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?

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.

Egyptian Archaeologists' Strike - Stealing Artefacts as Protest?

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In Egypt, protesting archaeology workers are threatening to begin strikes (including hunger strikes) which will result in the closing of archaeological excavations and monuments all over the Egyptian governorates. Protesters are apparently calling for the official appointment of 12,000 workers in the Supreme Council of the Antiquities. Not only are they intending to close sites - further endangering the rebuilding of Egypt's fragile tourist industry - but it is reported they threaten to "steal monuments from museums and stores if their demands are not met". This is apalling and would place the professionalism of the organizers of this action in question and raises the spectre again of the endangerment of the objects in the Egyptian Museum on 28th January for political gain by the collapsing regime. "The demonstrators will not give up their demands, said Ahmed Abdel Maqsoud, one of protesting workers" - not to be confused with Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud.

Dina Abdel Alem, 'Egypt's archeologists threatening strike if demands not met, Sept 22, 2011.

Egypt Looting Suspects Arrested

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In Egypt, a committee will examine the antiquities recovered from a house in Minya. On Thursday, security forces arrested ten suspected gang members in Minya and Beni Suef governorates and Gharbiya in the Delta, leading to the discovery of the artefacts in the home of one suspect. The team recovered 27 artifacts in farmer Salem Othman's house, Othman escaped arrest. A Ministry of Interior statement said that several reports had been submitted to Minya prosecution about the activities of these people leading to a criminal investigation team locating the group's meeting place. The relics were seized by the state, the suspects were referred to the prosecution, and the criminal investigation team is now searching for Othman.

Al-Masry Al-Youm, 'Gang suspects arrested, 27 artifacts seized in Egypt', Thursday 08 September 2011.

UPDATE 10th September 2011:
Al Ahram has a slightly different version, there the arrest took place on "Friday night", there were "twelve" of them, the place name is transliterated "Meniya" (and is described as in "Upper Egypt" which I suppose is technically true, if you do not imagine a middle Egypt). The 27 stolen artefacts recovered which "include metal and black granite (sic) ancient Egyptian statues and scarabs" appear to be the same story. Here though the gang was apprehended as they tried to sell them.

"An archaeological committee will inspect the collection in order to check upon its authenticity and identify the ancient Egyptian tombs from which the artefacts had been stolen. The suspects had large sums of money and a car with Libyan plates. They said that they purchased the antiquities from tomb raiders in Meniya".

Nevine El-Aref, 'An Egyptian antiquities' smuggling ring falls into police net', Al Ahram, Saturday 10 Sep 2011

Is this one of the seized artefacts?

This photo appears in Al-ahram as one of the seized objects. The photo however is the same as the one used in Al-Masry Al-Youm which merely says it was photographed by "staff". We have seen this sort of thing before, the Egyptian media merely shove any old random photo of something that looks like a (generic) "antiquity" into a text about an antiquities issue. From previous articles it seems to me that Al Masry Al Youm seems to have a pile of old photos of broken artefacts which it uses for this purpose. I suspect the arm in the photo was not among the items seized.

I am a bit suspicious about the rather careless way these stories seem to be compiled, we've seen this a lot in the Egyptian press in the past few months. Two completely different versions appear in the press, one seems based on the other (use the same photo) but differs fundamentally in the details, one might attribute this to the later one being based on more careful investigative journalism later, except it reports the event took place on Friday night, while the earlier account had already been published on THURSDAY. Mr Othman in one account was "caught red handed" and in the other was not at home when then police raided. Suddenly "Libyan number plates" appear in the story. If we are looking at these variant accounts with a critical eye, we may also note the number "27" artefacts (one of the few elements of the story which is the same in both of them) is the same as the (reported) losses in an earlier storeroom theft in March (the precise details of which missing items, though promised never materialised). I do begin to wonder to what extent we are observing real news, and to what extent myth-making in progress. What actually IS going on over there in Egypt? Are we likely to learn this from the Egyptian media?

Map, edited from here

One year ago

One year ago A Vincent van Gogh painting, "Poppy Flowers," was stolen in broad daylight from Cairo's Mahmoud Khalil Museum. The security cameras were not working, the object was not recovered. Several people were dismissed from their posts and some ended tried in court and sentenced to jail. That was one modern painting.

Coming up to seven months ago on the other side of the river, a group of people rampaged around the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, broke 17(?) cases, smashed some 70 objects all of them several thousand years old and some irreplaceable, stole a bunch of them and made off into the dark with them strewing some in the garden on the way. The security cameras were not working, three guards were reportedly on duty even though a full blown riot had been going on just outside the Museum gates for three days. Nobody is known to have lost their job, the Museum Director responsible is still in his post. Why?

Vignette: Cairo logo.

Egyptian Museum, The "Whole Story"

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A bunch of people calling itself World Wide Archaeology (which seems rather a misnomer for a Facebook group consisting mainly of assorted Egyptians and a few Egyptological hangers-on) is apparently holding a seminar at the El Sawy Culturewheel-Zamalek in Cairo today:

The Second Seminar with a cooperation between WWA and The Egyptian Museum in Egypt [...] titled “Egyptian Museum Monuments after Revolution”The whole story. The Egyptian Museum became an improbable backdrop to Egypt’s revolution when on Jan. 25, 2011, pro-democracy protesters first occupied Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo. You are invited to know the whole true story about looting, returned artifacts and restoration work from sources of trust.

For this group, the "sources of trust" are Dr.Tarek El Awady the director of the Egyptian museum and Dr. Hoda Abd El Hameed (director of the restoration department in the Egyptian Museum). In other words the man who together with his staff have not exactly been justifying any trust whatsoever as museum professionals by telling us in the past seven months since the events of 28th January anything which looks anything like the "whole story". I want to know what he was doing in the control room with Mubarak's State Security Services men and why he is still in his post after the Museum lost so many objects on his watch. Let us hope that somebody who was able to attend will let us know "the whole story" as told by Tarek El Awady. Is it too much to expect a You tube video or podcast for those archaeologists and others "World Wide" who were unable to get to it?

Did the speakers reveal when the report of the state commission that was doubtless set up to investigate the theft of state property will be publishing its report about what actually happened, who was responsible for the security breach and what steps should be or have been taken to rectify the weaknesses in the system?

UPDATE 19.08.2011.
Sadly although the World Wide Archaeology organizers promised they were going to put online something about what was revealed at this meeting about the "whole story", nothing has actually materialised... There was some talk that the participants had been shown photos of the "objects" conserved. But of course that is just part of the story that is of concern to the "World Wide" community.

"Red Mercury Thieves" Worked for the Security Service?

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Al Masry Al Youm has a summary of what today's newspapers are saying in Egypt: Lina Attalah, 'Sunday’s papers: A nation trapped between past and future', 7th August 2011. One piece of information is of interest in the context of the museum looting (see my previous post on the Al-Adly trial last week):

Privately owned daily Youm7 runs what it calls exclusive transcripts of former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly’s interrogations. Those transcripts show that all the events of the revolution, from its start on 25 January, were recorded through video cameras placed at the Egyptian Museum and the Mugamma, the city’s administrative hub in Tahrir Square. The transcripts include a testimonial by Tarek al-Awady, the museum’s director, in which he said that the National Security apparatus took charge of the surveillance rooms in the museum during the revolution, and activated direct communication lines between the museum and the central command room of the security apparatus.

I have not seen the original, which might indicate on what day the takeover happened, but since the security apparatus was withdrawn from the city in the evening of 28th January, does this mean that the establishment of this direct communication line was some time before that? If so, this would explain a number of things (like if the museum was under the direct control of the state security services on 28th it would go some way to explaining why only three of the Museum's own guards are reported to have been on duty). It would also explain why, when I visited the museum several weeks later, its external cameras were inexplicably pointing outside the Museum grounds, and not overseeing the area directly around the Museum. [Here I would also like to ask whether the cameras can be directed remotely, or whether somebody had to go up onto the roof of the building to realign them manually, and whether any extra cable was necessary on the roof for this establishment of a watch over the square below].

It also raises questions. If the museum security room was staffed by the Security Forces, what was Tarek El-Awady doing there with them on 28th January? We remember the story of how the men locked themselves in this room and El-Awady had the idea of turning off the lights, so the vandals could not see what they were doing.

More to the point, we now learn that there were SS (State Security) personnel in the museum on 28th who had arrived there only two, three at the most, days earlier. They were not museum staff but answered to somebody else. It seems a fair guess that these could have been the men who - on orders from a superior, or on learning that the Minister had been dismissed on their own initiative - came up the stairs in the southeast corner of the Museum that night and rampaged around, took some stuff and made off into the night with it before the army came. Is this what happened? The account of what Tarek El-Awady testified in court makes no mention of that aspect of the case. Why not?

Mubarak Trial Begins: Museum Mentioned

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The trial of Hosni Mubarak, his sons Gamal and Alaa and various other officials began today in the heavily guarded courtroom in the Police Academy (formerly Mubarak Police Academy) in Cairo. The defendants were locked in a cage, separating them from their defence teams. The former President was brought in on a hospital bed; reports had been circulating about his ill health, but he looked fairly alert and spoke in a strong voice. Within a few moments of the starting of the trial, Judge Ahmed Refaat seemed to lose control of his courtroom, with defence lawyers of the first seven defendants creating a disturbance with their insistence on presenting oral demands instead of handing them to the court in writing. It was during this that a reference was made to the Egyptian Museum which interested me.

Farid El Deeb (a well-respected Egyptian lawyer) is defending "defendant number 1" in the first of the two cases. In other words Habib El-Adly former Minister of the Interior. Part of his demands concerning things which he insists the court should take into consideration was for the court (itself?) to conduct an inspection of a number of places, to determine that there was no evidence there of the crime attributed to his client of having been undertaken there. Interestingly the first of about five or six places he mentioned was the Egyptian Museum (followed by the Ministry of the Interior). Now why was this? The riots began 25th January, and for the next three days the Museum (though on the north side of Tahrir Square) played little noticeable part in the events [ I admit I do not recall if there was talk of snipers on its roof then]. El-Adly was dismissed from his post on the morning of 28th Jan. The police began to withdraw from their posts about five in the afternoon of that day all over Cairo and other parts of Egypt (including Luxor) and a few hours later the Army was deployed. It was only then (about ten in the evening) that the Museum was occupied by the Army - after which accusations started to appear about what the military units stationed there were doing to protesters on the Museum premises. So what in fact was the connection between the Egyptian Museum and the charges against El-Adly? Further proceedings in the trial may reveal this.

UPDATE: A few days later, it transpired what the connection was, and it is one of great interest in the context of the looting of the Museum on 28th January.

Egyptian Museum: New "Missing Objects" List Needed

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Things have been reappearing in dribs and drabs, but isn't it about time the Egyptian Museum made another list of what is still "missing" (or believed to be missing)? This is what I make to be the score now:

FIRST FLOOR GALLERIES
1) JE 9080 Statuette of Onuris page 2/42 (Room P19)
2) JE 27326 Limestone female statue page 6/42 (Room 48)
3) JE 29357 Bronze statuette Apis bull, page 7/42 (Room 48)
4) JE 30204 Bronze statuette Nakht, page 8/42 (Room 48)
5) JE 39590 Limestone shabti, 18 dyn, page 12/42 (Room 48)
6) JE 36598 Bronze statuette Bastet [inscribed Padiamen], page 11/42 (Room 19)
7) JE 47906 Necklace, gold, faience, stone beads, page 16/42 (Room 6)
8) JE 55175 Lapis lazuli bead girdle, TT 358 Ahmose Merytamun, page 19/42
(Room 48)
9) JE 60713 Tutankhamun red crown, KV 62, page 22/42 (Room '30' recte 40)
10) JE 60713 Tutankhamun shrouded, KV 62, page 23/42 (Room 40)
11) JE 68983 Yuya wooden shabti KV46, page 29/42 (Room 43)
12) JE 68984 Yuya wooden shabti KV46, page 30/42 (Room 43)
- the one that was announced as having been found but had not.
13) JE 68987 Yuya wooden shabti KV46, page 31/42 (Room 43)
14) JE 68989 Yuya wooden shabti KV46, page 32/42 (Room 43)
15) JE 68992 Yuya wooden shabti KV46, page 33/42 (Room 43)
16) JE 68993 Yuya wooden shabti KV46, page 34/42 (Room 43)
17) JE 68994 Yuya calcite shabti KV46, page 35/42 (Room 43)
18) JE 68995 Tjuya wooden shabti KV46, page 36/42 (Room 43)
19) JE 68998/JE 95362 Tjuya wooden shabti KV46, page 37/42 (Room 43)
20) JE 94481 Ten faience amulets and beads, page 39/42 (Room 48)
21) SR 3/8599 Bronze false beard, page 41/42 (Room 19)
22) SR 3/8604 Bronze false beard, page 42/42 (Room 19)
23) [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].

GROUND FLOOR GALLERIES (all Amarnan in date and all from one case - the Akhenaton statue found in Tahrir Square (sic) was from this group - where are the rest of the objects from the group that was taken from this case?)
24) JE 44867, Unfinished limestone Nefertiti statue, page 13/42 (Room R8 vit k)
25) JE 44873, Quartzite statue princess, page 14/42 (Room R8 vit k)
26) JE 44874, Red granite statue princess, page 15/42 (Room R8 vit k)
27) JE 52976, Limestone statue, seated man, page 17/42 (Room R8 vit k)
28) JE 53250, Steatite statue of Bes (calcite base), page 18/42 (Room R8 vit k)
29) JE 59291, Steatite statue of scribe with Thoth/Baboon on limestone base,
page 20/42 (Room R 8 vit k)
30) JE 53250, Quartzite head of princess, page 26/42 (Room R8 vit k)

The only object from the ground floor gallery retrieved to date was the Akhenaton statue found "in the garbage" near Tahrir Square 16th February 2011. 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). A question which remains to be answered is how and where the latter bunch of artefacts were detected. Were they seized at Egypt's borders during an attempt to take them out of the country?

A few weeks ago I presented a plan of the Museum's first floor showing where cases were broken into and stuff removed and either thrown on the floor or taken. Here it is again, with an indication of where the material has not yet been fully recovered (small circles) and where most of the objects taken have not been seen since Jan 28th (larger circles). Most of it is on the first (upper) floor, the material missing from the ground floor is shown in blue.


If we break down what is still missing, much of it comes from the same rooms as the material also retrieved. From Room 19, 14 stolen items have been recovered, but four are still "out there" (numbers items 1, 6, 21-2). From room 6, five stolen objects have been retrieved, but one more (7) is still to find. The people who went through Room 48 (rotunda in the centre of the south side) however have not yet been detected, we are still missing all the objects they took (2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 20). Of the group of items taken from the Yuya and Thuya collection in the adjacent room 48, only one item has been found, but apart from this all the objects taken from that gallery are also missing (nine shabtis nos. 11-19). Equally the two Tutankhamun pieces are still missing despite the retrieval of one statue from the same case as the two still missing statues and the trumpet and fan from Room 13.

[Egyptian Museum staff if you are reading this (I know you do), please produce an updated list of the items believed to be missing, this time please give the document a proper title, put the date it was compiled somewhere in it and number the pages properly. It would help if you numbered the missing objects too]

Shambles, no Other Word for it

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It took the staff of the Cairo Egyptian Museum an inordinate amount of time to create a list of the objects that went missing during the vandalism and looting of the museum on 28th January 2011. Too long for a modern museum. Even then, the first version was somewhat "lacking" in several ways. The second version was marginally better. Then various objects began turning up under odd circumstances. None more odd than the two that were never missing (Youm 7: 'Two archeological pieces of Egyptian Museum found', Aug 2, 2011):

Two Egyptian archeological pieces were found in the Egyptian Museum during an inventory check up of the Museum’ contents. It was reported the two pieces [had been] lost during the chaos on January 28, 2011 [...] One of the pieces is a bed made of clay while the other is a wooden vase. Both pieces are dated back the Pharonic era, said a member of inventory committee, Raafat al-Nabarawy. He said the workers found the pieces in storeroom IV of the Egyptian Museum. Consequently, all storerooms of the Egyptian Museum will be inventoried. El-Nabarawy said the Museum employees did not find the pieces in their glass-case and so thought the pieces were lost. The lost pieces were registered in the list of lost monuments during the initial inventory.

Right, this is wooden model of a vase, Saqqara region, JE 26083 on page 5/42 of the second (horizontal list) "missing from case "P32 Vit. D - pup 2". The "bed" (which might not be a bed) model from El Kab is JE 31720 from P32 - case 54.

....................

I must admit the loss of the wooden vase (known only through a drawing) and the clay model bed did look a bit odd alongside the other items that were actually taken that night. When I was in the museum I could not work out which cases these had been taken from - now I know why; they were not actually taken. What on earth does that museum's documentation look like if they cannot tell what is and what is not on display or in the museum at all? Vignette: Room 32 is here

Guardian of the Pharoahs Tells a New Story

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There is an interview with Zahi Hawass in the August number of Scientific American, it's quite notable for the way he dodged answering most of the questions. Most of it is fairly predictable, except this:

You said 31 objects from the Cairo museum are still missing at this point. What are the most significant ones?

[ZH] The only significant one from the museum is a small head of Queen Nefertiti—a few centimeters high. [...] We brought back the statue of Akhenaton holding a stela. And we’ve brought back most of King Tut’s objects that were stolen.

And where were they? Where did you find them?

[ZH] Those were taken by the looters who entered the museum on the night of January 28. We got the objects of King Tut because there was someone working for the antiquities department who came to me and said that there were looters who wanted to return these objects to me. And the next day he brought a bag with four objects.

And these looters approached the department official anonymously

[ZH]It's a long story. He was sitting in a café, and heard them talking, and they said they need to return these objects to Zahi Hawass because they trust him.

Now of course that is not the story that was put out at the time, or rather not either of the stories that was put out at the time. So now we have at least three different versions of the same event, found in a bag by named person (chance), handed in by unnamed person (delberate act), conversation overheard in a cafe by named person (chance). And these men "trust" Hawass?

Also, what does it mean "Those were taken by the looters who entered the museum on the night of January 28"? Were there any other raids on different days we did not hear anything about? So this Ministry employee (here unnamed - but the finder was named as Salah Abdel Salam earlier) has had contacts with the 28 Jan looters? Why were they not arrested? Did the handover take place in the Shubra metro station, or in a cafe?

[By the way Dr Hawass is not quite presenting the facts saying: "most of the items looted on 28th January were returned". The number of items still missing is still greater than half of those taken. Perhaps he has in mind the total number of items taken out of their cases that night, the majority of which were left in the museum on the floor or thrust into other cases.]

Jeffrey Bartholet, 'Zahi Hawass, Egypt's Indiana Jones and One-Time Mubarak Ally, Tries to Cozy Up to Pro-Democracy Activists', Scientific American July 13, 2011
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Egyptian Museum Inventory to Begin Again

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This is surprising news, we were told after the looting on 28th January that the creation of a full inventory of the contents of the galleries of Cairo's Egyptian Museum was underway, and the time it would take to do this was the reason that they could not get a list of missing objects out. When the list came out it had duplicate inventory numbers indicating that there have been problems with the collection management going back some years. So in the coming up to six months following the events of 28th January, which gave a new incentive, I think we'd all assumed that they had been busily sorting this problem out. Indeed, when I visited the newly-opened Museum at the end of February a cluster of Museum staff could be seen with some benches drawn up to the glass of a case in one of the galleries (one that had not been broken into) with a card index and a laptop - though it seemed to me they were more interested in the contents of their cellphones than the case, and they were by the same case when I went there the next day. Now an announcement has appeared in Al-Masry Al-Youm:

The Higher Council of Universities formed a committee to create an inventory for the collection inside the Egyptian Museum, according to the decision of the public prosecution. The committee will start work on Sunday by creating an inventory of the second department of the museum that includes pharaonic monuments [...] The Secretary General of the Higher Council of Antiquities, Dr. Mohamed Abdel Maksood, said the museum includes over a 100,000 artifacts, recorded on 120 paper documents and electronically. He clarified this is not the first time to create an inventory for the Egyptian museum [...] Dr. Mahmoud al-Helwagy said the museum [...] had an inventory created many times before and confirms the inventory process continues for years each time. He said that the inventory process always is always a result of complaints the museum gets through a robbery attempt.

So the Museum staff cannot actually do/ have not actually done this? Why not? What then has been going on in the past six months? A while ago Dr Yasmin El Shazly, Head of Documentation at The Egyptian Museum was slagging me off for "not supporting" the Museum in questioning on my blog the stories that were being told about the looting (see the post below this for more on that), so I feel justified in asking just what she and her staff have been doing that needed "supporting" now an external commission has been called in to do the work her team should have been doing (completing)? I am not clear what it means that this external audit was called for by the public prosecutor, whether the Museum is under investigation for mismanagement and subsequent cover up? That would be an interesting development, let's see what happens.

Dena Abdel-Aleem (translated by Bishoy Ramzy Reyad), 'Egyptian Museum's inventory committee start work tomorrow', Al Youm 7, July 10, 2011.
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January 28th Looting in the Museum

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Cairo-based egyptologist Nicole Hansen writes conspiratorially on the Facebook "Save the Egyptian Museum" group:

Someday hopefully the truth what really happened at the museum, the aftermath of that and the response and motivations behind that response from various parties will come out but until then all I can say is that what we are told by various parties does not correspond at all to the facts or logic.

Including what we are being told by the Museum, a whole lot of illogical and contradictory nonsense. From my own sifting through the evidence, including taking a good look at first hand at what was left of the traces in the museum after the cleanup, I am sure Lawrence Rothfield in the Guardian is close to the truth:

Much remains unclear about the incident, including whether "the whole thing was a well-controlled gambit to persuade the international community that the country was descending into chaos and that the revolt needed to be crushed", he said.

That is, I think, precisely what the evidence we have shows happened. Nobody swung Tarzan-like down from the unbroken skylights looking for red mercury or anything else. The vandals who smashed cases on the first floor (and broke into one case on the ground floor) were already in the museum when it closed for the evening, and came up from the vicinity of the security post at the bottom of the Southeast stairwell. They knew what they were doing and where they were going, went straight to the Tutankhamun gallery, and fanned out from there causing contrived mayhem. This would therefore mean that the identity of these men was known to the authorities, and if this is so, it suggests that the location of the "missing" artefacts is therefore also known (as is suggested by the stories about how they have been "surfacing" since then). If so, who is currently holding them where, and for what purpose?
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Friday of Determination in Cairo

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Onlookers are wondering when Egyptian oppositionists are going to run out of names for each Friday demonstration. Today (8th July) its "Friday of Determination" and "march of a million" and its a nationwide protest demanding those responsible for the killing of over 1000 peaceful protesters be punished and the police overhauled. Ahram online has a blog updated live which chronicles the day's events. One item caught my eye:

14:20 Activists are now gathering to surround and secure the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square against any attempts at subversion or theft. There are no police or military forces protecting the museum. During the 18 day occupation of Tahrir square leading up to the ouster of Mubarak, thugs, believed to have been working with the police, attacked the museum with Molotov Cocktails, while others broke into it and vandalised several priceless antiquities.

Interesting phrasing in the circumstances. It's a bit worrying that the report says that there are no police or military forces protecting the museum, what's that about? Even if the demonstration is peaceful and in the cause of human rights, civil unrest is civil unrest and crowds can be unpredictable.

The crowds are beginning to gather in the Square after Friday prayers and the military government is reported to be having a very "hands off" approach to security this week as criticism of the military rule increases, with reports of some 7000 arrests of activists in the last few months.

UPDATE 11th July 2011:
1) Amro Hassan,'Tahrir Square looks like February all over again', LA Times blog - Babylon and Beyond, July 11, 2011

Protesters are demanding speedier trials for members of Mubarak’s regime who have been charged with corruption and the murders of hundreds of protesters during the revolution [...] an end to military trials set up for civilians detained in various incidents over the last few months, the firing of all former regime officials still holding public office [...]. Most of those joining the sit-in fear that the revolution is slipping away from them, and that the promises by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces and the interim government cannot be trusted.

Presumably one of those that are threatened by this latest wave of civil disobedience is Minister of State for Antiquities Zahi Hawass.

2) Marwa Al-A’sar, 'Tahrir sit-in continues despite power cut, theft', Daily News Egypt July 11, 2011.
Zeinab El Gundy, 'Power cut in Tahrir Square triggers fears of imminent clampdown', Al Ahram, Monday 11 Jul 2011: "Electrial power to Tahrir Square was cut a short while ago according to Ahram Online's correspondent in the square. Power is also down in surrounding buildings. The protesters [are], concerned that the power cut may be part of a deliberate attempt to break up the sit-in...". It is not specifically stated if the Egyptian Museum is one of the buildings without power, if so this is a potential threat to its security and the objects inside it. There are reports of thefts taking place from protesters in the Square.

UPDATE 13th July 2011: Speculation that Hawass will be dismissed as a result of recent events: Kate Ta ylor, 'Revolution Dims Star Power of Egypt’s Antiquities Chief', New York Times, July 12th.

Until recently [...] a global symbol of Egyptian national pride. A famous archaeologist in an Indiana Jones hat, he was virtually unassailable in the old Egypt, protected by his success in boosting tourism, his efforts to reclaim lost artifacts and his closeness to the country’s first lady, Suzanne Mubarak. But the revolution changed all that.

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BBC Documentary on Egyptian Museum "Looting"

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The Pharaohs' Museum on Liberation Square Alan Yentob visits Egypt's National Museum, possibly the most precious museum in the world, which stood at the centre of the action during the revolution on Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Irritatingly, this is not accessible here, but from what I've heard of it from several sources, there is really nothing much new in this BBC documentary. Kate Phizackerley has a post on her blog ('Update on Museum Looting from BBC Documentary) which describes it. This is what she says:

To my mind, the documentary adds only minimal detail to the story of the break in. That the robbers made their entrance via ropes from the ceiling is again presented but the windows filmed by the BBC are covered with the grime of ages and clearly hadn't been broken. Reviewing an old video on this post, the presenter points to "that broken window", although he didn't film it. I am therefore inclined to believe that at least one intruder did enter via the skylight.

Well, this is odd. The windows above the case where the journalist, Richard Engel, is standing most certainly were not, and had not been recently, broken when I visited the museum a few weeks later (21st Feb 2011). In the film as the camera swings up (1:37 mins) you can even see these are grimy windows. There IS (was) a broken window in the clerestory but on the opposite corner of the room from the smashed case. The journalist is waving his hands towards unbroken windows, while looking towards one that is - but is not over the case which figures in the official story.

Kate Phizackerley's account of the BBC programme continues:

There is visible blood on one of the objects in case on which one intruder is supposed to have fallen which lends further credence to the official story. There is also a blood stain in the corner beyond one of the wooden model boats (I think the Meseti boat), where supposedly he hid close to where he entered on ropes from the skylight. It's not obvious how if he moved to hide in a corner following his injury that he and/or his accomplices then made their way to the Tutankhamun collection and downstairs where he was captured in front of the Sekhmet statue.

yes there are blood spatters on some of the objects in the case indicated, but the blood stain shown (1:49 mins) is between that case and the wall cabinets (you can see them going round the case to point to it) and not "beyond one of the wooden boats").

This smear was still on the floor, and another on the glass of the wall cases about half a metre up when I visited the Museum after it re-opened (21st feb), but had been cleaned off when I went back a month later (the bloodstains remained on the objects in the case). So no, this guy was not "hiding", he cut himself on the glass and bled a bit. The Tutankhamun gallery was vandalised before the events in this room, the broken statues were brought here. I think the "roof entry" is a cover-up. I think the evidence clearly shows the men came up the stairs in the southeast corner of the Museum.... and went straight to the Tutankhamun cases, they then spread out and moved west, eventually to escape down the northwest stairs to the exit door (and Sekhmet statue). Do we actually know it was the injured guy that was captured? (I know its what we have been told, but that is not the same thing). I do not think we have really been properly informed how many people were in the galleries (the official story is that the security cameras were operating - though I doubt that, I think they had been turned off) or where they were, how many have been arrested, and where they are now. Sadly, I think there is a very good reason for that which I suspect has more to do with what is known than what is unknown about these men.

Kate P. again:

Dr Hawass also stressed that the museum was dark which is how the boat came to be damaged in the hunt for gold, which suggests the lights were turned off very quickly, but the impression I had formed from previous versions of the break in story was that there had been something of a delay before the idea of turning the lights off occurred to the control room.

Well, like the "red mercury" nonsense, the "gold seekers" story is in my opinion just a smokescreen invented by the authorities (Hawass himself?) to draw attention away from what really was the primary aim of the people in the Museum on 28th January. As I have argued earlier, I think the fact that objects were actually taken was a secondary and unplanned part of the night's events. Were the lights actually turned off? Or is that a story to act as a cover-up why there are no security camera images?

Of course we should not need to be scanning videos of visits of foreign journalists to the museum six months after the event for clues. By now, the Museum should have gathered all the information about these events, sorted out truth from convenient fiction, and released to the Egyptian public and international community the results of their research about what happened, what went wrong and why, and what concrete steps have been taken to avoid a repetition. Basically all the Museum has done since is stay silent about the various inconsistent (but all 'official') stories circulating and presumably is hoping if they stay quiet for long enough, the problem will go away. Sadly for them, it will not. It is surely time for Egypt's Museum professionals to act like museum professionals.
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As Hawass flies to Peru, protesters call for the minister to step down

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There seems to be a pattern developing, when the Minister of Antiquities of Egypt is sitting in his office with his finger on the pulse, his critics are quiet; the moment he goes jet-setting off around the world spreading the message, the critics crawl out and start their whining. A few weeks back he was in the States and the accusations flew. He came back and they sat quiet. Now he's gone off to Peru to take part in a conference on repatriation and back home the fuss starts (Ola El-Saket, Mohamed Azouz, 'As Zahi Hawass flies to Peru, protesters call for the minister to step down', Al-Masry Al-Youm 3rd July 2011).

As Zahi Hawass, Egypt's antiquities minister, traveled to Peru on Sunday to represent Egypt in the second Conference on Retrieving Stolen Artifacts, dozens of people protested outside the Ministry of Defense demanding his removal from office.

Interesting location for the protest. The accusations being tossed about with gay abandon while he was State-side did not strike me as too convincing which is why I did not bother to blog about them. I'd go along with the new ones though.

The calls for his resignation stem from a number of complaints against him, included claims of irregularities regarding antique artifacts stolen during the Egyptian uprising earlier this year. "Zahi never provided official documents on what remains missing from the Egyptian Museum,” says Nasser Ibrahim, an employee at the ministry’s restoration department. On 28 January (dubbed "The Day of Rage"), looters broke into the Egyptian Museum overlooking Tahrir Square, after which, dozens of artifacts were reported missing. Hawass gave a number of conflicting statements after the break-in, at times admitting to the looting of artifacts, while at others assuring a furious local and international community that Egypt’s largest museum was safe. Reports have also suggested that not all artifacts at the museum are listed, making it impossible to determine what exactly was stolen. "We demand that an international committee be formed to create a thorough inventory of artifacts at the museum," said Ibrahim. “The security cameras at the museum were not working during the robbery. This is the responsibility of the former secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities,” says Intessar Gahrib, the media coordinator of the protest, in reference to Hawass, who held that position before he was appointed minister of antiquities. “We have submitted documents proving our claims to the General Prosecutor’s office, and we are demanding that the ruling military council look at them. They prove his negligence and corruption,” adds Gharib.

Now, actually I think he did in the end provide documentation (of sorts) of what was missing - after a huge delay which is indeed caused by the pitiful state of the documentation of the contents of the museum (for which previous directors of the museum and current staff must share responsibility with the Minister). Certainly I agree that since coming up to six months later, we have absolutely NO reliable information from the Egyptian authorities about what actually happened that night, and the official story (stories) is/are obviously a smokescreen, an international commission should indeed be set up to get those answers. Readers of this blog may remember that it is one of my contentions that the CCTV cameras were not working of the night of the thefts and apparently were still inoperative when the museum was reopened in February this year. Over in the Mahmoud Khalil Museum the same situation led to the jailing of the officials concerned, and there only one nineteenth century flower- painting was stolen, here we had unique artefacts from the New Kingdom swiped and damaged.

I think there is something else for the procurator to look into. Where are the missing objects? It has been claimed that the looters were random opportunist "red mercury seekers" from the streets. I think, conversely, the evidence available until now clearly points to an entirely different conclusion, in my opinion, it was a planned operation, apparently an "inside job". Nobody came in through any roof, they came up the stairs. If that is so, it would therefore stand to reason that the culprits are by now known to the authorities, some of the people (said to be) involved have been arrested and convicted, which means they surely already know where the rest of the artefacts are. So who has them? Where are they being kept? and when are those keeping them planning to reveal them? Just before the elections, maybe? I would say that the way the investigation of the location of all the missing artefacts (the sting, the Khan el-Khalili bust and especially the bag at the metro Station fiasco) was handled is indeed something for the state prosecutor to look into in great detail, just to make sure there was no cover-up.

The next bit of the Al-Masry Al-Youm article is pathetic:

Hawass was unavailable for comment. However, he spoke earlier of the Supreme Council of Antiquities’ efforts over the past few years in retrieving stolen artifacts and helping other countries do the same, Peru being one example. According to Hawass, Egypt played a pivotal role in the negotiations with the University of Yale to finally return 13 golden masks to Peru after a long-standing dispute. He also spoke of an extensive “wish list” developed in Cairo last year, citing artifacts stolen from Egypt that are to be demanded from museums in Europe and the US.

The journalists add a trenchant comment:

The recently missing items, however, are not on that list.

The reason for that however is, I submit, in all probability not quite what the journalists think.