Wednesday 10 October 2012

Frederick Schultz Took the Rap for Mubarak?


A cultural property lawyer in the US published a text on her blog alleging that Hosni Mubarak gave ancient artefacts as political gifts, and on that basis another US cultural property lawyer is now suggested this gives grounds for arguing that the conviction of antiquities dealer Frederick Schultz should now be overturned on the basis that the items he was handling could have been gifts of the President of Egypt (October 9, 2012 Should the Shultz Conviction Be Vacated?). Well, I wish him the best of luck should he decide to take the case up in the US courts. It seems to me that the previous case had established where the items concerned had come from, and whose hands they had passed through. Mr Tokely has even written a book about it all. So, why did Mr Schultz stay silent about his political ties to Mr Mubarak then, and chose to go to jail instead?

 It is also suggested by the same lawyer that one might argue that the President of Egypt may have given the Ka Nefer Nefer mummy mask to a Belgian dealer back in the 1950s.

OK, so while in office it is alleged by the sources used by Alderman and Tompa that both Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger received such gifts of antiquities as "kickbacks" for polityical favours done to the Egyptian president. Did they keep these artefacts for themselves, and where are they now, or did they officially donate them to a US public collection? Where are the Kissinger Antiquities, where are the Nixon Antiquities?   What kind of political favours were these two offering the Egyptian President in return for antiquities, and were they given with the full knowledge and backing of the American people? Or were they under-the-table deals?

In the same period has no American official ever presented to a foreign leader any item of cultural property as a gift? No painting, sculpture, piece of furniture made by American artists and craftsmen? If not, what were they giving? Hamburgers?

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