Egypt: Minister of Antiquities Discusses Looting on TV

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The Egyptian Minister of antiquities appeared on TV to discuss the looting that is taking place there with the breakdown of law and order in the provinces. There is a rough translation here. Here is a fragment (as written, except one of the place names edited):

I have three places that have looting taking place: El Hibeh, Ihnasya [el-Medinah] and Lahun. There is no security. There are guards and educated guards that are armed but they cannot compete with the arms of the robbers. We are cautious because they are a mafia. They prevent us from going to Wadi El Gadid (western oases). I worry about my people going because of lack of security. Tarke El Mehdy, a policeman who went to face the armed men, was faced with hundreds of looters. We should make a statue for him as he took courage to do so.

Here are the three places mentioned, all near Beni Suef, El Hibeh in the south, Lahun in the north, Ehnasya (Henen-Nisut, Heracleopolis Magna) in the middle:

Looting at El Hibeh, Update

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News from El Hibeh in Egypt is not good. The active destruction of the site continues. It would seem that it is being done by invisible men which the police cannot quite seem to see at work. An archaeologist who works on the site reported yesterday (though was not yet able to confirm) that they had "heard by the local grapevine that the looters have been using bulldozers for the past two days to dig up the cemetery in the desert east of the town mound". Presumably if this is true, these too these have some kind of visibility cloaking device (powered by red mercury?) which prevents the Egyptian security services from spotting them from their patrol cars. Dr Abdul Rahman Al-Ayedi, employed by the SCA and among other things excavator of Lahun (Kahun) and author of a study of the inscriptions of the Way of Horus (the road from the Eastern Delta to Palestine) is angry. He says he has been fighting to protect all archaeological sites in Middle Egypt, since January 2011. He alleges that "it is deliberately planned not to provide security". By whom he was not explicit.

If you have not done so before, consider signing the petition (which will apparently be closing soon due to having reached its target), it may achieve nothing in the current circumstances, but those who care should not stand idly by as this tragedy continues.

UPDATE 18.03.12: A site visit by the American team in the company of the SCA inspector with a police escort showed that there was no evidence of bulldozing as had been reported two days earlier, there was however horrific devastation of the cemeteries, undoubtedly there will be new shabtis and other grave goods appearing on the market soon.

Prod a Sleeping Egyptian Policeman: Sign the Petition

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Massive looting of archaeological sites in Egypt continues as security forces turn a blind eye to thugs plundering Egypt’s cultural heritage.

El Hibeh archaeological site on the east bank of the Nile lies in a particularly impoverished area of Egypt, three hour’s drive south of Cairo. For the past 9 months a gang has been systematically and openly looting the site while the local police seemingly turn a blind eye.

For more information on El Hibeh please join the facebook group:

Please the sign the petition which will awake the Supreme Council of Antiquities and Egyptian Government to the crimes taking place not only at El Hibeh but in numerous other places across Egypt, which represent the cultural heritage of Egypt and the world.

This petition asks the SCA and Egyptian government to act to immediately re-establish and maintain security at El Hibeh and other archaeological sites across Egypt.

Even artefact collectors can sign the petition with a clear conscience, it does not demand prosecution of those doing the looting and selling the loot on.

Vignette: Sleeping policeman.

Khouli and Lewis: The Mummy Case

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Rick St Hilaire has a series of posts following the Windsor Antiquities case in New York. The latest in the series contains some information that might be worth discussing ('Pleadings Filed by Both Prosecution and Defense Attorneys Argue Lewis Dismissal Motion in US v. Khouli et al.'). Collector Lewis is trying to get the case against him dismissed. He is reportedly "charged with purchasing smuggled Egyptian antiquities transported into the United States, smuggling three Egyptian nesting coffins, conspiring to smuggle, and money laundering in support of smuggling". Through his lawyers he claims that the prosecution does not have the evidence to prove him guilty of the alleged offences, "[T]here is no witness, no document, and no email that even alludes to Joseph Lewis participating in the importation process or agreeing with others that it would be handled deceitfully".

In support of the memorandum of law, defense lawyers for Lewis produced an email reportedly between Lewis and co-defendant Moussa Khouli dated April 12, 2009. That email, in part, says the following:

"Hey Morris,

I am ready to wire the funds in the morning but because its a lot of $$$$, just to make sure that there are no misunderstandings; I want to doublecheck that you do guarantee the following:

1 - Provenance from your late father's collection, Israel 1960s; you have therefore established to the best of your knowledge, these items have not been illegally obtained from an excavation, architectural monument, public institution or private property.
2 - Clearance by US Customs (if the items are seized or detained more than 30 days upon arrival into the US you will issue a full refund)...."

This is a bit odd, because althought Khouli is a Syrian Jewish surname, Khouli's father had a gallery in Damascus for 35 years, and as we all know, Damascus is in Syria not Israel. One would have thought that a collector's due diligence would mean checking out such basic facts of geography. So the collector imagines he is buying something taken from Egypt (presumably) to either Israel or Syria before the late 1960s. Then at some time taken from there to a place whence it would be imported into the US. Yet the guarantees he seeks from the dealer (with whom he is on first-name terms) do not concern any of the hows and whens of this process. How did it leave Egypt for Israel for example when there was conflict between the two countries precisely in the late 1960s (over the Gaza Strip and Sinai and the Six Day War)? Where was it since Khouli's father's passing the collection over to the son and before its import into the US? What export documentation accompanied the movement of this material (presumably by 'Morris' Khouli himself) from Israel/Syria and why does the collector not ask to see it? How does the collector imagine the object will arrive at his front door from Israel/Syria? Through a black hole leading from one parallel universe to another, or through being put physically on a ship or plane and moved across international borders? In the latter case surely when "a lot of $$$$" are involved, in order to protect that investment, would not the normal response be to obtain some sort of copy of the documentation about how this took place? What would it mean if the extract quoted above seems to suggest the absence of that simple question "oh, and copies of the export licences stapled to your invoice please"? The cynics might suggest it means that he knows no such documents exist, they may very well think that, but I really could not possibly comment, and that is for a court of law to decide.

That phrase concerning establishing that these items to the best of the dealer's knowledge have: "not been illegally obtained from an excavation, architectural monument, public institution or private property". It is verbatim what we find for example in the Code of Conduct of Sue McGovern-Huffman's "Sands of Time: Ancient Art" gallery just up the road from Peter Tompa's office in Washington. Mieke Zilverberg in Amsterdam writes the same in her Code of Ethics. This is because it is also found in point 2 of the Code of Ethics of The International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA) . It is also point 2 of the Antiquities Dealers Association Code of Conduct. What is interesting is that in the cited correspondence with Khouli, Lewis has only selected that one point from the whole series of ethical issues covered by the IADAA code. But then take another look. What important affirmation is missing entirely from the IADAA code? One which in this case is the crucial issue. While items sought by the police as being from theft from "excavations, architectural monuments, public institutions or private property" are mentioned (twice), there is absolutely nothing in the IADAA Code about kosher export procedures. So smuggled objects (as long as they were not stolen first, so for example dug up in a field which is not under excavation by archaeologists and not reported) are IADAA-OK?

It is worth noting that the email quoted above was sent a few months after an Egyptian coffin being imported with agricultural products en route from Spain (where it had surfaced only in 2007) apparently to the Lewis collection was intercepted at Miami International Airport in 2008. Then the importer failed to show the necessary documents to prove legal ownership (the buyer later abandoned his claim - but that seems to have been after November 2009).

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?

Egypt: More Blood on Antiquities

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At least 10 people aged between 22 and 31 were killed and 4 people wounded by the collapse of a deep hole in Hu (ancient Diospolis Magna) in Qena governate. The wounded were taken to the hospital in Nag Hammadi. Initial investigation showed that the 14 people were involved in excavations for archaeological artefacts and the ceiling of the 100-metre long tunnel collapsed due to an explosion of an electric generator inside the hole.

Source: www.moheet.com

مصرع 10 وأصابة 4 أشخاص أثر أنهيار سقف حفرة عليهم أثناء التنقيب عن الأثار بقنا

Hat tip to Nicole Hanson.

UPDATE 12.03.12 Other sources are telling a similar story located "in the village of Arab al-Manasra, north of the historic city of Luxor", with ten killed and two injured.

Ambitions of making money quickly have incited many to turn to illegal archaeological digging, particularly in antiquities-rich locations such as Luxor, Aswan and Cairo. “We have to work on many levels to stop these get-rich-quick schemes, where people are digging for an illusion,” Mansur Boreik, head of the Luxor antiquities department told AFP.

Meanwhile the Egyptian gazette has an article on deaths due to collapse of tunnels dug under people's houses by artefact hunters:

Dreams of making a fast fortune have motivated many Egyptians, who are looking for antiquities and carrying out excavations not only at locations known for Pharaonic precious artefacts, but also to other areas of Cairo. Sayeda Aisha, Khalifa, Tunsi and Deweiqa have all recently witnessed increased excavations, which affect houses and put people’s lives at risk. According to older inhabitants of these areas, a large number of residents of these areas are being deceived, because of their state of poverty and dreams of speedy wealth. The senior citizens stressed that these deluded residents wrongly believe that people exhibiting riches imply that they are working in illegal archaeological trading and smuggling. The senior citizens have appealed to mosque employees more than once to try to stop these excavations. However, nobody responds to these calls and death is the frequent end, due to undermined houses collapsing.

AFP: Ten people killed in Egypt while digging for ancient treasures
Egyptian Gazette: Deluded Diggers Defy Death

Facebook: Save El Hibeh Egypt

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A few days ago I expressed caution about unconfirmed reports that appeared about looting and destruction at El Hibeh in Egypt. A Facebook page has been set up by American archaeologists which addresses some of those concerns with a whole series of shocking photographs (many of which seem to be the same as those in the news report I discussed earlier and many of which repeat) which include those which do indeed seem to show recent looting. I reproduce from its gallery two 'before' (2009) and 'after' (2011) shots - one slightly edited from the original to make it clearer what it is showing. The looting pictures on the Facebook page are primarily from December 2011 and appear to have originated from Andy Dailey and Carol Redmount. Here's the back-story from the latter:

Dear friends, former students, and concerned world citizens:
Archaeological sites throughout Egypt are currently being heavily looted, including the critical site of El Hibeh about 3 hours south of Cairo. Once these sites are gone, they are lost forever. It is a non-renewable resource. El Hibeh is of particular importance as it is one of the least disturbed city mounds of the Third Intermediate Period. It was first built probably in 1070 BCE by the High Priests of Amun at Luxor/Thebes and then more or less continually occupied for over 1,700 years so that the site also includes important remains from the Pharaonic, Ptolemaic, Roman, Coptic, and early Islamic periods. We are posting here pictures of the site, of looting, of articles regarding this issue, and hope that you will spread the word, add friends to the group, and notify the press when and where possible. We must take action to save El Hibeh and hundreds of other sites like it that have been severely damaged as a result of limited police protection since January 28, 2011.

BACKSTORY TO THE CREATION OF THIS WEBSITE:
Our last excavation season at Hibeh was 2009. For various reasons we were delayed returning until now. After the January 2011 revolution I contacted people, mostly to make sure they were okay, but also to find out about the site as I had heard stories of much looting. And in fact I was told that the site was "very bad." I didn't know what that meant until I was sent pictures taken in May by a group that had visited the site and were so appalled they took the trouble to look up who was doing fieldwork there. I was sent additional pictures of the looting in June, December and January 2012. I had heard that there was still looting going on at night, by someone from El Ogra, the village north of the tell, and that no one could catch the person. That's where things stood when I came to Egypt in February.

I arrived in Egypt in mid-February, signed my contract with the SCA, and was ready to go to work with my team. The day before we were supposed to start work I received a phone call telling me that local Beni Suef security had yanked our permission to work. The upshot was that a local "gangster", whose name is known, from El Ogra, the village north of the site, had formed a sort of mafia focused on looting the site. This "criminal" is evidently a murderer who got out of prison after the revolution. His "gang" is looting the site non-stop, on a massive scale. When I returned to Cairo from our dig house last week and our van passed the site heading for the eastern desert highway, we saw about ten men openly looting the mound and desert behind (we have pictures of some of them), with conveniently parked motorcycles nearby. One of our drivers took the same road this past Friday and reported that again numerous men were busy with wholesale looting of the site in broad daylight. This is an on-going crisis. They are destroying the site. The SCA officials have tried everything they could to get the looting to stop. Nothing seems to be having any effect. This is something police and security seem to be ignoring, turning a blind eye to, or worse. We started the Save Hibeh facebook page because we are at our wits end as to what else to do . . .

Andy Dailey says: We have posted over 100 photos of looting damage to the site in an album. Click the photos link at the top right of the page. Keep spreading the word.

Some of the captions are quite telling:

Churned ground in front of massive, ancient city wall and gate. Notice the destroyed limestone sarcophagus/coffin in foreground. Hundreds of mummified bodies have been exposed, torn apart, and left to rot and be eaten by wild dogs in this area.

Huge pit gouged into mound by looters who have exposed a limestone doorframe.

Area excavated by archaeologists in 2009 has now been totally trashed by treasure seekers.

Andy Dailey: Head of a mummy ripped from the body by looters looking for jewelry or textiles and left for wild dogs.
Emily Rusnak: Is someone at least trying to save the things that are found?
Andy Dailey: These pictures were taken by concerned people who took a quick trip to the site. There are no police present and archaeologists are not allowed to go to the site because "it is too dangerous" because of the looting. So, to answer your question, these things are lying all over the ground and being eaten by wild dogs because looters are being allowed to continue their work since the police have not returned to the site and apparently have no intention of doing so. The police have forbidden archaeologists from going to the site to survey the damage and record what has been exposed because these specialists may be attacked by these gangs of looters. Instead of catching looters and guarding the site, they have chosen to do nothing and to allow no one else to do so either.
Regis-Michel Verstegen: Sounds to me as if the police puts more effort in keeping archeologists away than in doing something about the looting.

Tomorrow the Facebook El-Hibeh-brigade are going to post up a press release and the addresses of people in the Egyptian government to email to get them to get the police to do what they are supposed to be doing. If you care, join the Facebook group.

But here's a question, if these photos were taken in December 2011, four months ago, where were they in the meantime? Never mind for the moment Beni Suef security (seems a bit of a misnomer), where the hell are Egyptian archaeologists? The SCA employs many thousands of them, are they all in hibernation and cut off from events in their own country or too busy with in-fighting that none of them have heard about this, let alone tried to communicate it to the outside world? We heard so much about how the 2011 revolution was social-media driven, so why does it have to be western archaeologists who start up a campaign like this? Or perhaps there already is an Egyptian-run Facebook page devoted to this issue which the American one is belatedly copying?

I think we also need to ask (and get some answers) whether what is happening at El-Hibeh is nastily atypical, or nastily typical of what is happening to remote sites in other parts of Egypt. We hear similar stories from Aswan, for example, but are these sites the exception, or the rule? It would be a shame to devote huge amounts of attention to one site when others are being robbed unnoticed with nobody to create a Facebook page or email ministers about them. What IS going on in Egypt one year after the 2011 revolution?
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Egypt: Reports of Recent Looting in El Hibeh

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el-Hiba in the Bani Suwayf governorate is the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Tayu-djayet (t3yw-ḏ3yt), in Coptic times Teudjo. From the late 20th Dynasty to the 22nd Dynasty, al-Hibah was a frontier town, marking the division of the country between the High Priests of Amun at Thebes and the kings of Egypt at Tanis. Recentreports suggest the remains of the town are being devastated by ongoing looting (Margaret Maitland, 'Reports of Looting in El Hibeh', Eloquent Peasant March 9th 2012). This refers to an unconfirmed news report from AlQahera AlYoum with a shocking video, photographs of ransacked tombs and scattered human remains are shown from the 7.20 mark. Maitland gives a translation of the Arabic commentary of the report supplied by Glenn Meyer:

there is a mafia is devoted to looting antiquities what the ancient Egyptian civilization left us. They are no longer practicing their crimes in darkness, but in the middle of the day with bulldozers while the Ministry of Antiquities and the police are in silent [...] Horrible information has emerged about crimes that these antiquities mafia are committing in many areas in Egypt such as in Abu Sir, Abu Rawash, Sakkara and Beni Suef etc. Tonnes of Egypt’s antiquities have been stolen in the last couple of months, much of it transferred by trucks to hiding places controlled by this mafia.[...] Police have withdrawn from all the antiquities sites leaving them to thieves who do what they like. [...] As soon as the Egyptian revolution started and the police withdrew, the police left the area to the looters to find these priceless treasures. The leader of the El Hiba mafia is a man [named in the report] who escaped an execution order. He has got hold of a bulldozer and hired tens of men equipped with guns and dynamite and are currently digging el Hiba looking for antiquities and gold within the tombs. However the gang took different kind of antiquities from el Hiba, some of these have been moved to private magazines in order to be sold. Tens of tombs were robbed, some mummies and sarcophagi were kept in places and others were left in the open air, small statues and some golden pieces were also stolen from the tombs. [This] gang has been looking for antiquities for a year now, they have dug 400 holes in the 2km city, the depth of some of these holes is more than 15 meters. [...] So the Ministry of State for Antiquities has found no one to protect them and it looks as though the Ministry believes that their only possibility is to protect the Egyptian Museum. Sadly, foreign missions are more concern about Egyptian history / antiquities than the Egyptians themselves. Are we waiting to ask the international community to interfere to save out heritage after we failed in protect it?

Well, I am sure foreign collectors will be among those queuing up to buy the freshly surfaced material once the Egyptian mafia get their smuggling networks set up and operating. I am also sure that foreign collectors will be out there in force arguing for keeping those channels open on the grounds that if the Egyptians cannot stop the smuggling unaided, why should they aid them?

The AlQahera AlYoum reporters here accuse the present government and local officials of supporting this mafia,

"the Egyptian authorities protect the Egyptian mafia".

The main evidence of this however seems to be their lack of action, compared to what the writer of the articles assumes the reader will infer would have happened before the January 'revolution'.

The comment about the Ministry only being concerned to "protect the Egyptian Museum" certainly fits what was happening in the months following January 28th 2011 when there were denials that much looting was going on in the rest of Egypt and a virtual news blackout on the subject. This report is one of the first to appear in recent months to suggest that not only was the looting on a much larger scale than was initially suspected, but that it is still going on. I find it astounding that the new Minister of Antiquities has made it a priority to employ even more people in the SCA, and yet when people are needed on the ground to stop this kind of thing and investigate it, there is nobody available to do it. Where are they, and what are they doing?

There is however a problem with this report. The photos showing human remains dragged out of tombs and deposited among rubbish need not reflect recent looting. The coffin packed with crud looks as if the crud has been there a long time. Some of the Luxor tombs - sadly - look a bit like this - and some of it seems to be caused by feral dogs. The photos shown on the report have captions in a European script, not arabic, who supplied them, when and why? There is a reference in the report to a site egyptopedia.com which is no longer active. Furthermore Google Earth's coverage of the site using photos of march 2011 shows some deep holes all over it and the adjacent areas - but the same holes (with the possible exception of a few in the SE corner of the complex) are already there in photos of 2005 and 2007. How many new holes have appeared since then? To what extent is this report a true reflection of the situation here, and to what extent is it political provocation? This of course is not to say that the site (like many others throughout the country) does not need better protection in the current period of political turmoil.

UPDATE 12.03.12 see now http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2012/03/facebook-save-el-hibeh-egypt.html for a revision of the above.

Egypt Looting, those Elusive Figures

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It's over a year now since all that looting, both of museums, storerooms and sites in Egypt following the January coup. The list of objects missing from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo which took them ages to compile has not been updated to take into account items which have now been retrieved, or which were not missing in the first place. The promised lists of items taken from the several storerooms have not been published. How can anyone look for them if they do not know what is missing? Or indeed we do not even have a rough idea of how many items are missing.

This is telling (Saeed Nafea, 'Sixty-eight artifacts seized in Minya', Egypt Independent 5th March 2012): "In March, the ministry said an estimated 800 artifacts from the Pharaonic, Roman and Islamic eras had been damaged or stolen since last February. A statement issued by the ministry last April said the ministry did not have accurate statistics for the number of pieces stolen since the beginning of the 25 January revolution".

Also:
"Last month, Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Ali said that two percent of historical artifacts held in government storehouses were stolen during the period of lax security that followed the 25 January revolution". Is this an "off-the-top-of-my-head" guess by Minister Ibrahim Ali, or what an investigation of the situation a year after the events has actually revealed?

The problem is a serious one. There were (as I recall Zahi Hawass saying) some 65 such formal storehouses all over the country. If as a ball-park figure we assume that each contain[ed] some 200 000 individual artefacts (not an unreasonable figure to judge from the ones I have seen), that means something in the region of 13 million artefacts. Shockingly, two percent of that is 260000 missing artefacts.

There is quite a difference between "800" missing artefacts and quarter of a million missing artefacts. Eight hundred missing artefacts - even in the difficult conditions under which they have recently been working - would not take SCA staff more than a year to list, a quarter of a million missing artefacts would.

Have thieves really made off with quarter of a million ancient artefacts from the government's storerooms? It is clear that there is a complete lack of reliable information coming out of Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities about any of this. Can we expect any change in that situation?
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Egypt: Minister of Antiquities - 6,000 Artifacts Restored From Israel

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Egypt's Minister of Antiquities, Mohamed Ibrahim, responding to inquiries from members of the People's Assembly Culture, Media and Tourism Committee on Monday 20/2/2012 said that his Ministry is holding negotiations to retrieve a host of artefacts from Belgium, France and the US.

Egyptian antiquities which are abroad were out of the country according to the law which allowed the sharing of 50 % of the artifacts discovered between Egypt and foreign exploration missions. He further said that the law was changed to reduce the proportion of the division to only five percent of the foreign mission and then abolished completely in proportion to the effects of the law passed last year. All the warehouses of antiquities are fully secured, noting that only 2 percent of the artifacts were stolen during the state of lawlessness which prevailed in the country, he added.

He also announced that as many as 6,000 artifacts "have been restored from Israel". Two percent of several hundred thousand is a lot of missing artefacts. Where is the online inventory so dealers and collectors can check whether an item they are offered is stolen? Perhaps less attention should be given to feel-good news about what has been "restored" to a proper and full assessment of what has been lost and efforts made to restore that damage than headline-seeking chasing around like former Minister Zahi Hawass after material long ago out of the country.

Egypt State Information Service, 'Egypt: Minister of Antiquities - 6,000 Artifacts Restored From Israel', 21 February 2012.

Vignette: Minister of State for Antiquities Dr Mohammed Ibrahim (Luxor Times blog)

The Appropriate Authorities Have Been Informed

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Answering my comment that the list of missing items has not been updated, apologist for the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Nicole Hanson says of the recovery on or before 9th January of the Bastet figure stolen from the museum on or about 28th January that "I have been told that the appropriate authorities have been informed". Have they? I have just stumbled across the official webpage of the Egyptian Ministry of Finance Egyptian Customs Authority. They have a list of the stolen items they are looking out for at the borders. All 54 of them. There's the Bastet which turned up two weeks ago, the bed, the wooden vase (the two items that were NOT stolen). Well, that seems to be one "authority" that has not got the foggiest idea what has and has not turned up. If Egyptian Customs do not know what they are looking for, how can they find it? At the top of the list is the harpooning figure. The one Zahi Hawass' employee found "in Shubra Station".

So if Egyptian Customs are not the "appropriate authorities" here, who are?

Egypt: More Details on the January "Bastet" Sting

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I am grateful to Nicole Hanson for pointing out an article by Mahmoud Abdel-Radi on Youm 7, Monday, January 9, 2012 (but not as far as I can see reported anywhere else) which gives an account of the capture of five men and the retrieval of one of the objects stolen from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. This text is in Arabic. It says (as far as I can make it out) that police together with officials from the Ministry of the Interior arrested several known criminals who were in possession of "rare pieces stolen from the Egyptian Museum" during the "events of the revolution". One defendant "Imad T. M" was offering one of the "pieces" for sale, in the form of a statue of Bastet. A team of detectives was formed to arrest the accused and his partners, by pretending to be interested buyers and set up a sting. The accused was arrested along with four other men.

The article gives brief details of the five men, giving their names and initials. They are all aged between 31 and 35. Four of the men came from Ausin (a small town 12 km to the NW of Cairo) , and the newspaper is careful to report that two of them had previously been charged with "misdemeanours" (one in 1996, and the other several times, the latest in 2008).

One man arrested, Hossam, was a resident of Abnub, Assiut Governorate, 312 km to the south (and again reportedly had been convicted in 2010 down south). Interestingly, one of the Ausin men "Ashraf M. M" (31 years) is the son of

"prisoner, "Mr M.M." sentenced to 15 years in issue No. 360 east of Cairo military crimes for the year 2011, for possession of 5 pieces archaeological amount stolen from the Egyptian Museum".

The "five" objects to which this refers are presumably those retrieved from the 27/3/11 (Khan el Khalili) bust, and it is notable that these were was of five objects from Room 19 and no other. The only figure of Bastet on the list of missing items (JE 36598) also came from Room 19 on the first floor of the Museum. It would seem that "MM" was one of the gang that trashed and then robbed this part of the Museum. It would be VERY interesting to know what his place of work was. It is interesting to speculate that it was his capture that led to the recovery (May 2nd) of two other statues from room 19, which as will be recalled were found with two other statues from somewhere else (where was, I believe, never revealed). It looks therefore as if MM sold part of his haul to those who were somehow involved in the illegal antiquities trade, or perhaps he himself had been.

In that case, people in the trade should keep an eye out especially for the remaining three items from that room, which may already have been successfully sold, or may come on the market soon: JE 9080 Statue of Onuris, TR 10.11.21.3 bronze false beard, TR 10.11.21.8 bronze false beard.

Vignettes: Top, the best photo the Egyptian Museum could apparently come up with for the "figure of Bastet dedicated by Padiamun" JE 36598 (from the published missing objects list) and below a fuzzy photo of the five defendants from the article in Youm 7.

Another Object Back in the Cairo Museum?

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Dr Zahi Hawass has recently published a new blog post (A Good Italian Family, and an Update on What I have been Doing Lately) to assure those who are interested that he is doing well and still writing:

My book on antiquities and the 2011 Revolution is almost finished. I have just finished chapter 13, and I still need to write two more chapters. These two chapters will be the most important ones in the book. I will publish this book first in English, and then in Arabic.

I hope I will be able to get hold of a copy of that, it will be interesting to see what will be said about the events in Cairo Museum on 28th Jan 2011, whether the story will be substantially different from what he said earlier. My own personal examination of the traces left in the Museum indicate an entirely different scenario.

Quite astounding is the reference almost en passant:

I also met not long ago with 14 members of the press from Germany and Korea. I talked to them about what happened at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo during the Revolution, and how the young people protected the Museum with their bodies [yawn - PMB]. Although one piece that was stolen, an 18.5 cm statuette of the cat-goddess Bastet, has been returned to the Museum recently, we are still missing around 28 objects. Most of them are bronze statuettes dated to the Late Period (about 500 B.C.).

What the....? The Bastet figure is still on the last version (28th March 2011) of the list of missing objects (though with a different measurement), if the Museum have found that too (returned, seized or simply found in a dark corner of the storeroom?), then why are they not telling anyone they can stop looking for it? Have these people ANY intention of at last updating that "missing objects" list (like with the two that turned up in August) and making it public? If not, is there a specific reason why they are not bothering? Totally incomprehensible behaviour from the museum professionals in Cairo.

Also quite interesting that this seems these days to be such non-news (when surely the Egyptian museum prfessionals should be keeping continuing the search for the missing items at the forefront of public attention) that the reporters he spoke to seem not to have made any use of this news-scoop (unless I missed something).

As for what is still missing, as we come up to the first anniversary of the thefts, perhaps it is time to attempt a recap. I make it that 24 items of those initially reported stolen are back (or were never removed from the Museum in the first place). The ('sting') recovery of 17/3/11 retrieved 7 objects from room 19 and 5 from room 6. The recovery of 27/3/11 (Khan el Khalili) was of five objects from Room 19 and no other. The next four (the bag in the station 12 April 2011) were from three areas of the Museum, gallery 40, 13 and 43 at the other end. The most recent recovery (May 2nd) was of two statues from room 19, which were found with two other statues from somewhere else (where was never revealed). Then it turned out embarrassingly that at least two were never missing (Youm 7: 'Two archeological pieces of Egyptian Museum found', Aug 2, 2011).

Despite these successes in retrieving these items, there are still a number of items missing. It is not at all true that "most of them are bronze statuettes dated to the Late Period (about 500 B.C.)".

TWO items from Tutankhamun tomb (P 40 and P 30 it says, but they were in the same case): JE 60716.1 the shrouded Tutankhamun from the Menkaret figure, JE 60713 Tutankhamun in Red Crown striding with staff and flail. [there has been talk that another Tutankhamun fan was taken from the case containing the fans and walking sticks in Room 13, but is not on any list - fan stock 62006 - see here].

NINE wooden shabtis of Yuya and Thuya, all missing from P 43 vit 13 or thereabouts. JE 68983 etc, JE 68984 etc, JE 68987 etc, JE 68989, JE 68992 etc, JE 68993 etc, JE 68994 etc, JE 68995 etc, JE 68998 etc, (JE 68984 was previously reported as recovered in the Shubra Metro Station "find" but that was a mistake).

A group of SEVEN Amarna figures from R8 centre Vit K on the ground floor: JE 44867 - Nefertiti offering bearer, JE 44873 - Amarna princess, JE 44874 - Amarna princess, JE 52976 - Seated man, JE 53250 - Steatite Bes, JE 59291 seated scribe and Thoth/baboon, JE 65040 - head of Amarna princess (The only object from the ground floor gallery retrieved to date was the Akhenaton statue found in mysterious circumstances "in the garbage" near Tahrir Square 16th February 2011).

A group of SIX (actually 15) small objects from P48 Vit 2 and two other cases in this room: JE 27326, limestone statue of woman, JE 39590 limestone shabti Tuna el-Gebel,JE55175 lapis lazuli beads Ahmose Merytamun TT358, JE 94481, ten faience amulets from Thebes (should be treated as ten items), JE 29357 - Greco-Roman Apis bull, JE 30204 Striding figure of Nakht, Meir.

FOUR (THREE?) items from P 19: JE 36598, Bastet (the one that is now back?), JE 9080 Statue of Onuris, TR 10.11.21.3 bronze false beard, TR 10.11.21.8 bronze false beard.

ONE item from P6 centre vit A JE 47906 gold and faience beads, Saqqara dyn 18.

I make it that 28 are missing plus the Bastet which is said to be back in the Museum. They fall into several distinct groups, mostly figurines and jewellery. More importantly, the objects which have been coming back in dribs and drabs were taken from several distinct areas of the museum (and that includes the unconfirmed return of the Bastet figure), and those that are still missing come from several distinct areas of the collection. I do not think this pattern is accidental.

So, this returned Bastet figure, where was it found, when, in what circumstances and who was arrested? Has anyone heard any more about this?

hat-tip to Kate Phizackerley for first spotting the original post

Egypt: Huub Pragt, el-Hadidi, the "Missing" Artefacts and Borrowed Photos

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There is a novel just out about the looting of the Egyptian Museum by Huub Pragt.

Thanks in part to confusing statements by the Minister of Antiquities, mystery surrounds the objects that are missing. In this thriller the reality of the Egyptian revolution and fiction are mingled to a surprising result. English Egyptologist Kevin Savernake, his colleague Isabelle Montet and their friends Marc Spencer and Waldo van Elst distrust the reporting around the break in. It can’t be just coincidence that almost all the missing objects date from the Amarna Period. It is widely known that Rosanne Mubariz, the wife of the president, is fond of the art of Akhenaton and Nefertiti. Or did the Minister of Antiquities hide the top pieces on a safe spot because of the uncertain situation in the country? In any case there is much more going on than Minister Mahmud el-Hadidi presents to the Egyptian people and the international press. Who is really behind this art theft?

I can't read Dutch, but my own feeling is the actual truth about this matter is stranger than this fiction. I think el-Hadidi knows much more than he's letting on (though in my version, neither he nor the Mubariz clan were involved in the staging of this pseudo-break-in) and we've not hear the last of this. A little birdie tells me that after the new government is formed, we may be seeing the return of "a" Ministry... My guess is that a few of those "missing" objects are going to be turning up at a convenient time.

Mr Huub has an interesting photo used on his "Kunstroof" website as a banner. It looks familiar doesn't it? Right down to every last shadow, speck of dirt and nuance of lighting . I have no objection to his using it, though it would have been nice if he'd actually shared the information where he got it and whose photo it is ("Op sommige van de afgebeelde foto’s kan het auteursrecht bij derden rusten") - I wonder how much else taken from this blog found its way into the book?

Meanwhile it seems the Registration, Collections Management and Documentation
Department (RCMDD) and the curatorial staff of the Egyptian
Museum, Cairo, not having managed ten months later to provide an updated list of what is still missing since the latest "retrievals", has now announced they are not going to be answering any more queries about artefacts as they have a "backlog" of something or other. Still, at least it also says they are doing some 'renovation' work, maybe they'll also get around to cleaning those windows and under some of those cases.

Egyptian Darkness

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Back in the middle of August the "World Wide Archaeology Commission", organized their second seminar in collaboration with The Egyptian Museum in Cairo on “Egyptian Museum Monuments (sic) after [the] Revolution: The whole story". Not everyone who took an active interest (and still do) in the fate of the world's archaeological heritage in Egypt and housed in its museums and archaeological storerooms was able to get to this seminar on Zamalek, and we were promised by its organizers (20th August) that a video reportage would be posted on the internet. Repeated checking on the seminar's webpage shows that the organizers still have not kept this promise. The international community is therefore kept in the dark about the version of "the whole story" that was being put out in August. In fact, we are being kept in the dark about a whole lot more (and to blame for at least part of that is the very same Egyptian Museum in Cairo).

Where is the updated list of objects missing from the Cairo Museum?

What progress has been made tracking down the items still missing from that museum, despite the fact that people involved with the robbery and attempted disposal of the items recovered have been in custody since the beginning of this year?

What actually happened in the Museum on that night (28th Jan 2011)?

Where are the full lists of what went missing from the storerooms all over the country in January and February 2011? Without such details, if any turn up on a foreign market, how is the buyer to know?

Where is there an updated list of the elements missing from the various tombs that were opened and damaged in the early months of this year?

We've heard many preliminary stories about the capture of suspected smugglers, but little follow-up information that these people were charged and what with. How many of these stories had a basis in fact, and how many were just "feel-good" reports where no charges were brought (for example the "antiquities" seized among much press hoo-ha were in fact tourist fakes)?

What is going on in Egypt, and what effects is that having on the preservation of the archaeological record and in particular the fight against illicit antiquity trading?

"Ancient Coins" Blog Rejects my Comment

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A blogger who purports to be writing about "Ancient Coins" wrote a(nother) text about me (I am not an ancient coin, nor an ancient coin collector). In reply sent him a comment:

why not give your readers a LINK to where on my blog I say this "misleading" thing? Or are you afraid that they will read what I actually say and check it out? http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2011/10/accg-international-affairs-chair-on.html There are some questions to you there now, too, just what kind of section 2606 "MOU" does what Nevine El-Aref who you cite here as an authority says?

Well, it of course did not get posted (can't have links to my blog over on a coiney blog can we?). This is the reason given:

Paul, This is in my view mere propaganda as presently written, and I won't accept anything in that vein for appearance in my blog. If you rewrite it to focus on specific issues, such as I believe you have with what Nevine El-Aref said in her article, I will reconsider this decision.

Well, it is not "propaganda" at all to suggest when talking about my blog, he gives a link to it so people can see what was actually written. Note that when somebody refers to the El-Aref article as "proof" that I am wrong about the nature of the announced document, but then finding himself unable to answer the question about whether what El-Aref says can be squared in any way with what he claims, he refuses to post the comment. What a surprise. Typical coiney intellectual shallowness.

Anyway that is a laugh, he won't accept anything of "that nature" (alleged "propaganda") on his "ancient coins" blog, when it is full of anti-archaeologist, or anti-Barford, or anti-State Department, and anti-gubn'mint-bureaucracy propaganda, (together with "string them up on the lampost along Constitution Avenue" calls to arms). In fact everything BUT the titular ancient coins.

UPDATE 26th Oct 2011: The State Department has clarified the nature of the proposed document, as I pointed out the information that was being received was clear that it is not the "type of MOU made under Article 9 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention for import restrictions on certain categories of cultural materials". The DoS clarifies that "if the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt requests an agreement pursuant to Article 9 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, the Department of State would announce receipt of such a request in the Federal Register. This procedure is the only means currently available to a country wishing U.S. import restrictions on its cultural property".

ACCG International Affairs Chair on the Ball

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The announcement that there is a US-Egyptian agreement on the cards to fight antiquities smuggling has received relatively wide coverage in the online media alerts. All of them without exception regard this as good news. The only place so far in which it has roused (extremely) negative coverage is within the dugup antiquities dealers' lobby group, the "Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild". As if those lobbying to keep smuggled coins coming onto the US market were not making fools of themselves enough, on the receipt of the news of announcement of a forthcoming emergency cultural property regulations agreement between the US and Egypt, the chair of the ACCG International Affairs Committee shows just how au fait he is in those international affairs:

Whether or not the reports emanating out of Egypt are true in every detail, the very fact that such a report could be made by an official of the stature of Zahi Hawass does prove these disturbing truths...

[UPDATE: He reposted it here] It seems Dave ("send a message to Congress") Welsh also does not recognise the procedural difference between emergency regulations and the MOUs envisaged in the CPIA. He urges antiquity collectors:

make your disgust with this dishonest charade known in the public record. Do this every time a MOU request is considered, until Congress finally realizes that the American people know that they are being lied to, and that their legitimate interests and rights are being trampled upon by the Cultural Heritage Center bureaucracy.

that's "legitimate interests and rights" to handle stolen and smuggled artefacts? What exactly are these ACCG folk campaigning against? Is protesting every measure intended to cut down illicit trade going to enamour them with Congress and the American people, or draw attention to the ills of the current system?

UPDATE 24th October 2011: I guess when you are a coin collector there are no real limits to how much stupidity you think you can get away with passing off as real discussion. Dave Welsh has posted a text, citing Nevine El-Aref as his authority, "putting the record straight" in which he telepathically determines that what is being proposed is not Emergency Import Restrictions after all, but a [CCPIA section 2606] "MOU" which he says is different. Nevertheless when the story first broke back in May this year, the ACCG were accepting that what was in the air were (as was reported from the Cairo meeting between a US delegation and the Minister of Antiquities) emergency import restrictions. http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2011/05/hawass-says-emergency-import.html - dealer's lobbyist Tompa specifically protesting at the time that there was "no emergency".

So, if this is going to be an MOU like Cyprus, China, Italy, Greece and (hopefully) Bulgaria, where Mr Welsh in section 2606 of the CCPIA is there an authority to "track and catch antiquities smugglers in the country [USA]? What does section 2606 (or 2608) of the CCPIA say about "all legal procedures to return illegally smuggled antiquities to Egypt"? Have the people smuggling coins through Baltimore to provoke a court case over the Cyprus and China MOUs been "tracked and caught"? Have the seized coins imported illegally by the ACCG now been returned to China and Cyprus? What are you talking about Mr Welsh?

Nevertheless my point was not what the document is called, but the comment made months after the guy went into retirement, that "an official of the stature of Zahi Hawass" is used to intimate that the reports are true (so "write to Congress to complain!") . As even a coiney should know, Dr Hawass is of course no longer in the Egyptian administration and made no such report this month.

Coineys are inordinately fond of saying things, as does coin-dealer-guy here, like "Mr. Barford is the one who does not correctly understand the situation and whose remarks have been misleading", but time and time again show that if I write a sentence more than eight words long, they get lost and cannot follow at all what it is I actually said.


Vignette: I guess the ACCG's International affairs committee did not send a letter congratulating the new SCA chief on his appointment and looking forward to fruitful co-operation in the future fighting looting and smuggling.

American-Egyptian Memorandum of Understanding on Antiquities Smuggling "to be Signed Soon"

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An American-Egyptian memorandum of understanding making the Customs and National Security Department in the USA responsible for tracking and catching antiquities smugglers in the United States is to be signed soon reports Al Ahram and Al Masry Al Youm. Of course this is what becoming a state party to the 1970 UNESCO treaty obliges America to do anyway, so its good to see them formally confirming that they do intend honouring just a little bit more of those obligations, though 28 years later than one would have hoped. So it seems my map may well need another red area.

Dealers' paid lobbyist Tompa complains:

Such MOU's (sic) are only supposed to be decided after a formal request from a State Party to the State Department. CPAC is then supposed to make recommendations to the President's designee at the Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, who in turn is only supposed to agree to import restrictions if specific statutory criteria are met.[...] If the reports emanating out of Egypt are true, its just more evidence that the whole CPAC process is but a bad joke.

Yes, the way the United States of America "implements" the 1970 Convention is indeed a bad 1980s joke. A very bad and damaging joke, given the voracity of the US no-questions-asked market for antiquities. It's good to see some evidence that the US is at last changing its attitude to the cultural property rest of the world. Probably dealers like the ACCG have done their part in bringing home just how much damage can be done to international relations by continuing to ignore the problem.

In any case, Tompa is being misleading when he says that such measures always need CPAC input, emergency regulations do not, do they? Anyway, the Cultural Property Research Institute (sic) is already on the case.

Egypt: Mystery About Recovered Reliefs

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The lack of information and obfuscation of the news media in Egypt continues. Nevine El-Aref ("Looted limestone artefact recovered by police', Al Ahram 11 Oct 2011) fails to mention more than she reveals. One of the (how many?) limestone reliefs stolen ("reported missing") apparently from the Abusir Czech expedition storeroom "during the chaos that followed the January 25 Revolution" is now in the hands of the Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Police (somewhere in Egypt). We are given the dimensions of the relief (but the accompanying stock picture is of the Meidum geese) - "one metre tall and 60 centimetres wide. It depicted four walking geese with a hieroglyphic text".

An archaeological mission from the Council has inspected the recovered relief and approved its authenticity.[...] Atef Abul Dahab, head of the ancient Egyptian department at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), told Ahram Online that the relief was one amongst those that were looted from the Abusir storage

We are given further the vague information that the object is now "at a police station and will be transferred tomorrow to the Council's lab for restoration. It may then be put on special display at the Egyptian museum" (why?).

Pretty noticeable is any information about the circumstances of this "recovery", where, when, who had it where, how the police learnt where to find it eight months after it went missing. It seems we have a problem with a definition of what "news" is, for the local journalist trained in the Mubarak era, it's the same "everything is OK" message that has always been put out, for the rest of us news is information which allows us to form our own judgements about what is happening in the world around us. What is happening here is that in the field of "antiquities", Egyptian journalism is producing the same fogscreen as we saw in the case of the Egyptian Museum looting and which has not stopped since. It seems that (as is not uncommon elsewhere) the theme of "heritage" is being exploited in Al-Ahram (at least) as a source of feel-good news ("got this back", "SCA boss did this/said this/ got an award", "new tourist site opened") and the more problematic issues get swept under the carpet.

UPDATE 16.10.11:
More information has now emerged, correcting the original information, but still not providing the missing details needed to understand what has been happening (Nevine El-Aref , 'Two reliefs stolen from Egypt's Hetepka tomb found', Al Ahram, Saturday 15 Oct 2011). It is now being said that the relief mentioned above comes from the fifth dynasty tomb of Hetepka in North Sakkara excavated by Geoffrey Martin in the 1960s (the tomb also reportedly had its false door looted this year). Now it seems:

the Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Police have succeeded in recovering two well-preserved limestone reliefs stolen in 1986 by an international antiquities smuggling gang from Saqqara archaeological storehouses. The objects belong to the Fifth Dynasty tomb of the king's royal hairdresser Hetepka, discovered by British archaeologists Geoffrey Martin in the late 1960’s at the Old Kingdom cemetery at Saqqara necropolis. Although several members of the gang were caught in 2002 and sent to prison, among them the gang’s mastermind, Jonathan Tokeley-Parry and his partner, British antiquities trader Frederick Schultz, the four objects they stole had not been recovered. Two of the objects have [now] been found.

Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Mostafa Amine is now quoted describing the recovered items:

a rectangular shaped relief of 100 centimetres in height and 60 centimetres in width. It depicts four geese and is decorated with hieroglyphic text.

The second relief, Amine pointed out, is engraved with three lines of hieroglyphic text written vertically as well as the cartouches of two of the Fifth Dynasty kings Sahure and Neferirkare.

The news report however leaves the place and manner of the discovery of these items unexplained, though the Luxor Times blog ('5th Dynasty reliefs are back in Egypt') ventures what looks like independent information (where from?) that the SCA and the Antiquities police in Sakkara were involved in their recovery. had they been hidden in Sakkaara 26 years? Al Ahram says of the other two pieces:

Atef Abul Dahab, head of the Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Department at the SCA explained that following the trial of Tokeley-Parry and Schultz, Egypt reported the missing objects to Interpol, who is still looking for the other two reliefs that depict scenes of Egypt’s wildlife along with hieroglyphic text.

Al-Ahram has a photo of the second relief (a door jamb?). The photo shows the cartouches mentioned [Sahure on the centre left, Neferirkare bottom left] confirming that this time a stock photo was not used. The Luxor Times adds:

the tomb is documented and registered and the stolen objects of this tomb can’t be possessed by any museum or individual. Atef Abu El Dahab (Head of the Ancient Egyptian Department at SCA) announced that the objects from that tomb are being kept in the warehouse in Sakkara and it is secured as well as the tomb within the general plan of the area security.

FURTHER UPDATE 17th Oct. 2011:
Rick St Hilaire covers this case (Recovery of Looted Egyptian Tomb Reliefs Leaves Unanswered Questions) and spotted a discrepancy in the dates of the reported looting which I'd not noticed. He remarks "Ahram Online’s report is conspicuously vague".

Vignette: Abusir pyramids.
. Photo in update from Al Ahram, edited.

Egypt, Fresh Looting in the White Desert

From Youm7 (Maher Abu El Noor,'Excavation equipment discovered in White Desert, investigation ongoing', Friday Sep 30, 2011

Director of New Valley Security Othman Naji today received a report indicating that [mechanical] excavation equipment had been discovered about eight kilometers from the main road inside the White Desert Natural Reserve, a clear violation of the no excavation or digging policy. Naji instructed a team to investigate the incident. The team discovered a hole – one meter and a half in depth and three meters wide – inside of which was found human bones and pottery.

The White Desert (Sahara el Beyda) is near the smallest oasis in Egypt, Farfara and contains a number of ancient sites. The equipment found included a mechanical excavator and a "tractor in a trailer". Nobody was present at the scene of the crime when authorities visited. Presumably the looters thought they could escape detection and left the equipment there.