Sunday 11 March 2012

Egypt: Excavations Suspended at Some Sites to Allow Robbing to go on?

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This undated letter to foreign archaeologists is from the website of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities:
The SCA are not intended to stop any excavation work in Egypt, except for some sites which are under threat from robbery according to the security reports. Therefore, the Permanent Committee has suspended only some excavation work for some missions due to the security status of each site.[...] Dr. Mohamed Ismail Khaled, Director of the P. Committee & Foreign Missions Affairs
So it would seem that rather than having archaeologists on site to try to record what is revealed and destroyed by the robbing, and urge prevention, the Egyptians are washing their hands of certain sites, acquiescing to the situation and throwing up their hands in helplessness? Why, what they need now to make the picture complete is to set up a Portable Antiquities Scheme like they have in England and make the looters their "partners".

How many of the sites investigated by foreign missions are threatened by robbery according to SCA figures? How many sites not investigated by foreign missions are threatened by robbery according to SCA figures, and what are the SCA trying to do about it?

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