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The Looting in Egypt Has Increased (18th March 2011)
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In the last few days a new Minister of Culture, Dr Emad Abu-Ghazi has been appointed following the dismissal of Farouk Hosni. Dr Abu Ghazi is an intellectual with a background in history who was an Associate Professor at Cairo University and General Secretary of the Higher Council of Culture. The newly formed Ministry of Antiquities was going to be abolished and merged with the Ministry of Culture, but after protests against the merging of the two ministries by antiquities workers the Ministry of Antiquities has been given a reprieve, although it is still uncertain at this time what form the antiquities department will take, apart from it being an independent body under the direct supervision of the Cabinet, rather than the Ministry of Culture. This political manoeuvring is due to the sacking of the old Egyptian parliamentary cabinet by the military rulers, as such Dr Zahi Hawass was put in a difficult position and had to resign. The new head of the antiquities department will be elected in a referendum to be held on March 18th. On the list are: Dr. Alaa Shahine, Prof. Abdel Halim Nur el-Din, Dr Sabry al-Aziz, Dr Ali Radwan, Dr. Mamdouh Amr, Dr Mamdouh Amaty and Dr Mohammed Abdel-Maksoud.
The uncertainties about the form of the antiquities department combined with the withdrawal of the military from guarding archaeological sites and the failure of the tourist and antiquities police to fill the void left by their departure has resulted in a dramatic increase in looting of sites. Although there are antiquities staff at most sites, these are largely unarmed and unable to stop attacks by armed robbers. Reports are emerging of people building illegal houses, taking archaeological land for agriculture, and excavating at night at various sites throughout Egypt. The MoA has released several statements over the last few days, particularly regarding the most serious of crimes, looting of archaeological sites:
One such site that has been looted is Tell el-Fara’in (Buto) in the West Delta where a gang of 35 armed robbers broke into the magazine, and reports also emerge that illicit digging has been going on at the site. Buto is one of the most important multi-period sites in Egypt, with important Chalcolithic, Early Dynastic and New Kingdom remains. This magazine holds the material not just from Buto, but from all the central delta sites in the provinces of Baheira, Gharbiya, Kafr el-Sheikh and Minufiyeh.
An unnamed site in Northern Sinai was destroyed when looters arrived with a loader.
Looters also tried to attack the site of Quesna in the central Delta, famous for being the location of the only Dynasty III-IV mud-brick mastaba in the Delta, and its Late Period to Ptolemaic mausoleum and falcon galleries and later Roman burials. These would-be looters were repelled by the site guards, and no damage has been sustained at the site.
In the Wadi Tumilat the tomb of Kenamun at Tell el-Maskhuta, was completely destroyed, meaning that the beautiful tombs-scenes have been hacked out. It is the only known Dynasty XIX tomb in Lower Egypt and was only found last year by Nasrallah Fathy Kilany and Dr Mohammed Abdel-Maksoud. It is also most tragic because it has not been fully studied and published.
Illicit digging has also been conducted at Giza, near the Great Sphinx, where the looters broke into the tomb of Impy. Vandals also attempted to destroy other buildings and tombs in Giza, but they were unsuccessful.
In Abusir as well as a portion of the falsedoor stolen from the tomb of Rahotep, inscribed blocks were taken from the large tomb of Ptahshepses. Illicit excavation has also occurred at various locations around the site, including tombs and burial pits. According Miraslav Bárta this looting activity was the work of the local villagers.
In Saqqara, as well as the already reported inscribed blocks, falsedoor and other objects stored in the tomb of Inspector of Hairdressers Hetepka being stolen, reports are emerging of illegal construction near the pyramid of Merenre and the Mastaba Fara’un at South Saqqara. Although these illegal buildings can be bulldozed and break all Egyptian and international laws, they will have caused untold damage. There are also unconfirmed reports that the pyramid of Pepy I and Djedkare Isesi have been broken into.
The site of Buto |
Kom Aushim, the Faiyum |
Falsedoor from the tomb of Hetepka, Saqqara |
The Tomb of Ptahshepses, Abusir |
The Temple of Ramesses II at Abydos |
al-Muizz Street in Old Cairo |
Looting has also been going on at Lahun and Kom Aushim (Karanis) in the Faiyum region.
On the 11th February two Roman mummies were stolen from the storage magazine at Tuna el Gebel.
El Hibeh in northern Middle Egypt has also witnessed looting, although the extent is presently unclear.
Looters have also been caught excavating nearly every night at Abydos, site of the burial place of the first kings of Egypt. As many as 10 tombs per night are being ransacked and skeletal remains are littering the surface of the site. Some of these illegal trenches are as deep as five meters, severely damaging one of the most important sites in Egypt. The American Mission archaeological centre has also been looted. The army were said to have returned to the site on 6th March to protect it.
The guards at Kom Al-Ahmer (Gk. Hierakonpolis, An. Eg. Nekhen), north of Edfu, have caught several thieves attacking various locales at the site.
Two thieves equipped with drilling tools tried to carve out the 6 m tall statue of Ramses II embedded in the southern Aswan granite quarry. What they were going to do with it and how they intended to move it is not certain, and possibly something they had not thought about. Luckily the police and antiquities officials arrested them before they had completed the job.
The site of el-Zoulien, near San el-Hagar (Tanis), in the Sharqiyyah Governorate, has been damaged by villagers illegally farming the land and building houses on top of it. At Abu el-Hummus and Borg el-Arab the local villagers have also built walls and buildings on the site. A group of vandals attacked the Kléber Tower in Gamalia last night, which is next to the eastern wall of Old Cairo, and are still squatting inside the tower. Many sites in Upper Egypt have also been affected by illicit farming and building activities. This is not a new phenomenon and is a constant threat to the majority of archaeological sites all over Egypt, particularly those not on the tourist trail. In 2003 while visiting the Ptolemaic Roman site of Kom Umm el-Boreigat (Tebtynis) in the southern Faiyum we came upon a group of local sebakhin, who not content to vandalise the unexcavated area of the site with shovels and buckets were using three JCB loaders. With our police escort we immediately gave chase but lost them in the winding streets of the local village. The villagers saw nothing of the JCBs coming through the village and suggested that we had seen a mirage. Other threats to sites can come from other ministerial departments, in one instance a provincial government wanted to build a prison on top of a site; luckily this was stopped after strong protests from the SCA; later an Old Kingdom mastaba was found in the area they intended to build on.
Some Islamic monuments have also suffered during this crisis, such as the Sabil of Ali Bey Al-Kebir in Tanta, which was broken into and three windows of Msavat metal framework, furniture and the modern iron gate stolen. Later some of the pieces of the window were found in the possession of Tanta street merchants. Kom el-Nadoura near Alexandria suffered some damage to its doors and furniture. At Wekhalit el-Jeddawi, in Esna, some local people broke off the old locks and put on new ones; they then began a sit-in and protest in front of the wekhalit. It is unclear at present whether they are still inside the building or have been moved on. The Khan el-Zeraksha, a recently restored group of villas, was broken into by about 50 armed men, who forced the security team to leave. These criminals are still occupying the site. On 14th February another group of men broke the door to Wekhalit el-Haramin at Hussein, which falls under the Egyptian Awqaf Authority. The Egyptian army and the Awqaf Authority worked together and had the criminals out by the next day. With the destruction of the police station of el-Gamalia in the Khan el-Khalilli cars and donkeys are now traversing the important Medieval al-Muizz Street in the heart of Old Cairo. The police station was so located to ensure that no cars drove along this street where many of the buildings had recently been restored at a cost of one billion Egyptian pounds. The Mausoleum of Mohamed Sherif Pasha in Old Cairo was severely looted on 26th February, with the thieves stealing its large collection of antique furniture and other artefacts.
Coptic monasteries were attacked in the Wadi Natrun by the army at the end of February. Egyptian armed force stormed the 5th century St. Bishoy monastery wounding two monks and six Coptic monastery workers. The army also attacked the Monastery of St. Makarios of Alexandria in Wadi el-Rayyan, in the Faiyum, with one monk being shot and 10 injured. The attacks came after the monks built a temporary fence for their protection, after the police fled post and were attacked by criminals. The army claimed these fences were illegal and that they would remove them. At present it seems that in general damage and looting has been kept to a minimum at the Coptic monuments. Synagogues at present also seem to have largely escaped the looting.
Violations have also been reported at many other sites in various localities including: Alexandria, Ismailia, Bahariya, Sharqiyyah, Minya, and Sohag. The Selim Hassan Magazine at Giza, two magazines (one near the pyramid of Teti, and the magazine of Cairo University) and several storage tombs at Saqqara, the magazine of a Czech expedition at Abusir, magazines in Tell el-Basta and Wadi el-Feiran, near Sharm el-Sheikh, have all been subject to breaking and entering.
The 292 objects that were retrieved out of a total of 550 taken in the raid on the Qantara East Magazine, in the Sinai, have now been moved to the more secure storage facilities of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Although a new list of looted artefacts from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo has been circulating, as the accuracy of its source seems very dubious we have decided not to publish this list. The official list is still being compiled by Dr. Tarek El-Awadi (Director) and the curators in the Cairo Museum. Various committees and site inspectors across Egypt are currently preparing reports to determine the present condition and what, if anything is missing from the various magazines and sites.
Although the Egyptians are trying to defend themselves and the archaeology the attackers are becoming more violent and are often armed, overpowering and tying up the guards that are there to protect the sites. Although some of these attacks are opportunistic, taking advantage of the situation, others are more organised and systematic, possibly being organised by a small group of people. The career criminals that broke out of the prisons also seem to be involved in this looting spree. The question is how long are the police going to let this reign of chaos last before they restore order? It is unfair to the majority of the law abiding citizens of Egypt that a few criminals take advantage of this situation for a fast buck, depriving their children, grandchildren and the world of the wonders and knowledge of this great civilization. It is Egypt’s legal obligation to protect its heritage under the 1954 UNESCO Hague Convention. One of the major steps that can be taken and one of the pledges of those that have ratified the Convention is to create maps and inventories of the entire amount of cultural heritage within its territories. The most efficient means of doing this is to establish sites and monuments records (SMRs) or heritage environmental records (HERs). Although projects were started by CultNat and the EAIS, as highlighted in Managing Egypt’s Cultural Heritage these are not complete records, and much more rigorous records need to be compiled along with a national survey. The SMRs could then be used to create a risk map of sites that need protecting in times of armed conflict or civil unrest.
Some good news has emerged that a foreign diplomat was stopped at Cairo airport to have his bags scanned. He protested, but thankfully the guards insisted regardless of any diplomatic immunity that may or may not have been warranted, stating that these were exceptional circumstances. The inspection disclosed a statue hidden in one of his suitcases. The customs officers requested the help of Egyptologists, who examined the statue in question. After careful examination they confidently handed back the bag to this would-be villain, the experts assuring the foreign diplomat that he could take back the statue, as it was not a genuine artefact. This is not a unique case, in the last two years ECHO has heard of diplomats taking out huge statues and reliefs in diplomatic luggage, which can be the size of a container (lorry). Honest diplomats have no reason to not have their bags scanned for antiquities, and it would be good policy if they voluntarily had their bags scanned.
Several interesting websites have sprung up in the shadow of this looting crisis, such as the Penn Cultural Heritage Center, which has compiled a list with accompanying photographs of the antiquities currently known to be missing from Egypt. Another interesting website is the Egyptological Looting Database 2011. The Arab Archaeologists Union has promised to make funds available to the Egyptian government for the protection of antiquities, and a petition has been started urging Egypt’s transitional government to provide adequate protection for the sites and antiquities. Generally the atmosphere in Egypt is one of optimism, a feeling of joy that the country and its population are on the verge of a brand new era where their voices will count in shaping the future. It is important that the country’s cultural heritage is protected so that future generations can fully enjoy this hard won freedom.
Earlier related news items:
4th February 2011 "Protecting Egypt’s Cultural Heritage"
27th February 2011 "An Update on the state of Egyptian Cultural Heritage"
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