Egypt: Inside Mallawi Museum

I have mentioned the conflicting reports coming out of the events in Mallawi, a town in Minya province in central Egypt where, during civil unrest on the 14th August, the museum was looted and then devastated. In the course of what occurred, blamed by some sources on "pro-Morsi supporters" (i.e. we are led to stereotypically believe, "islamists"), we are told that 1040 objects were stolen out of 1089 objects on display in the museum  though "most if the rest if the big size statues were damaged as looters couldn’t transfer them". The Mallawi Museum has a Facebook Page, listing the taken treasures. Among the significant pieces taken was a statuette of an Amarna princess.  A list of stolen artifacts is now being distributed among all Egyptian ports to prevent any smuggling attempts.
About a dozen artefacts have been returned to the museum (photos on the Task Force facebook page) they are mostly small things, one statue is very battered as if dropped.

A video has just been published via Egypt’s Heritage Task Force, it mostly is locals reacting to what happened, but about halfway through there are brief shots of the  (current) appearance of the interior of the museum. It would seem that when this video was taken the sarcophagi shown out of their cases and scattered on the floor had been removed to another place. From this video we can see that initial reports that the museum was on fire were false, or at least any fire did not reach the devastated galleries.

It can be seen that cases have been smashed and overturned. In one case is a pile of shattered glass and it seems obvious that this was done after any objects inside had been removed. I am a bit puzzled by the accepted story of an angry mob breaking in and doing all this damage, how you could actually (physically) cart off over a thousand individual objects from the midst of an angry mob pushing and shoving? Some of the returned objects are complete pots- still complete. Were each of them carried away individually tucked under someone's arm, or did somebody come into the museum with a cardboard box and take a dozen or so? All those small objects, were they carried away in armfuls by hundreds of looters, or boxes/sacks by a dozen? Or was there a bit of both?  The objects that were handed in, were they dropped in their haste by looters fleeing and found later in the streets? One assumes there if this was mob action, there'd have been pandemonium and chaos in the museum while this was going on and yet the cases were emptied systematically, apparently one after the other. In at least one case seen in the video, only then was the glass smashed. It would seem likely that this was the timing of the cases being overturned (it would be difficult picking up small antiquities from amongst the bits of shattered glass and wood in the middle of a mêlée of people pushing and shoving, some would have been left). I suspect Monika Hana is right suggesting this looting was the work of an organized group operating in the shadow of the protests. What we see in the video strongly supports the idea that the emptying of the cases had happened before most of the mob actually got into the museum. The Minya area has several times in the course of this blog been discussed as being particularly prone to criminal activity involving antiquities, with the possible involvement of several organized groups. Was one of these involved in the looting, and only later did a mob come in - rather helpfully for them, because they'd blur any evidence of teh traces the might have left behind?  This seems to be the story according to the National Geographic.


See also now:
A.R. Williams,  "Looters Shatter Museum of Ancient Egyptian Treasures"  National Geographic August 23, 2013 (Photographs by Roger Anis, El Shorouk/AP):

According to local news reports, looters—as yet unidentified—broke into the museum while supporters of recently deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi were holding a sit-in protest in the museum's garden. From the 1,089 artifacts on exhibit, an estimated 1,050 were stolen. After the looters had departed, gangs of what one source calls "local bad boys" entered the building and began to burn and smash what was left. [...] This incident is just the latest of countless attacks on Egypt's archaeological riches since the 2011 revolution.  Looting is certainly not a new phenomenon in Egypt. [...] What's different today is the scale—selling antiquities is a global business, and it's booming.

Mark Johanson, 'Malawi National Museum Looting Condemned By Unesco Amid Fears Egypt's Cultural Heritage Is In Danger' International Business Times, August 19 2013:

looters shot dead a museum employee and ransacked the institution between Thursday evening and Friday morning. Local reports suggest that vandals later burned mummies and broke sculptures too heavy to be carted away. Officials say the incident marks the biggest attack on an Egyptian cultural institution in living memory.

[the looting however is recorded elsewhere as having taken place on the Wednesday, but the ransacking of what was left may indeed have been on Thursday, note that in Minya governate there was already a curfew on Wednesday].