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?

"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.

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.

US Archaeological Institute Urges US Import Controls to Curb Egypt Looting

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A delegation of individuals representing US associations and foundations interested in safeguarding Egypt’s antiquities from theft will visit Cairo from 16 to 19 May. Headed by Deborah Lehr, president of the Capitol Archaeological Institute at George Washington University, the delegation is working with the relevant Egyptian bodies to investigate how to stop organized theft at archaeological sites and preserve the shared human heritage of Egypt’s past. On March 15, 2011, UNESCO called for international mobilization to block the trade in cultural artefacts stolen from Egypt. The Institute has posted the call to action on its web page and encourages US readers to sign the online version of the petition. Recognizing that the market in undocumented and illicit artefacts is the motor of looting and smuggling, the GW Capitol Archaeological Institute urges the President and U.S. Congress to:

• Direct the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies to use their authority to prevent illegal trade in Egyptian cultural objects;
• Direct the Department of State and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency to implement import restrictions on undocumented artifacts from Egypt;
• Direct the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations to coordinate with foreign counterparts to initiate targeted law enforcement operations to seize stolen cultural property, arrest criminals and seize and confiscate proceeds; and
• Direct the U.S. Agency for International Development to grant additional funds for protection at archaeological sites.

In addition, the Institute encourages the International Criminal Police Organization to use its telecommunications system with respect to possible crimes involving Egyptian cultural property and to identify suspicious financial transactions which can lead to the freezing and confiscation of proceeds. It also urges the U.S. Congress to designate funds for the protection of Egyptian antiquities as part of its economic aid package.

Egyptian Authorities Arrest Police Officer for Possessing Artefacts

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Al-Masry Al-Youm reports ('Authorities arrest police officer for possessing artifacts', 14/05/2011):

A police officer and two others with three statues in their possession have been arrested. A security source said they were apprehended on Wahat Road, in 6th of October City in Giza, when a police ambush stopped their car for inspection. "The three artifacts are of the head of the pharaonic queen Nefertiti. One is 7cm long, and the other two measure 15cm. They are suspected to be antiquities," said the source. He added that the suspects confessed that they intended to sell the pieces. A police report was filed and the appropriate authorities notified to examine the statues.

[The article is accompanied by a photo of a wooden arm which does not seem to be related to the text]. I guess we will have to wait until tomorrow to learn if these are some of the missing Amarna pieces from the Egyptian Museum. Let us recall that it was reportedly a policeman involved in the attempted robbery at Karnak at the beginning of the 'revolt', and that it looks like the vandalism and looting of the Egyptian Museum was not the work of outsiders. Or were these three pieces of statuary looted from somewhere else? Or are they again tourist fake antiquities (copies of the bust of Nefertiti for example) which have been mistaken by Egyptian law enforcement authorities for originals?

UPDATE 18th May 2011: Several days on, we have learnt nothing more about these arrests and the objects that were seized. Silence. Why?

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

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 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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More Museum Confusion (part 2), "notorious" in some circles maybe, but not for that

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As I mentioned in the post above, Cairo based Egyptologist Nicole Hansen put a text up on a facebook group of 1000 members about the Cairo Egyptian Museum. It is apparently a message from Yasmin El-Shazly head of documentation at Cairo Museum. I cited the first part about an alleged mixup of photographs above. Here is what she writes in the second part:

By the way, Yasmin also asked me to relay the following message, because Paul censored and did not approve her message when she replied to his attack on her on his own blog: If any of you, especially Paul due to his background in medieval European coins that makes him more knowledgeable about the artifacts in the Egyptian Museum than the museum's own staff, find any inconsistencies or errors in the list that she compiled of the stolen artifacts, then kindly send them to Yasmin directly so she can correct them.

Well, first of all, I am not at all sure which of my posts here qualifies for the label "attack on her". She wrote critically of me on the Facebook page mentioned above - as is her right - I answered her here, as is my right. I also wrote to her perfectly civilly privately - which she either did not receive or is ignoring.

Certainly if she sent something through blogger here, I did not receive it. I would encourage her to send it again. I certainly would not have "censored" or rejected her reply, even if I disagreed with it. We are on the same side after all. So Yasmin, send it again, please - or to the email address I sent you and I'll post it for you.

But Yasmin, I really must take exception to the comment: "Paul due to his background in medieval European coins that makes him more knowledgeable about the artefacts in the Egyptian Museum than the museum's own staff". In your earlier text you labelled me "notorious", so that suggests you actually know something about me. What is this nonsense about Medieval coins? I am not a coiney !! How dare you !! (that's in ironic script) The coin collecting fraternity also will be mightily angered that you count me as one of their number as I gather I have a certain notoriety among a section of them, and its not for my "background in Medieval European coins"...

Certainly I do not claim to be "more knowledgeable about the artefacts in (or missing from) the Egyptian Museum than the museum's own staff". Like the Museum's staff and many other people (look at the news coverage you are getting) I am concerned about what happened on 28th January, I am concerned that there is so much confusion about what actually happened and who actually was involved.* Why is it wrong, in your opinion, to ask questions when something is left unclear - especially when it seems that the lack of clarity is deliberate?

And by the way, it was Vincent Brown, not me, who was the one to spot that the artefact in the photographs was not the one the press release says. I just assumed that if the Egyptian authorities say it is the one they say it is, it is.

Like it or not, interest in ancient Egypt, the Egyptian Museum and the global antiquities trade is international. On 29th January we all saw a shocking video of bits strewn across the floor of your museum. While I am sure most members of staff of your museum knew full well what most of the bits on the floor were, it was left to bloggers here (Margaret Maitland in particular), unaided as far as I am aware by anyone from the Museum, to try and work out what pieces were affected. From the beginning, we were told one thing and all saw something quite different. This was the beginning of the attempts of some people to try and piece together the conflicting pieces of evidence to reach some kind of understanding. Even today the museum staff seems to be doing very little to aid that process, and whatever information emerges still seems intended to sow the seeds of confusion. Like your "wrong photo" shabti-story (see above). You complained that you are getting too little support, how about first a little openness with those you expect to support you?

But certainly, I hope people send any "inconsistencies or errors in the list" of the missing artefacts, which Yasmin, it now turns out, compiled so she can correct them. It would be helpful if she could give out with such a request/ suggestion / offer an email address to which they can be sent...

*(for the reasons I indicated when I wrote to you privately, if you did not get it, send me another email address and I will try again).

Vignette: denar of Mieszko II king of Poland... (it's a fake, not a dugup, so OK to collect )

Egypt: Four More Artefacts Recovered

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Four authentic ancient Egyptian artefacts, two of which were reported stolen from the Egyptian Museum 28th have been retrieved today (Nevine El-Aref , Four more artefacts are back in the Egyptian museum, 2nd May 2011)

Today the tourism and antiquities police succeeded in retrieving four ancient Egyptian artefacts, two of which were reported missing from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir. The criminals were caught red-handed. Zahi Hawass, minister of state for antiquities affairs, assigned an archaeological committee headed by the Egyptian Museum Director, Tarek El-Awadi, to check on the authenticity of such pieces and whether they belong to the Egyptian museum. Hawass told Ahram Online that the four bronze statutes date to the Late Period. Two of them were from the Egyptian Museum that was looted during the January 25 Revolution. The statues depict the god of prosperity, Osiris, and the other two feature the god Harpocrate[s], which represents the god Osiris in his childhood. El-Awadi confirms that the other two are authentic items, but not from those on the list of the objects that are reported missing after the January Revolution. The committee is now investigating whether they are from any museum or archaeological site in Egypt. One of the statues is 37.5cm tall depicting the god Osiris and the second is an 18cm statue of the god Horus when he was a child. This brings the count of missing objects from the Egyptian museum to 31 objects out of 54 reported missing.

Well, except Hawass said on 12th April: "We are still missing 37 objects from the Egyptian Museum, but I hope that soon we will be able to find them all and return them to the Museum", and added the fan stock 62006 to the "still missing" list as was pointed out on this blog.

The two recovered statues probably are (no confirmation yet) Harpocrates JE 67925 (Missing list second version, page 27/42 from case P19 centre E vit Z) and the Osiris is presumably JE 22040 (Missing list second edition, page 4/42, P 19 S8 vit K). So they come from Room 19 like those in the 17th March 'sting', so were presumably part of the loot taken by men who were with Ahmed Attia Mahmod, the friend of his who owns a coffee shop in the same district and a third partner (the "coffee shop gang"). These three are perhaps (among) the guys who were imprisoned on or by the 15th April (?).

So these other men (the "May 2nd gang") were caught "red handed" - why have they only been apprehended now, and what were they doing when they were caught (and where)? It looks like these men were not among those who had been in the museum - because if they were part of the coffee-shop gang they would surely have been arrested soon after the other three, not six weeks later. Perhaps these (plural) newly-caught men may be dealers to whom the first men (the "coffee shop gang") had already managed to sell some items. It will be interesting to see where the other two items are determined to have been from. Were they omitted from the list of items taken from the Museum by mistake, or was the looting of the Museum not the ad hoc opportunistic event by "stupid" and disorientated thieves, but had some connection to an organized group involved in other antiquity looting?

It is possible therefore that some of the items taken by the group of men operating in the north and northwestern part of the museum had been sold before the 17th March sting. They may even have left the country before the three men selling the remaining 12 were arrested.

UPDATE 3/5/11: The Luxor Times confirms that the two museum statues were JE 67925 and JE 22040. The calcite base (modern) of the Osiris was apparently left in the Museum.

Citizens Foil Sale of Pharaonic Statuette

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Meanwhile heartening news from Egypt, citizens are reported to have foiled an illicit transaction involving an antiquity (Hassan Ahmed Hussine, 'Sale of pharaonic statuette foiled', Al-Masry Al-Youm 01/05/2011).

Egypt's security authorities foiled the attempted sale of a statuette that investigators said carries pharaonic inscriptions. The piece is 50cm tall and stands on a 50cm wide platform. In front of it there are three other statuettes, each 21cm high. The two culprits, aged 39 and 36, were arrested after citizens informed security authorities of their possession and the intended sale. Both are unemployed. One said during initial questioning that he had agreed with his partner to hide the object in his house until the deal went through. He said they had obtained the statuette through a middleman from Luxor.

The description is most intriguing. Is the suggestion that the piece was dug up in illicit diggings in the Luxor region?

Vignette. I do not know, but maybe its something like this?

UPDATE 11.05.11
Aha! More details from the Luxor Times ('Granite statue of a Ramesside priest found genuine',11 May 2011):

A statue was seized and kept at a Police station in south Cairo and a committee was formed from the Ministry of Antiquities to check if it is genuine. The committee confirmed the authenticity of the granite statue which dated back to the Ramesside period (ca. 1300 B.C) The statue represents a priest sitting with 3 figures represents Osiris, Isis and a priest. The statue bears hieroglyphic depictions. The pink granite statue measures 56 cm high a d 28 cm wide.

They seem to love creating "commissions" instead of getting an expert opinion. Anyway, this is what it looked like - my guess, a shot in the dark, was pretty close, eh? I imagine that weights a bit, rather more than could go in a big bag on the train.


So, the seizure was apparently in south Cairo. I wonder if the two men already had established how they were going to get the item onto the market?

Archaeological Looting in Egypt, on a Greater Scale than Admitted?

The piece by Kent Weeks Can Egypt Protect Its Ancient Monuments? addresses a concern I raised here earlier. He mentions in passing the looting of archaeological sites that started with the outbreak of political instability:

"Gangs of armed treasure hunters took advantage of the chaos and began plundering ancient tombs and antiquities storerooms throughout Egypt. The robberies are ongoing and thought to exceed 400 incidents so far".

Four hundred incidents is a far higher figure than has been emerging from Egypt where the lack of news perhaps tends to create the impression that with the recreation of the Ministry of State for Antiquities Affairs and re-establishment of site guards, the crisis is over. It seems from what Weeks says, we were seeing only the beginning.

Once again we see antiquities, and reliable information about them, the pawn of political agendas. Yet if there is to be any concerted action outside Egypt to deal with the trade in illictly-obtained artefacts, the problem of the ongoing looting needs to be kept in the public eye. For this to have any credibility this needs to have more substance than the loud triumphant trumpeting repatriation of a few antiquities now and then of doubtful authenticity as we have seen in the past few days.

Where are the inventories of the looted storerooms? Why is there not an online register of what is missing? This is what the 1970 UNESCO Convention requires Egypt to do (Article 5g) if it is to hope for effective international support in getting the stolen goods returned. The outside world can't help Egypt if Egypt does not supply the information needed to help it !

How Can Egypt Protect Archaeological Sites From Destruction?

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Kent Weeks has a very well-presented piece in Newsweek called: Can Egypt Protect Its Ancient Monuments? which details some of the problems facing the country in the field of the preservation of its archaeological sites from damage and destruction. The text is well worth reading.

The archaeological sites of Egypt face many threats, one of the problems is that many of them sites are crowded into the same areas as modern activity, and the needs of looking after the legacy of the past have to be balanced with the present and future development of the country.

In truth, no one knows how many archeological sites are in Egypt: 5,000 is an oft-quoted figure, but other experts say there are many more. Some sites are tiny—graffiti scratched on a cliff face, or a small cemetery. Others, like Giza, cover several square kilometers filled with thousands of tombs and pyramids. Thebes (modern Luxor) boasts thousands of tombs, temples, shrines, and villages. The Valley of the Kings alone is chockablock with scores of elegantly decorated tombs, including that of the boy king Tutankhamun. Sites lie beneath the streets of modern cities, in fields along the Nile, in desert wastelands, and distant oases—even beneath the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. They span thousands of years and represent several cultural and religious traditions—Neolithic, dynastic Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim. In Egypt, one is rarely out of sight of an ancient monument.

Unfortunately, it is no exaggeration to say that every one of them is threatened with destruction — and theft and vandalism are the least of the problems. The graver threats are more subtle: changes in the environment, such as increasing temperatures and humidity, air pollution, and rising ground water; the expansion of industries, farms, and cities into archeological zones; and, perhaps worst of all, the growth of mass tourism and the burgeoning infrastructure required to support it.

Wider public attention has been drawn in recent weeks to the problem of their preservation by the looting which has taken place. In the last week of January, police throughout Egypt abandoned their posts, leaving hundreds of archaeological sites unguarded. Political changes left the the Supreme Council of Antiquities rudderless and confused: "Gangs of armed treasure hunters took advantage of the chaos and began plundering ancient tombs and antiquities storerooms throughout Egypt. The robberies are ongoing and thought to exceed 400 incidents so far". While the looting of sites is just one of the problems facing the antiquities preservation authorities in the country, it is one that takes up a large quantity of the resources available for the task. Weeks then turns to the organization which is charged with looking after these monuments, he describes the arsenal of resources it has to do this as limited and somewhat outdated.

The SCA is a bloated bureaucracy. It employs 58,000 people; about two thirds are local security guards, poorly paid, untrained, and unarmed.
There are also between 20,000 and 30,000 Tourist and Antiquities Police, part of the Ministry of the Interior (not the SCA), who are posted at sites and museums most heavily visited by foreign tourists. Though a pervasive presence, they are an unreliable one, as demonstrated by their immediate and wholesale disappearance early in the revolution. Many still have not returned to duty.
The SCA’s on-site inspectors, who are supposed to administer and preserve the country’s heritage, are underpaid and unmotivated. Most are young and —for the first few years, at least— enthusiastic about their job. But the low salary and near-universal reluctance of their superiors to delegate authority leads to frustration. A large number leave to become tourist guides. Instead of taking 300 Egyptian pounds a month from the SCA (about $50), they can earn six or seven times that amount as guides.

Let us note that Week's figures suggest that there are some 60 000 people who are employed as guards, to keep looters off the sites. Collectors who say "more should be done" to protect sites from looters have failed to suggest where the finances to employ even 60 000 people at a reasonable salary, let alone the number that would be required to keep an even closer watch. Surely nearly all this money could be saved and directed towards conservation if dealers and collectors would simply stop buying artefacts without any questions establishing they come from legitimate sources, thus reducing dramatically reducing the incentive to loot sites for collectables that will find a buyer even if illicitly obtained.

Looking after archaeological sites costs a lot of money, everywhere. Tourists visiting monuments (though not all sites) generate income but:

the SCA is perennially underfunded, even though archeological tourism generates considerable income. In December 2010 ticket sales to sites in Luxor alone earned $30 million for Egypt. But [since tourism is one of the country's main sources of income] much of this money goes to the government treasury.

As Weeks points out, "almost every branch of government wants some control over that income and wants as much of it as possible for themselves, focusing only on short-term gain". The pressures tourism inflicts on tombs and temples is enormous, yet no long-term comprehensive management plan to protect them has yet been agreed upon. Weeks mentions the redevelopment of Luxor to generate more tourist revenue which I wrote about on this blog last year."The plan is already doing irreparable harm to many of Luxor’s monuments, demolishing historic buildings, paving over archeological sites, moving whole villages and thousands of Egyptians far away from tourist centers and ancient monuments. Many archeologists and tourists, as well as many locals, believe that these acts are turning the largest archeological zone in the world into a gaudy theme park designed only to make money in the short term". Weeks makes some recommendations for the future:

What should be done to protect Egypt’s monuments? Here’s a list on which most Egyptologists agree:

Consult with local and international agencies and specialists to develop and implement long-term management plans.
Train on-site inspectors and give them greater responsibility.
Design better security for sites and museums.
Allocate more money for site conservation and documentation.
Take a strong stand against commercial and political interests that threaten the monuments.

Egypt’s archeological patrimony is humankind’s as well, and requires urgent efforts if it is to be saved for future generations. Egypt’s revolution, and the energy of the youth that drove it, captured the world’s imagination and gave renewed hope for the country’s future. It would be a tragedy if this were not also translated into a renewed commitment to its past.

Let us hope the new government that will eventually be created in place of military law will set about creating conditions for this to be put into action. We can help, by creating conditions in which the trade in illicit artefacts from the looting of sites and museum storerooms and galleries cannot function. That seems the least we can do to help the Egyptians protect the archaeological heritage of that part of the planet's surface.

How Does this Sort of thing Happen?

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Rather embarrassing, but I am sure it was dealt with consummate diplomatic delcacy by the recipients of a rather special gift. A delegation from the Gaza strip led by former Palestinian minister of foreign affairs Mahmoud El-Zahar delivered some objects they believed had been looted from Egypt to Egypt’s Minister of State for Antiquities on Thursday. The pieces were found in the Gaza strip "with Palestinians who were caught red-handed and accused of smuggling antiquities". The pieces concerned are black "granite " (sic) statues apparently "depicting an ancient Egyptian god" and "an ushabti figurine". But this is apparently what they look like:



It probably did not however take very long for the MSAA ("an archaeological committee from the MSAA, led by Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud, general supervisor of the Minister's office") to determine that these objects were replica statues and not genuine pieces. If this was the only evidence against the "smugglers" from whom they were confiscated, then they are owed at the least an apology. These fakes are not even good fakes, the head is a ridiculous fake. Now its not the fault of the former Minister of foreign affairs, recognising authentic and fake antiquities is not one of the tasks normally expected of a minister. But surely the Palestinians have archaeologists who should have been consulted before a diplomatic mission made a bit of fool of itself... but of course the intended gesture was indeed praiseworthy. This is not the only case, there's some doubt in my mind about the Mexican relief due to come back soon if it really is the one pictured in the newspaper article about it the other day, then we have the Jordanians crowing that they got some leaden tablets forming part of the same assemblage as the David Elkington ones....

All of this only goes to show how many FAKES there are on the no-questions-asked market masquerading as authentic and looted. Caveat emptor- verifiable documentation of legitimate provenance at once sorts out the wheat from the chaff.

Could diplomatic exchanges not begin in future with an exchange of photos of the antiquities that are being returned, so diplomats receiving them know what to expect and newspapers can have the photos to show citizens what they are getting back?

Nevine El-Aref , 'Palestine handed over to Egypt two objects thought to be antiquities', 28 Apr 2011.

UPDATE: This case is discussed on Dr Hawass' blog: 'Objects Returned to Egypt', Apr 30th 2011. It turns out that the men accused of smuggling had been jailed, Dr Hawass said he asked the Palestinians to release them because these objects were not antiquities and no law had been broken.

It turns out that Mahmoud al-Zahar's journey to Hawass' office was the first stop in a journey from Gaza to visit Sudan, Syria and Turkey — a trip they could never have taken under Mubarak, and indicating a significant realignment of Egypt's foreign policies. So the delivery of fake artefacts may have actually been only a cover.

"Absolutely Wrong, but I'm Not Telling You Where"

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Cairo based Egyptologist Nicole Hansen (28 kwietnia 15:37) talking about antiquity looting in Egypt and the Egyptian Museum in particular says:

Paul [...] You may be trying to make sense of things, but the one part of your latest blog post with which I am intimately familiar,I am 100% you are absolutely wrong. History will tell us what really happened and those who are really concerned about what is happening are doing things you don't see to deal with them, not spending their time on a soap box.

Less concerned about the "soap-box" jibe (another one who does not understand a blog is a blog, is a blog), I suggested off-list that it would be helpful if she would indicate where what I have said here in previous posts is misleading so I can deal with it. Sadly she declines, preferring to maintain an unhelpful I-know-something-you-don't stance, replying:

"You will know when the rest of the world does".

Well, that really "supports the Cairo Museum"! So Barford is wrong, but the accuser cannot say where exactly. Where have I heard that before? (All the time from antiquity collectors).

I really cannot see that in the post to which she refers (bears the tag 'personal') there is much to get "absolutely wrong", since it addresses the points on which I was chastised by Dr El Shazly and quite clearly mostly describes what I myself felt upon the news about the looting of artefacts from Cairo's museum and observing the embarrassing farce surrounding their "recovery", so beats me with what there Dr Hansen feels she is "intimately familiar". Still, its nice to see that somebody is confident that we will ever learn what really has been happening in the Museum.

So until then, readers are warned that somebody called Dr Hansen says that somewhere here is a gap between what I have suggested about the Museum looting and its background and what she knows is true. And since she is not willing to share this information with her professional colleagues, only time will perhaps tell where the discrepancy lies (lay). Perhaps she has proof that the "big black bag" story was true after all?

Vignette: Coy Dr Nicole claims to know something about antiquity Looting in Egypt we do not... and is not telling.

"The staff of the Egyptian Museum has seen very little support " (1)

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On Facebook, the following text apparently by Dr Yasmin El Shazly, Head of Documentation at The Egyptian Museum Cairo has been posted with the enjoinder "please circulate widely". It is dated 16th April 2011, but I only became aware of it today. In it we read:

I must admit that I am very disappointed at how some members of the international community have reacted to the looting of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. The staff of the Egyptian Museum has seen very little support (there are a few wonderful people who did offer a lot of support, which we very much appreciate), and a great deal of attacks, nitpicking, sarcasm, etc... without any effort to actually understand what's going on, or how much hard work the museum staff is putting and how very very difficult this has all been for all of us. All the negative postings and articles have put a lot of pressure on us. If this material contained any constructive criticism, and was actually sent to us, so that we could try to use it to improve things it would've been very much appreciated, but most of it is in the style of the notorious Paul Barford, who posts material with nothing but criticism, and is clearly far less interested in the actual wellbeing of the Egyptian Museum than in promoting himself. OK, so it's world heritage, but why doesn't the international community react that way when thefts happen in museums in other parts of the world??? Why are we being treated like we had borrowed these objects from them and that we need to constantly justify everything we do? Why are we being treated with so much mistrust? Like we are always lying or trying to hide something???? Don't people understand that the museum has close to 200 000 objects? Don't people understand that the army only allowed us into the museum on February 6th, 2011, and even then, we had no access to the database? Don't people understand that the army only allowed a very small number of people into the museum, before it was reopened to the public, and that we had to walk in groups of 10-15, escorted by army commandos? Not to mention that we had a revolution and spent some time without a minister or a head of the SCA! If the looting had happened in Paris, London or the US (without a revolution) would people have reacted the same way? I wonder!

Well, I am very sorry that Yasmin feels that "the staff of the Egyptian Museum has seen very little support" from outside. I am not quite sure what kind of help the international community could have offered in the circumstances. There were calls for international action to look out for the stolen artefacts if they had been smuggled out of the country, but we only learnt what was missing from the museum weeks later (much later than Feb 6th). It was impossible for outside specialists to come to the museum to help while the unrest was going on, and when there was an international mission in Egypt, it was strongly criticised by the Egyptians that it had come. Its not clear what the writer thinks is needed, money, advice, moral support only, being left alone? What kind of constructive advice could we offer Egyptian museum professionals? Has anyone seen any actual request for help from the Museum?

Certainly Yasmin, a lot of people - myself included - were (and are) deeply concerned for the safety of the Museum, the objects in it and the people who work in it in the current situation. We are, I would have thought, on the same side in this concern for what happened and why.

You mention me by name, critical of my commentary here on these events. I am going to answer those points below.

Let me assure you however I have deepest sympathy for those of my colleagues who have to work under such conditions and that I am very concerned indeed about what happened on 28th January, and about what has happened since. And it is precisely because of that concern that I do not think we should pass over such things in silence, and strive to get to the truth about what happened and why.
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Vignette: Wsparcie.