Nevine El-Aref's article on the subject is illustrated by a photo of a serious looking guy in a suit holding a plastic ruler up to the object checking the measurements.


That's a strangely non-canonical fragment he has in his hands. The proportions are all wrong for a genuine Egyptian piece, the lower face too massive, those puffy pouting lips, the pointy ski-jump nose, the flat eyebrow, horizontal line below the eye and that ridiculous ear. The neck is too short and the chinline too long, the collar is badly laid out. The sunken relief is at different depths, I very much suspect that merely being a 'provincial' piece from a 'bad period' is not enough to explain away these stylistic infidelities. In addition, those roundly concave breaks on the left suspicious, as is the convenient break at the top of the head (though this may have occurred in transit to Mexico). The whole piece is conveniently rectangular when the bits are fitted together with the face in the centre. If we saw this on eBay there would be little angst about it going cheaply to a Wisconsin collector, as to me it looks like a not-very-good tourist fake. The Egyptian State Information Office says that Assistant Foreign Minister for International Cultural Affairs Sherif el-Kholy declared that this is a piece "dating back to the Modern Dynasty", which sounds about right to me. Ahmed Mostafa says though it is an authentic stolen dugup artefact, and who am I to query his opinion? So what does he say it is?

British Museum (EA 5601)

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Utah Man Denies Antiquity Smuggling Accusation

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As we have seen, the artefact collector and antiquity dealer are all to frequently keen to play the victim. Another such victim seems to be the case of Utah tour guide John Lund, reportedly accused in Israel of selling artefacts without the required permits, and attempting to remove them from the country without an export permit (apparently on Monday May 16th, but he says 14th) . He signed some papers ("in Hebrew") admitting this, but upon his arrival in the States, he began protesting his innocence. See Sarah Dallof, 'Utah historian accused of smuggling antiquities out of Israel', May 19th, 2011. There's a video from KSL Broadcasting Salt Lake City (can't seem to embed it) in which he makes light of the charges, comparing himself to Goody Two Shoes encountering a "dragon". See also Matthew Kalman, 'Retired U.S. Academic Is Arrested in Israel on Suspicion of Antiquities Trafficking', The Chronicle of Higher Education May 18, 2011.

There is also a May 19th text by Sheena McFarland in the Salt Lake Tribune: 'Utah tour guide accused of smuggling Israeli artifacts'. (updated May 20th), and another in the same vein by Molly Farmer and Sarah Dallof, 'Murray resident John Lund accused of smuggling Israeli artifacts disputes allegations', Deseret News,May 20, 2011 (this one seems to have mysteriously vanished from the Internet, but is in Google cache).

He claims he'd brought these antiquities INTO Israel from the US as "teaching material". "Dr Lund admits he lacked the proper paperwork for some of these artefacts, but says he had no idea he needed it". That is a bit odd for somebody who has been leading tour groups there over the years. Part of the qualifications for which job should surely be familiarity with all local laws likely to affect the customers of the company which employs him in matters such as this. The information about needing export licences for antiquities from Israel is in many tour guides both printed and online.

A group of (American?) tourists was reportedly stopped and their 'property' seized on the Israel/Egypt border because they'd allegedly bought them from Lund and tried to remove them from the country without the proper formalities. Did Dr Lund not inform them about export procedures for these items? Did they REALLY not know that what they were doing was illegal? Or did they just not care? Did they lie when they said they had bought the items from Lund? I am surprised we have heard nothing from these people who are now out of pocket and labelled law-breakers due to the lack of information from the travel firm's agent.

I am unclear how Lund can claim he did not know of the legal requirements when, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority press release, he was detained in Jerusalem for allegedly selling antiquities about "two weeks" before his arrest at Ben Gurion airport and had "hundreds of antiquities" seized when authorities searched his room. This would presumably be when he was guiding this 14 day tour. Did he fail to enquire then why in fact he was having to surrender his 'property'? Or did he just hand hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars' worth of his property to the Israeli authorities with a shrug?

However, having once had all (?) the stuff in his room reportedly taken away, how come he was then in the middle of May two weeks later arrested taking more antiquities out of Israel without the paperwork? Where did he get them from? He is now stating he brought them into Israel from the States, so why were they not seized at the beginning of May with the rest, but ended up being seized two weeks later? If he could earlier prove legal import why was he no longer able to do so when he left the country? All very odd.

Journalist Chi-Chi Zhang of Associated press has a number of articles syndicated which present Lund's side of the story: 'Utah man accused in Israel of smuggling artifacts', and 'US tour guide says he didn't know bringing antique oil lamps, coins broke Israeli law', May 20th and on ArtDaily.com on May 23rd: ' Utah Tour Guide David Lund Accused by Government of Israel of Smuggling Artifacts'. The man's name is - apparently incorrectly - given there as "Tour guide David Lund" . Apparently:

the retired lecturer from Murray, Utah, said he was never informed of any wrongdoing in more than 30 years of guiding thousands of people to visit holy sites in the Middle East and bringing antiquities with him to tell biblical stories."They're saying I was trying to sneak these items out of Israel, and it's just a gross misrepresentation of the facts," the 70-year-old Lund said. His latest trip began earlier this month when he led a group of 96 tourists to Israel. Like his previous outings, Lund brought along antiquities such as oil lamps and coins to help illustrate the history and tell stories about the region. They were antiquities he said he had purchased on previous trips around the Mediterranean region. Lund said he was questioned at customs about the items when he entered Israel and allowed to pass without any problems.

So he's done this before? The logic of a tour guide "bringing antiquities with him to tell biblical stories" as he takes tourists around the sites and museums of the Holy Land beats me. Are there not enough objects in the museums to tell those stories? ("Helped tell biblical stories as part of the trip designed to highlight sites important to Christians", "He incorporates the artifacts into the tours by explaining the travelers the parables of Jesus" - so how many lamps and Roman glass vessels do you need to do that then? ). The photos show he had quite a few duplicates of each object type. Would not a powerpoint presentation on his laptop be enough for evening cultural talks? Why then do the Israeli Antiquity Authorities say they saw him selling these items? Are they not telling the truth? What would be the connection, if any, between the alleged sale watched by IAA staff and the reported seizure of artefacts from tourists, allegedly from the same group, at the Israeli border? If I understand what he is saying, Lund asserts that these artefacts were purchased from legitimate Israeli dealers - so why could those carrying them not show documentation of that fact? Why are these people not now coming forward to claim their property?

Elsewhere there is talk about Lund having seized from him a "binder of ancient coins he's using as research for an upcoming book" and we are told that he is writing a book "Bible Coins of Interest to Christians, which is why he had so many coins, including Greek, Persian, Roman and Egyptian coins in addition to Jewish coins". So he had these "Egyptian coins" when he was in Egypt too and managed to get them across the border? Lucky for him he was not stopped, eh? (I am not sure the Egyptians would let him go so easily). This of course raises the question of how many books on "["Biblical"] Coins of Interest to Christians" can the market take? I thought there were plenty of them - and websites, though none of the ones I have seen discuss the question of the sources, licit and illicit of the material they encourage people to acquire and collect. I find the fresh reports difficult to reconcile with the photos of the coins as seized, none are in a "binder" but there is at least one in a decorative olive wood box - hardly the sort of container I'd use to transport "research material" and several packaged with descriptive cards of the type attached by dealers to make an item more attractive - again, hardly necessary I would have thought for a "researcher". But... it takes all sorts I guess.

Lund said "he had no idea a visa (sic) was required to bring antiquities in and out of the country and was never told by any authorized dealers in Israel to do so". Concerning items brought into the country, there is a quite detailed customs notice online which lays down the procedure to be adopted when importing personal property worth more than 200 dollars and not falling into certain groups (which Mr Lund's travelling antiquity collection does not), and reminding travellers that "the exportation of [....] all antiquities [...] is subject to special authorization". If he was "questioned at customs about the [antique] items [in his baggage] when he entered Israel" (and he asserts and stresses that after questioning he was "allowed to pass without any problems"), would that not have alerted him, even if somehow previously ignorant of that fact, that the Israeli authorities take an interest in controlling the movements of such material across their frontiers? What about the requirement to declare items like this on entry? When he was "questioned" about them, was he not made aware of this? But then elsewhere Lund is confusingly reported as saying: "I understand why Israel would have strict policies on antiquities, but I don't understand why they didn't stop me when I entered the country if they had a problem with the items I had". Did he openly declare when he entered the country that he had the items or not?

But in fact if he was accompanying the tour he was supposed to be accompanying, Lund would have been entering Israel from Egypt (at least that is what this suggests), or would that be Jordan, where the trippers he was guiding ended up? Both countries which place restrictions on the export of antiquities, and both states party of the 1970 UNESCO Convention (since 1973 and 1974). If he was stopped and questioned about these artefacts when entering the country from Egypt or Jordan and was unable to show at that time (for it seems he was unable to do so on 16th May) that they had been purchased in other countries, then why were they allowed through? How did he manage that?

If Dr Lund had indeed legally and purchased and exported the items suspected of having been dug up in the Holy Land that were seized at the airport "on previous trips around the Mediterranean region", a responsible collector would have the export licences and invoices with which he will now be able to clear his name when faced with such a situation.

When he was searched at Ben Gurion airport, it is reported that Lund had recently-written "che[que]s totaling more than $20,000" on him, and authorities believed these were from "the illegal sales of ancient coins, clay oil lamps, and glass and pottery vessels". Lund denies this, he says "the checks were given to him by members of the tour group who wanted to buy antiquities legally, and he took them to legitimate dealers and paid for the items with his Visa card". This was a tourist group of Mormons or Amish? Do travelling Mormons abroad not carry their own visa cards for some reason? I do not understand this. Really I do not. In any case, again to clear his name all that is needed is for the antiquity dealers in Israel to show the records of those legal transactions. They are obliged to keep such records by Israeli law.

But the Salt Lake Tribune has another - conflicting - story. According to this one, in Bethlehem several tourists:

had run out of cash for souvenirs. He had them write him personal checks in $200 amounts in exchange for extra cash Lund had brought in case such a situation occurred. He also arranged group purchases of Bethlehem baby blankets and Bethlehem alabaster jars with spikenard inside and said he did not make money on the transaction.

Lund does however add that he

also facilitated the $2,000 purchase of a silver Tyre shekel, also known as a Judas coin, for one of the tour participants.

"We were buying antiques as souvenirs from legitimate dealers just like what normal tourists would do and no one ever told us we needed a special visa (sic)", of course if tourists buy antiquities from registered dealers, they get the export licence with the object. What did Lund do, throw them away? I also wonder about the bloke who claims to be writing a book on "Biblical coins of interest to Christians" and who is himself the owner of at least one "binder" of them, who would not tell a tour party member to save his money because he can buy a decent example of that shekel back in the states for about a quarter of the price.

Lund said he's currently gathering affidavits to build a defense case. He's in touch with the U.S. Embassy in Israel, and is seeking legal counsel. Despite the hiccup, Lund said he loves Israel, and now that he understands the laws, he'll try to make it right. "You wont' find a greater advocate for Israel then me and for sustaining the laws of the land," he said. Lund said he's concerned for American tourists in Israel who are in the dark like he was. "Innocently, all over the place, people are buying items, hauling them out of the country and not even aware that they're technically smugglers," he said. "I think Israel has an obligation to let us know that."

Umm, I think they do. How can anyone ignoring cultural property laws, Americans or not, claim to be doing it "innocently"? Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Surely it is also the responsibility of travel companies to employ as guides people who are knowledgeable about local laws that may affect their clients? Dr Lund has at best showed himself woefully ill-informed in this regard.

More about Lund:
Books by Lund include, 'Mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon' and 'The Church and the Negro' ("A discussion of Mormons, Negroes and the priesthood"). On the latter see also: Darth J, "The Church and the Negro" Friday, May 20, 2011, at 07:28 AM here.

Journalists have been confused about who he is, see Rogueclassicist, 'Journalists Just Aren’t Trying Any More', May 19, 2011
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US Government to Impose Import Restrictions on Egyptian Antiquities?

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Zahi Hawass indicates on his blog that the topics of discussions in Cairo with delegates from the US have included the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Ministry of State for Antiquities. It was reported that in the light of the current situation, the US government is willing to impose emergency import restrictions on Egyptian antiquities. Let us see what comes of this, it would be very interesting to see all importers of Egyptian antiquities in the US actually have to produce documentation of licit export. That will make a lot of dealers uneasy, but is good news for responsible antiquity collectors in the US who care about the ethical hygiene of their collections and want to avoid buying tainted antiquities of dubious origins.

A number of other measures were proposed to modernise the processes of heritage management in Egypt along the lines of models adopted in the US and Europe.

The Coalition will be drafting a formal agreement between the US and Egyptian governments. The Egyptian government will be represented by the Ministry of State for Antiquities and, as soon as the agreement is signed, all of these important projects will be implemented.

Z. Hawass, 'The International Coalition to Support Protection of Egyptian Antiquities', Zahi Hawass's blog, 17/5/2011

Vignette: To be effective, scarabs, shabtis, mummy fragments and of course ancient coins should be among those things on the new MOU.

Interpol to Publish Photos of Recently Stolen Egyptian Artefacts

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Apparently the Interpol mission representative to Egypt, Stephen Tifaut and Egypt antiquities minister, Zahi Hawass, met on 12th May to discuss "how to help find and return the 1228 missing objects from museums and archaeological sites in the aftermath of the January 25 Revolution". This follows a recent series of meetings with UNESCO officials who visited the country in the wake of the recent break-ins in the Egyptian museum in Tahrir (28th January) and several archaeological storehouses in Egypt (see the Egyptological Looting Database 2011). It is interesting that we are at last seeing the quoting of an actual specific number of items, 1228 - this will include the thirty or so still missing from the Egyptian Museum.

"Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud, the general supervisor of the minister’s office told Ahram Online that Interpol will publish photos of the missing objects in the international market, a measure that will help in recovering these objects". Let us hope it is not just "photos".

Abdel Maqsoud, and Gihan Zaki, MSAA director of international organisations, a number of police detectives as well as a representative from the tourism and antiquities police attended the Interpol meeting held on the Zamalek premises of the Ministry of State for Antiquities Affairs. May 12th Interpol to publish photos of Egyptian artefacts missing post-revolution

The meeting with Interpol, according to Hawass, "is a security measure to help recover objects, if any were smuggled out of the country" but "Hawass tells Ahram Online that he doesn’t think that any objects have left the country, as security is tight at seaports and airports". Well, of course these objects are only missing because the security at the places they were permanently stored was not as adequate as it had been assumed to be. So why should places of transit be any the more "secure"?

Hawass' suggestion is a tacit admission that despite the laws and measures, there is an internal market in Egypt that can without any disruption accept 1228 stolen artefacts (including several as instantly recognizable as the Tutankhamun figures). Is that really what he wants to say?

Nevine El-Aref, 'Interpol to publish photos of Egyptian artefacts missing post-revolution', Al-Ahram, 12 May 2011

Big-Eared Hare and Hedgehogs on Egyptian "Hunting" Relief

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They've had a 'revolution' (looking these days more like a coup) and the country is in shambles but antiquities still fulfil their traditional role in international affairs. So Egypt is trumpeting the return of the "first artefact repatriated to Egypt after the revolution" (later said to be the second because the cartoonish relief from Mexico was afforded that status). Anyway this latest success in getting back stuff stolen from Egyptian antiquities stores and monuments and smuggled out through those supposedly "secure" airports and ports is a fifth dynasty limestone relief of a hunting scene 51cm high x 83cm in width which Egypt is getting back from the Antikenmuseum in Basel, Switzerland. The collecting history of this item is not discussed, how did it get into the Basel collection, where had it been (allegedly and actually) before then?

What are the grounds for demanding its return? ("The Basel museum volunteered to return this piece immediately after discovering that it was stolen from Saqqara"). "[Dr] Hawass will shortly be contacting the ministry of foreign affairs to arrange for an MSAA representative to travel to Switzerland to collect the relief". He'll have to take a big black bag with him to bring it back {but the Ministry already has one, found on a platform in a metro station}.

The Antikenmuseum has already sent back the eye of a colossal quartzite statue of Amenhotep III (c. 1390-1352 BC) found in 1970 at his funerary temple in Kom el-Hettan area on the Luxor west bank. The eye was smuggled out of the country and loaned to the museum by a private collector, where it was recognised by Egyptologist, Hourig Sourouzian, and returned to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in October 2008.

I wonder just what a museum does with something like this. Its an unwieldy block of stone with pictures of animals on it, some of them incomplete - going off the edge of the block. The picture does not make much sense. The photo being used in the media - presumably supplied by the MSAA is in fact the centrefold from the popular magazine Kmt (one might suspect that the appearance of this photo in the article 'The Egyptian Collection of Basel’s Antikenmuseum' by Lucy Gordan-Rastelli was the reason why the object was spotted by the Egyptians). Its a pretty poorly-lit photo and it suggests the scene shows hedgehog-like animals and a hare with enormous ears.

Presumably is we saw these figures in the context of the whole block they would make more sense, as would the block as part of the whole series of scenes from which it has been extracted, and that would make sense only when seen in its position in the tomb alongside the others, and that would make more sense in the context of what fifth dynasty tombs in lower Egypt generally show. What function is served by a contextless block lit more (or less) dramatically in a gallery in Switzerland, isolated from all of that? An "example of Old Kingdom art"? But are hedgehogs big-eared lagomorphs typically Old Kingdom subjects? Presented in an isolated decontextualised form, what information do they supply the viewer about Old Kingdom Egypt? Or is their function in fact to provide "information" (the function usually assigned to 'universal museum collections')? Is this not just a rich man's trophy, like some people collect shiny cars and glamorous trophy wives? Why do we need the public display of lumps of stone with ancient pictures of animals - especially stolen ones? More to the point, what are the Egyptians going to do with it when they get it back?

UPDATE: Alain Guilleux suggests the big-eared creature is a rabbit or hare but I suspect rabbits (orycytolagus cuniculus) were not present in Egypt in pharaonic times. I find though that the desert hare (Lepus capensis) was, and some individuals do indeed seem to have some pretty imposing ears.


Photo: A desert hare running away from antiquity smugglers, I wonder how many would, like me, prefer to look at a properly-presented exhibition of decent wildlife photography than some scruffy animal pictures on old ripped-off stonework.

Heba Hesham, Egypt to regain stolen limestone painting from Switzerland
bikya masr, May 12th, 2011

Nevine El-Aref, 'Old Kingdom relief first artefact repatriated to Egypt after revolution', Al-Ahram, 11 May 2011.

UPDATE- UPDATE 8th June 2011:
A followup article 'Switzerland returns stolen Egyptian antique' tells us the relief is already back in Egypt and adds the information that "The relief [...] was apparently stolen from the Saqqara Necropolis, south of Cairo, 10 years ago. The piece was not reported stolen but when its surfaced in Switzerland museum officials in Basel carried out tests to trace its provenance". Good for them.

Hawass: Ka Nefer Nefer mummy Mask Returns Next Week

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A few days ago emails were being exchanged behind the scenes to establish the foundation for the report by Nevine El-Aref ('Egypt steps up bid for Nefertiti bust', Ahram Online, 3 May 2011) according to which:

Hawass told reporters that in the next week, an ancient Egyptian statue which was illegally smuggled out of the country will return from Switzerland as well as the Ka Nefer mummy mask from the United States.

A week has passed and the mummy mask in SLAM has not been moved a centimetre nearer the door. Who knows, or cares any more, about what happened to the Swiss statue? Why do the Egyptian media continually come out with stories which contain not a shred of truth? For whose benefit did Nevine El-Aref present this as a "fact"? What purpose does this serve except to make observers even more distrustful of "news" from Cairo?

Egyptian Museum "Kerfuffle"

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Kate Phizackerley briefly mentions the kerfuffle caused by complaints emerging from the otherwise silent Egyptian Museum staff in Cairo that it is "unfair" to read MSAA press releases with a critical eye (Bloggers and Egyptology) May 04, 2011. She is referring to the comments of Yasmin el-Shazly on my blogging about my attempts to understand what has been happening to the antiquities from the Museum collections (here and here). Phizackerly notes:

MSAA officials are clearly unused to investigative journalism and independent blogging. Until recently, bloggers who criticise the Government have been arrested in Egypt. Indeed, the Military Council has continued the practice. [...] So its really not surprising that MSAA officials are unused to people critically examining press releases and announcements and it is obvious they find the experience uncomfortable. [...] I suspect as Egyptian media become more inquisitive that MSAA officials will realise that they are not, in fact, being treated unfairly. I doubt they will grow to like people checking press releases for consistency - few organisations do - but maybe they will understand that the process is a fundamental part of democracy.

Obviously museums should be fully accountable to the public for whom they claim to be curating cultural property. Here, one gets the feeling that nobody sees any need to account for the many discrepancies and questions in the official reports of what has been happening in the Egyptian Museum. I hope there is an official enquiry when a new government is brought in into both the events of 28th January as well as subsequent actions taken by the bodies concerned and responsible dissemination of information and that a full report is prepared and published. What is there to hide?

[The comment by Tim on Kate's blog is of interest, though unlike him, I am not so sure it is true that the "shield" of dictatorship has been lifted at all in the area we are discussing].

Habib el-Adli sentenced

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Former Egyptian interior minister Habib el-Adli has been sentenced by an Egyptian court to 12 years in prison and a fine of about $4 million, ending the first of a series of corruption trials of top figures of the Mubarak regime.

Mr. Adli, 73, was arguably the most powerful cabinet minister under Mr. Mubarak. He personified his government’s repressive tactics, presiding for 14 years over an internal security force of 400,000, about the size of the Egyptian Army. It focused exclusively on suppressing dissent and unrest, specializing in detention and torture without trial. Those who sought to apply the teachings of Islam to political life often fell under especially harsh treatment, regardless of whether their tools were violence or the ballot box. During the 18 days of protests that culminated in Mr. Mubarak’s resignation, Mr. Adli oversaw the brutal attacks that sought to drive peaceful demonstrators from the streets and left about 800 dead. And when the security forces failed to break the protests, he was widely blamed for the sudden disappearance of all police officers from the streets, making way for a wave of looting before neighborhood men organized to restore security.

This was the background of the looting of both the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the unguarded sites elsewhere in Egypt. If the vandalism in the Museum was indeed (as many now suspect) carried out under the orders of somebody, it would be to El-Adly and those under him that we should look. He has not however been accused of any connection with the looting of cultural property. Mr. Adli now awaits the conclusion of a second trial on charges of overseeing the killing of civilians by security forces during the January 25th revolt.

David Kirkpatrick, 'Once-Feared Egyptian Official Sentenced to 12 Years and Heavily Fined', New York Times May 5, 2011.
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A Rising Star of Egyptian Politics?

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Victor Kotsev is a journalist and political analyst based in Tel Aviv and writes in the Asia Times Online (New currents in the Egyptian Revolution, May 3rd 2011) about the "new faces in Egyptian politics".

Among the less known rising stars is Dr Zahi Hawass - an archaeologist who is currently serving as minister of state for antiquities affairs. He has become something of a celebrity in both Egyptian and international media in recent months, and seems to be banking on the country's ancient history as a powerful unifying factor of national identity. The latter pattern is hardly a new development, and Mubarak himself had exploited pharaonic imagery widely in his campaigns. In a country which saw its golden ages thousands of years ago, a political and social narrative exists in tension with Muslim and Arab solidarity, glorifying the alleged descendents of pharaonic Egypt, and looking for them in rural areas which are supposedly more "pure" from later Arab influences. It is a tall tale by most accounts, but a powerful one. Particularly after the attacks on the Egyptian Museum of National Antiquities during the January protests, Hawass has gained in popularity. A court process against him has so far had little impact on his career. According to a source, while he is still not a major player in Egyptian politics, he stands to become one in the coming months and years.

Hawass for Egyptian president?

A Closer Look at the New Kids on the Block

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Here's a closer look at the two copper alloy statuettes that re-appeared yesterday from somewhere, alongside two established to be on the list of missing objects from Cairo Egyptian Museum. All four were in the hands of some criminals who were "caught red handed" doing something or other somewhere.

They've been photographed on some big pieces of white polythene foam (the last lot had as the background Agfa photographic paper). This is the sort of inert foam you'd find in a conservation lab for packing.

On the left is a figure of Harpocrates about 18 cm (+/-) in height the state of which suggests it has been heavily but unevenly chemically stripped and maybe an attempt has been made to chemically repatinate it. If this is cleaning it looks like the sort of thing that might have happened thirty years ago. The cast is indistinct, rather blurry and disproportionate and schematic. The metal underneath the corrosion does not seem very eroded, except perhaps on the headdress. Is it a genuine antiquity? It looks very much like a bizarre bazaar piece.

On the right is an Osiris on a base with a tenon. The casting is sharp and precise, bears traces it seems of gilding. The patina is completely different, a thin layer of oxidation seems to lie over smooth metal, there is no differential corrosion where the gold (if that is what it is) contacts the copper alloy. It has been polished by handling. Is it a genuine antiquity?

From the photos it is difficult to say if these objects are ancient, the fact that a commission of the Egyptian MSA is still looking at them suggests they think they might be (in the Al-Ahram article it says specifically that on the basis of his initial examination Dr Tarek El-Awady says they are both genuine). What however is clear is that if they are, they come from two separate environments of deposition. If the Harpocrates had thicker corrosion products on it, it would have come from burial in a damper environment, while the Osiris looks as if it has never been buried, perhaps in a desert tomb/cave or whatever.

I do not think either of them are fresh dugups, my guess is that if they are ancient they come from a (genuine) old collection, or a museum/antiquities store - OR they found their way into Egypt from the foreign antiquities market - a possibility that we cannot rule out, it depends who these "criminals" were and what kind of activity they were involved in.

It is apparently a futile hope that we will be told much more by the Egyptian authorities, so for the moment these two objects and the origins of the other two which somehow wandered out of the Museum will remain a mystery - at least until there is a new government and hopefully we will see a government enquiry into the way this crisis came about and was dealt with as there are many unanswered questions.
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More Museum Confusion (Part 1): "it's quite simple really" - Well, no, no its not...

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The sorry saga of the mixup over what objects went missing from the Egyptian Museum and what has come back continues. A while ago we were told in an SCA press release (repeated by a number of newspapers as well as included on the blog of the present Minister Dr Hawass) that the shabti JE 68984 had returned to the Museum, having been found in a big black bag at the Shubra metro station by a Ministry official on his way to work (NB, Dr Hawass has now changed the number on his blog, cf the original SCA news briefing) .

I wrote about this, but then compared the photo given in the press reports with that on the Museum's list of missing objects and found that JE 68984 when photographed before the theft had no split in it, whereas the recovered one does. My conclusion was that the thieves had not looked after the objects properly and I was concerned about the condition of the rest. Vincent Brown then looked more carefully and found that there had been a mixup, the shabti that had been recovered was JE 68982 and not 68984. I wrote a text suggesting that when there are only four items to check off an illustrated list of thirty or so (and the Ministry published a photo of the Museum's director and a commission of other guys doing exactly this), it should not be so difficult to have got the identity correct and suggested that this - taken with other features - was symptomatic of an organizational shambles.

Last night Cairo based Egyptologist Nicole Hansen put a text up on the Facebook page about the Museum, relaying - so it would seem - a message from Yasmin El-Shazly head of documentation there. I am going to cite it in full but in two parts, the first here (the second - because of the unrelated subject matter - I will answer in a post below). Part one reads as follows:

I saw Yasmin el-Shazly tonight and found out there is a very reasonable explanation for the shabti mixup. The press release about the return of the shabti was written by someone who hadn't seen the shabti, nor who worked at the museum. They... just selected any photo to illustrate the story. Just like you see many news stories illustrated by file photos that have nothing to do directly with the story itself. This was a news release, not an academic paper.

Phew. The press release was written by somebody who did not know what on earth they were writing about? How is this supposed to deflect the comments I made about the disorganization in the release of information? But what we are now being told makes no sense at all. The press release came from the office of the Minister. We have photos of the four retrieved objects being displayed in the ministry. The objects returned were all photographed, somewhere, by Rania Galal. There is a photograph of all four of them laid out together on a white background on Hawass' blog. The little vignette here is blown up from that photo. Though its fuzzy I think it can be seen that the object has the split down the front that characterises JE 68982 and not 68984. JE 68982 was clearly the object that was lying on Zahi Hawass' desk on March 12th. JE 68982 is the shabti which is illustrated in the newspaper articles, NOT because somebody took a stock photo at random from an archive, but because this was the object photographed along with the other three by Rania Galal. I really do not see how Yasmin El-Shazly (was she there at the Ministry when the press release was written?) can claim otherwise.

The photograph was of the object that was retrieved, but in the press release - written by somebody entrusted by the Ministry or maybe museum, for some reason the object was called "JE 68984". Here is that number used by Discovery News, Egyptology News, Luxor Times, and so on and so on, it's not just me that is making this up. The mistaken information comes from an official Egyptian news source and I really do not see why there has to be a long international discussion about the fact that the shabti was wrongly identified. What however is clear is that the whole point of publishing lists of stolen artefacts is so that they can be correctly identified.
Here is a photo by Rania Galal, taken in (I think) Zahi Hawass' office, showing Dr Tarek Al Awady, the Egyptian Museum's current director picking up the shabti with the second (horizontal format) version of the missing objects list on his knee. After this he is quoted in many newspaper articles giving the incorrect identification of the recovered shabti, telling the world that it was shabti JE 68984 that was returned when in fact it was JE 68982 that was returned:

“The second returned object is one of the 10 missing shabtis of Yuya and Tjuya (JE 68984). It is still in very good condition; it does not require restoration and will be placed on display again immediately, stated Dr. Tarek El-Awady, Director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.”

If this is the case, why, if there was a mixup of photos in Hawass' office, was the Director of the museum also giving the same wrong information to the press? Could he not read his own notes?
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