CyberNews-04 (2 November 2005)
1) More on those ‘missing’ items in the Egyptian Museum basement
2) Reports of damage to items in the Egyptian Museum
3) Plans for the Egyptian Museum basement
4) New laws for smugglers and thieves of Egyptian
antiquities
5) Plans to force more artifact repatriation from
abroad
6) New robot to probe pyramid shafts
7) Egypt and Sudan plan joint Nubian museum
8) Planned Imhotep Museum at Saqqara
9) Major piece discussing the Egyptian mode of Ramadan
10) Cells of Egypt’s earliest monks discovered
1) More on those ‘missing’ items in the Egyptian
Museum basement
The three Ancient Egyptian limestone statuettes which disappeared three
weeks ago from the basement of the Egyptian Museum have been recovered
in an undercover operation. It seemed that the Egyptian
Museum's basement had been afflicted with the Pharaohs' curse. Three
weeks ago, when the Giza archaeological inspectors asked for the return
of 14 objects placed on loan with the museum last April to celebrate
World Heritage Day, curators realised that three of the pieces had
vanished. In an attempt to find the missing objects up to 40 inspectors
have been exploring the museum's basement, sorting through the
overwhelmingly large collection of stored artefacts, but with no luck.
That was until early this week, when the Tourism and Antiquities Police
(TAP) arrested two men who were trying to sell the objects to a
policeman working undercover as an antiquities trader. Culture Minister
Farouk Hosni has called for an investigation into the theft.
Major-General Abdel-Hafiz Abdel-Karim, director of TAP, told Al-Ahram
Weekly that the two men belonged to a team of workmen engaged in the
restoration of the basement. The duo concealed the statuettes in cement
bags and removed them from the museum with rubble they were clearing
during restoration.
The men were able to escape with the objects as they were not subject
to routine security checks. They hid them in a house overlooking a
canal in Ayatt, Giza, and tried to sell them by showing photographs to
antiquities traders. Abdel-Karim said that TAP were tipped off and sent
an undercover agent who offered LE500,000 for the statuettes. The pair
were arrested as they handed them over.
Al-Ahram Weekly
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/764/eg4.htm
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Egyptian police arrested two men on Saturday in connection with the
disappearance of three 3000-year-old Pharaonic statues from the
basement of the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo. Police captured the
men, both of them employees of a company contracted to do restoration
work in the museum, in a sting operation with officers presenting
themselves as antiquities dealers.
The statues, one representing a man and his wife side by side, another
the head of the royal guard and the third an unknown character,
vanished from the museum last month under mysterious circumstances.
Police said that the suspects smuggled the artifacts out of the
building in bags that they used to remove rubble from the basement of
the museum, which explained why they were not searched at the gates.
The arrests men came just days after culture minister Farouk Hosni
ordered a probe into reports about damage to another Pharaonic statue,
also during restoration work at the museum.
Middle East Times
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20051010-044840-6919r
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2) Reports of damage to items in the Egyptian Museum
On Tuesday (Farouk Hosni) ordered a probe into the reports, asking
Attorney General Maher Abdel-Wahid to investigate the matter only hours
after the country's top antiquities official dismissed the reports as
being unfounded. The Egyptian press, quoting museum officials, had
reported that a statue of Khafre (2576-2551 BC), the fourth dynasty
king and builder of the second pyramid at Giza, had been found damaged
in the basement.
Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Hawas, however,
refuted the claims the Agence France Presse reported, saying they were
"untrue." He said the statue the press described was small and bore no
inscriptions to suggest that it was of Khafre.
"This statue is in good condition and was never damaged since its
discovery in 1988 west of the pyramid of King Khafre and transferred to
the Egyptian Museum," the statement said.
The Daily Star
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=4&article_id=19062#
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Egyptian Culture Minister Faruq Hosni ordered a probe into reports
about mysterious damage to a pharaonic statue during restoration work
at the Egyptian Museum. He asked Attorney General Maher Abdul Wahid to
investigate the matter, the official MENA news agency reported, only
hours after the country's top antiquities official dismissed the
reports as being unfounded.
The Egyptian press, quoting museum officials, had reported that a
statue of Khafre (2576-2551 BC), the fourth dynasty king and builder of
the second pyramid at Giza, had been found damaged in the basement.
Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawas
refuted the reports in a statement received by AFP, saying they were
"untrue."
"This statue is in good condition and was never damaged since its
discovery in 1988 west of the pyramid of King Khafre and transferred to
the Egyptian Museum," the statement said. But Hosni insisted that
he was determined to find the officials responsible for wrecking the
treasure, ignoring his subordinate's denials.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/763/he2.htm
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3) Plans for the Egyptian Museum basement
After its many problems last year, the Supreme Council for Antiquities
(SCA) has started to develop the basement of the Egyptian Museum in the
light of the anxiety about the artefacts that have gone missing from
the basement. The development project will cost LE12 million, after the
committee registering the 600,000 or so artefacts has finished its work.
"There will be modern lighting, as well as new digital lockers for
storing artefacts. We will also register all the data about these
artefacts and their history. A file will be made for each antiquity.
Each file will include the history of the artefact, the material which
it is made from, its description, how and when it was discovered, the
era it belongs to, its size, and who found it and where. In addition to
this, the position of each antiquity in the basement will be registered
and a photo of it will be enclosed in its file. The basement will also
be prepared to allow archaeologists to do research on these
antiquities. There will also be facilities for postgraduate students,
as well a database of the basement's contents," says Dr Zahi Hawass,
the SCA Secretary-General.
Mabrouk adds many of the artefacts in the basement have been gathering
dust in boxes for over a century. These boxes haven't been opened since
the Egyptian Museum was built. They include statues, pieces of masonry,
thousands of pieces of pottery from different ages, the skulls and
skeletons of Nubian men, and wooden biers.
Egyptian Gazette
http://www.algomhuria.net.eg/egyptian_mail/m2/
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4) New laws for smugglers and thieves of Egyptian
antiquities
Can the new antiquities law put an end to the antiquities trafficking
business? A draft of a new antiquities law replacing the current one,
Law 117/1983, is now awaiting the approval of the People's Assembly
after the coming legislative elections. According to Hawass: "The old
law is no longer suitable because the penalties it imposes for the
crimes of antiquity trafficking are not strong enough. We need more
severe penalties in order to stop further trafficking."
Ashraf Ashmawi, legal consultant in the SCA, told Al-Ahram Weekly that
changes in the 1983 law focussed on five articles. The first was
properly and legally to identify three main terms -- the SCA's
permanent committee, the inviolable area around every monument, and the
land found next door to the archaeological site -- in an attempt to
provide all necessary security measures and a healthy environmental
atmosphere.
The second article to be repealed is the section of the law allowing
possession of antiquities. A year after the approval of the law all
owners of Egyptian antiquities must hand over all objects to the SCA,
which in its turn will install them in their archaeological
storehouses. Ashmawi continued that Article 7 of the old law
stipulating that the police were the only department authorised to
remove any encroachments on archaeological sites or monuments had been
changed. Such responsibility is to be given to the SCA's
secretary-general, or to someone he entrusts, while the police agencies
will only be a safeguarding agency while executing the
secretary-general's decision. Article 30 has been added to the law
stipulating that the SCA is the only authority competent to carry out
restoration and preservation work for all Egyptian monuments,
archaeological sites and historical edifices. The minister of culture
will have the authority to assign any scientific authority or mission
to execute any such work, but under complete supervision of the SCA's
secretary-general.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/766/he1.htm
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5) Plans to force more artifact repatriation from
abroad
Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) is taking legal steps to
retrieve some antiquities to be sold at auctions in the world. SCA
Secretary General Zahi Hawas said 13 websites were advertising Egyptian
antiquities for sale at auction this month, while the total for July
was 22 websites. SCA's Archaeological Department has collected all
brochures of these auction halls and forwarded them to Public Funds
Prosecution, said Hawas. He added that a SCA committee has carefully
compared the antiquities in the brochures with photos of Egypt's
missing antiquities.
"Some of the missing items belong to an Egyptian trader, while others
has gone missing from the museum at Cairo University's Faculty of
Archaeology and the storehouse of the university's Faculty of Arts, as
well as from an archaeological area at Marina in Egypt's North Coast"
he said.
China View
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-10/11/content_3605822.htm
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The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) is taking legal steps to
retrieve some antiquities, which, according to the Internet, are to be
sold at auction halls. SCA Secretary-General Zahi Hawass stated
that 13 Web sites were advertising Egyptian antiquities for sale at
auction this month, while the total for July was 22 Web sites. The
SCA's Archaeological Department has collected all the brochures of
these auctions halls and forwarded them to Public Funds Prosecution,
said Hawass, adding that an SCA committee has carefully compared the
antiquities in the brochures with photos of Egypt's missing
antiquities. He added that some of the missing items belonged to an
Egyptian trader, while others had gone missing from the museum at Cairo
University's Faculty of Archaeology and the storehouses of the
university's Faculty of Arts, as well as from an archaeological area at
Marina, on Egypt's North Coast. The committee has identified the items
up for auction as antiquities that have gone missing from Egypt.”
Egypt Gazette
http://www.algomhuria.net.eg/gazette/2/
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6) New robot to probe pyramid shafts
Egypt will send a robot up narrow shafts in the Great Pyramid to try to
solve one of the mysteries of the 4,500-year-old pharaonic mausoleum,
Egypt's top archaeologist said on Monday. Zahi Hawass told Reuters he
would this week inspect a robot designed to climb the two narrow shafts
which might lead to an undiscovered burial chamber in the pyramid of
Cheops at Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo.
The shafts were last probed in September 2002, when a robot drilled a
hole through one of the stone panels to reveal a small empty space at
the end of which lay another panel, which appeared cracked and fragile.
The new robot, designed by a university in Singapore over two years,
would drill through that panel and the stone slab blocking the second
shaft.
MSNBC
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9653090/#storyContinued
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A robot is to be sent up two narrow shafts in the Great Pyramid in Giza
to discover whether a secret burial chamber contains the real tomb of
the pharoah Cheops, also known as Khufu. The chief Egyptian
archeologist, Zahi Hawass, is to inspect the robot designed by
Singapore scientists later this week.
New Zealand Herald
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10349858
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7) Egypt and Sudan plan joint Nubian museum
Egypt and Sudan will jointly establish a museum for Nubian antiquities
in Sudan’s Wadi Halfanear the borders with Egypt, Egypt’s official MENA
news agency reported Friday. It is part of a recently started giant
project of cooperation between the two countries in the field of
antiquities.
At a press conference at Egypt’s Alexandria Library, Regine Schulz,
chairperson of the International Committee of Egyptology at the
International Council of Museums (ICOM), announced the start of the
project. The project would be held under the umbrella of ICOM and the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO), Schulz was quoted as saying.
Talking about Nubian museum in Wadi Halfa, Mohamed el-Beyali, director
of Upper Egypt’s department of antiquities, said that the establishment
of the museum is an important project coming as part of continued
cooperation between Cairo and Khartoum in the field of antiquities.
Sudan Tribune
http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=11966
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8) Planned Imhotep Museum at Saqqara (By Zahi Hawass)
We have begun a new phase of the site management programme at Saqqara
by building new offices, new facilities, and housing for foreign
expeditions on the plateau. Later every modern building on the plateau
will be demolished. However, the most important building, not built
yet, will be a new museum, the Imhotep Museum. This museum will exhibit
major artefacts discovered on the site, which is why we call it a site
museum.
The Imhotep Museum is just one of many new ones being built on
archaeological sites as part of the site management programme. For
example, near the temple of Kom Ombo, we are now building a site museum
for crocodiles, representing the god Sobek. We also plan to build a
desert museum in Dakhla and a museum in Bahariya Oasis to showcase the
golden mummies.
The site museum complex of Imhotep will include a cafeteria and a
bookshop. Before tourists enter the museum, a short film about the
site's history will be shown in the visitors' centre. In the museums's
centre, we will construct a large model of the tiled wall of the Step
Pyramid's southern tomb. This wall will have blue tiles and scenes that
show Djoser wearing ceremonial dress for the Heb-sed festival.
Al-Ahram Weekly
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/763/he2.htm
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9) Major piece discussing the Egyptian mode of Ramadan
During the holy month of Ramadan, Muslims around the world unite in
religious belief and tradition, while retaining their distinctive
cultures. Jill Kamil looks at how this dynamic manifested itself in
Egypt over the ages. When Amr Ibn Al-Aas built the first mosque in
Africa in the area of Fustat, it was a simple mud-brick structure,
rectangular in shape, its roof supported by columns and covered with
palm trunks and branches much like contemporary Egyptian buildings -- a
far cry from these computer renditions of the dome and colonnades of
today's restored building in marble, mosaics and gilded Quranic
inscriptions
It should come as no surprise that Islam, as practised in Egypt after
the arrival of Amr Ibn Al-Aas in the seventh century -- when it put an
end to another brief period of Persian rule -- should take on a
distinctive local flavour because such was the enduring nature of the
ancient Egyptian civilisation that whoever acceded to power and ruled
the country for a certain length of time became Egyptianised.
Whether in honour of their sheikhs or saints, Muslims and Christians
make pilgrimages to holy sites today that resemble one another in
preparation and ritual and have continued through the millennia. Tents
are erected around the church or tomb and the area is decorated with
flags, banners and lights. The night before the celebration, stalls
sell toys, sweets and trinkets. The highlight of the occasion is the
great zaffa, a procession through the streets carrying a picture of the
Muslim sheikh or Christian saint. Votive offerings or pieces of cloth
are torn from the clothing of the pilgrims and placed on the tomb near
the relics, or on trees, and the celebration is accompanied by music
and dancing.
The Muslim mulid celebrated in Luxor during the month of Shaaban
closely resembles the ancient Egyptian Opet festival depicted in the
colonnade of the Luxor temple, where sailing boats placed on carriages
traverse the city bedecked with flags and filled with rejoicing people.
Ancient Egyptian traditions have broken through the time barrier.
Al-Ahram Weekly
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/764/heritage.htm
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10) Cells of Egypt’s earliest monks discovered
Egypt Men have retreated to the desert for centuries in search of God,
drawn by the quiet and the isolation, by a feeling of divine presence
in the barren landscape, in the sand, the wind and the sun.
Maximous Elantony, a Coptic monk, knew that. He too was drawn to the
desert in search of a relationship with God. But he could hardly
believe it when he recently helped to discover some of the earliest
physical evidence of Christians who made that quest as well.
Working with contractors, and with the help of the Egyptian Supreme
Council of Antiquities, he found one basin, and then, mysteriously, a
second. The second was a bit deeper down than the first, and in the
wrong position to have been part of Apostle Church. "The direction of
this one, could not be for this church," he said pointing at the second
basin. So they kept digging, pulling away flooring and stone until they
found the foundation of an 8th-century church, the entire foundation
beneath the floor of the 15th-century church.
International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/27/news/journal.php#
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