News from the Valley of the Kings

Dr Hawass reports the recovery of four items missing from the Egyptian Museum, including three of the missing Tutankhamun objects. A press conference was held so there are reports in many of the international papers as well.  No details of the recovery operaton have been reported so far. 

Generally the objects are in better condition than could be expected.  The Statue of Tutankhamun harpooning is largely intact, although part of one leg is missing and should now be presumed lost.  There is also minor damage to the crown. 

The shabti is in sufficiently good condition that it will go back on display immediately.  The reference ties back to the original catalogue of stolen items so we know that it is  a "Wooden Shabti of Yuya with Ten Lines of Inscription in Yellow".

One face of the fan (shown) is intact and undamaged.  The other face as fragmented into over a dozen pieces of which 11 have been recovered.  Some are still missing and again their recovery is now unlikely.

The figure ofTutankhamun being carried by the goddess is till unaccounted for (only the figure of the king itself is missing).

The trumpet is also in good condition and will go back on display.  Confusingly, the picture of recovered items shows two trumpets, although only one was reported stolen.  If you are interested in the trumpets, Charles Ellwood Jones wrote about them at the Ancient World Bloggers site a few weeks ago and has the links to the sounds of when the trumpet was played.


Ahram Online has a couple of extra photos of the recovered items.

Photo © Rania Galal - I am assuming this is the official press photo for the recovery.

“Our mission is not to evaluate or inspect Egypt’s museums and archaeological sites in the wake of the revolution,” stressed Christian Manhart, the Chief of the Museums and Cultural Objects section within UNESCO. “We are here mostly to assure the Egyptian authorities of our support in terms of protecting the country’s historical and cultural heritage and also to meet new people in charge and establish contact with them.”

AlmasryAlyoum has a very positive article on the first day of this week's UNESCO / ICOM misision to Egypt, which also gives more details of the team's plans and approach.  It is well worth reading.

The Egyptian Museum and SCA have issued a revised inventory of missing items, which has removed the 12 recovered items and has improved photographs and inventory details for the items which are still missing.

http://www.sca-egypt.org/eng/pdfs/Missing_Objects_2011-03-20.pdf

There are a couple of conclusions which can be drawn from the 12 recovered items:

1.  Items similar to those recovered are still missing, probably from the same cabinets.
   
2. The items recovered are generally the lower value items and do not include any of the Amarna / Tutankhamun / Yuya + Thuya pieces.

 I am coming to the view suggested by Paul Barford that there were at least two separate groups of thieves operating within the museum and that one group used the chaos to loot some premier items.  CCTV footage is going to be vital as Paul states on his blog.

I understand that the international cultural mission, led by UNESCO, will start work in Cairo tomorrow morning (Tuesday) and that the team has three members: Christian Manhart (Chief of museum section of UNESCO); France Desmarais (ICOM general secretariat); and Ossama Abdel Meguid (ICOM EC and CIPEG).  That sounds like a strong team to me.

Ahrahm has been critical of this mission, so I have been doing some digging.   There doesn't seem to be a published agenda for the mission, but I understand that the team's priorities are likely to include the following:

• to meet the new ministers (antiquities and culture);
• to visit and take care for the Egyptian Museum;
• to visit other nearby museums and sites, if there is need / opportunity;
• to get the official ministry / SCA cooperation for the compilation of a "red list" of stolen antiquities
• to discuss an action plan and determine needs for the future activities to follow.

That to me seems very sensible. The priority is to meet the new Minister of Culture - and of Antiquities if there is one - to build a relationship.  Some of the most important UNESCO World Heritage Sites are in Egypt, including the Memphite Necropolis which includes Giza, Saqqara, Dashur and Abusir and it's part of the rationale of UNESCO to monitor any threats to World Heritage Sites.  It also make sense to include the status of the Egyptian Museum, with a focus on compiling a detailed "red list" to help retrieve missing items.  Although we are focusing on the latest theft from the museum, Andie Byrnes reminded me ten days ago that bracelets from the important Tanis collection are still missing.  Hopefully, the latest thefts can be a springboard to re-invigorate the campaign for the return of all antiquities stolen from Egypt.  It is good to see ICOM and  CIPEG involved for that reason.  It's also worth remembering how much help the earlier ICOM mission was in bringing clarity to the reporting of site status, to the benefit of all concerned, including to Egypt.


The Ahram article isn't surprising.  There are still people in Egypt who don't want transparency of abuses during the Mubarak era and many of all political persuasions who view any external involvement with suspicion.  Ahram is also not regarded by the Tahrir protestors as an unbiased newspaper even now.  Hopefully, however, a positive mission will establish a strong partnership between the Egyptian regime and international cultural organisations.

(PS This post had more than it's fair share of typos!  Hopefully I have now got most of them!)

I mentioned the news report of the theft in my last post.  Jane Akshar now has pictures of two stolen statues on her blog.   These statues are from a very recent excavation (reportedly Monday this week) and have not yet been properly studied.  Full credit to the German team to having photographs.

Updated

There are some suggestions on Facebook that 15 items were stolen.  I've looked at some Arabic sources and Google mistranslates some of them, confusing 15 theives with 15 thefts (i.e. items stolen).  Hopefully, the loss is limited to just the two statues for which pictures have been circulated very quickly. 

While the present wave of looting is certainly worrying - and most especially at Abydos - with media restrictions relaxed, more evidence is starting to emerge that looting has been an ongoing problem for several years now.  For instance the Egyptian Chronicle has reported long-term threats to several sites:

These violations have been happening for the past decade and officials haven't done anything about it. When the revolution erupted, the Antiquities Police and the cultural officials working here disappeared, which has only exacerbated the problem. 

There is more news in that article.  Most of it is only single sourced, but it certainly makes grim reading.  Then there are stories like this one about the Mausoleum of Mohamed Cherif Pasha in Cairo:

In the past ten years, various artifacts have been reported missing. In 2004, the illuminated copy of the Quran was replaced by incomplete copies of various folios, and the investigating Awqaf committee informed Sabit that the inventory did not specify that the Quran was handwritten or illuminated. An Awqaf inspector told Sabit that “one Koran was as good as another.” A police report was filed, yet investigators concluded that no wrongdoing had occurred. This encouraged Sabit to create a complete photographic archive of the items in the mausoleum.

And:

In 2008, various items, including the handwritten calligraphic scrolls, were removed from the mausoleum by the Higher Council of Islamic Antiquities, and Sabit still does not know their whereabouts.

Sadly as the article reveals, the Mausoleum was completely stripped of all its remaining furniture and artifacts during the present crisis. 

It is hard because there has been a lot of disinformation out of Egypt over the past six weeks.  It's got to the stage where I am sceptical about almost everything - including obviously even these reports.  Nonetheless a picture is emerging that archaeological sites have been suffering rather more badly over the past decade than the SCA over that time reported to the media, both in terms of illegal digging and the building of houses.  There has indeed been a terrible step up in some areas over the past few weeks;  however, I think that reports which present site damage and looting purely as a new phenomenon have a political edge.  My personal impression is that the damage to sites should be considered as an ongoing problem which has escalated in part because of recent reduced security, but also in part because a culture of site damage has been permitted to persist over the past decade and because the SCA has not been particularly vigilant in maintaining the security of some sites.

Some people have suggested that some of the present looting of stores might be intended to cover up earlier illicit removal of antiquities.  I have seen no evidence to support this accusation, but reading the Mausoleum story for example, it is very easy to see that some individuals in that case might benefit if it is now impossible to show what was removed over the past decade. 

There are reports emerging of illegal digging on the West Bank. 

In the area of birket habu people tried to digg but were discovered early and dealt with (but without police - whatever that means). There is not specific date reported.

In Kom es-Samak a man was digging illegaly at night and was discovered by the gafirs. Because there was no police anywhere they dealt with him on their own, beating him badly. Our member went there on march 9th to lokk for himself and counted about 10 holes at the souther side of Kom es-Samak. He thinks the man was in search for foundation deposits. I will try to get some pictures from the damage.

The police returned to the coptic monastry at westbank is to guard it. It seems to be ok.

There is no independent verification but the report was made by a regular member of the German forum where this was posred.  Separately, the Luxor Times has reported that two residents of Luxor have been arrested in Hurghada for attempting to sell a statue:

At the check point in the entrance of Hurghada, two persons tried to turn around and run away so the Army officer chased and stopped them before he searched their car where he found a Pharaonic statue of a woman sitting on the throne covered in dust in sack.

I will update these on to the Looting Database before the end of the day - but they are already there in the comments.  My huge thanks for Daniel Jackson for reporting these to the Looting Database.

The looting in Abydos is reportedly getting worse, with a local source saying today on the Egyptian Dreams forum:

Now I am finding plastered and decorated tomb chambers opened and destroyed, (beautiful geometric designs in monochrome as well as multi colour) smashed grave pots and dismembered mummies intermingle with segments of plaster laying scattered and discarded over the sands. I have made inquiries and the southern section of the plain has suffered just as badly as the Northern section.

More on Egyptian Dreams forum. 

CNN has been allowed inside the Egyptian Museum which shows some of what is present, and hints and some things which might be missing. Only three of Thuya's canopic jars are present. Whether the fourth was stolen, damaged or is elsewhere is unknown, but it is widely believed that the stopper from one was shown on the floor in the original coverage just after the break in.

There is a transcript of the commentary in the accompanying article.



The Museum is, however, acquiring an unsavoury reputation as again there are reports that protesters were seized today and detained in the Egyptian Museum. Margaret Maitland has a few more details on her blog.

The world still waits for the Egyptian Museum to publish a definitive inventory of what was stolen and to provide firm details of the "eight" items confirmed stolen by Dr Hawass.  The Penn Cultural Heritage Cente has stepped into the breach and produced a working catalogue of the items confirmed missing, significantly extending the excellent early work done by Margaret Maitland.

I cannot find when Penn first published it, but the Lawyers' Committe for Cultural Heritage Protection reproduced it on 1st March, and I have linked to their site.  My apologies guys for being slow with this.

We, the undersigned, call on the Egyptian Transitional Authority and Military to immediately restore adequate security measures to the ancient, Islamic, Coptic and Jewish sites, monuments and storehouses, to stop the unprecedented theft and vandalism, and restore adequate protection to the legacy of Egyptian cultural heritage.

While the situation facing the ancient sites of Egypt is upsetting and concerning, I am very sceptical whether online petions achieve anything. Still, it can do no harm and may do some good, even if only raising the profile of the need for action, so I have signed it.  If you wish to sign too, then you can do so here.

Update 5th March

I have not added this to the Looting Database and will not do so unless there is some sort of verification of the contents.  However, for a blog, I believe it should be shared, with suitable caveats.

Article
Judith H. Dobrzynski, writing in the Clear Arts section on Arts Journal, has published a leaked inventory which purports to be a more complete list of items stolen from the Egyptian Museum.  She describes it like this:

It comes from inside the museum, and passed to me through a chain of reliable sources. I can not confirm it, but given the details, it seems credible enough to post here with those caveats. So, what follow is is word for word from the source, including the spellings:

She then publishes an inventory of supposedly stolen items as follows:

A. Collection of Tutankhamun

1. Trumpet
2. The two fans

B. From Yuya and Tuya collection
The collection had 11 Ushaptis, 7 are missing, and 4 are still there. These 11 Ushaptis are registered as one unit. These lie in the Upper Floor Gallery 43, display cabinet # 13

C. Also in the Upper Floor Gallery 43 the display cabinet of the turquoise Hipo, everything disappeared except the turquoise Hipo.

D. Late Period, Upper floor room 12: 17 Ushapti figures are missing

E. Pantheons, Upper Floor, room 14

1. Two drawers with their figures of Pantheons are missing
2. Two cabinets one in the middle of the room and one on the side have been violated with many pieces missing.

It is estimated that from this room only hundreds of pieces are missing, as you probably know these are small figures of gods and pantheons.

F. Department of Akhenaten, Ground Floor room 3 and gallery 13

1. Thot and the scribe (This is a very famous statue, 6.8 cm high)
2.  Bust of Nefertity (7 cm high)
3. Bust of Tuya mother of Nefertity.

Dr Hawass has said that the museum's own invetory will be ready on Sunday so it will be interesting to compare the two.   Personally I would have preferred to see the museum's inverntory first.

It is fair to say that no museum is fully secure.  I always tell people you can have as much security as you are willing to pay for, but 100% security is unaffordable.  Under the circumstances, while regrettable I don't think anybody should be held criminally accountable when, say, a remote underground store room is busted by an armed gang.  It can happen.  I feel rather differently about an attack through an unprotected skylight: most villa owners even would have a grille over skylights.  However, in a separate piece of conjecture Paul Barford has cast doubt on the official stories of the break in based on a visit to the museum when it reopened.  Again his report is unproven conjecture, but it makes interesting reading.  Barford alleges that the break in was officially sanctioned (although he is at pains to say there is no evidence that SCA or musuem staff were aware of the plan) as an attempt to produce TV coverage of shocking damage to discredit the protestors, while keeping the actual damage to a minimum.  If that is the case, someone seems to have gone beyond the plan.  Certainly if the list of items stolen is as extensive as Dobrzynski is now suggesting, it seems hard to believe that the stolen items were removed by hauling them up through the skylight as the museum has claimed.  (It actually seems more likely that the thieves escaped through the chaos in the gift shop.)  Of course it is easy for the museum to prove the facts by publishing the CCTV footage from the evening.



I cannot comment too much on the accuracy of the inventory of stolen items suggested by Dobrzynski at this stage because I don't know it's source.  Some points are easy to make however:

1. Given the scale of reported damage in the Late Period rooms, I was always sceptical that nothing had been stolen from those rooms.
2. Egyptologists are likely to find it hard to believe that Tutankhamun statues were not immediately spotted as missing when there was a broken base on the floor, and question Hawass' initial assertions that nothing was stolen.  The same applies to the other premier items whose cabinets were smashed: curators tend to know their collections intimately and I think most curators would spot that a star item was missing pretty quickly.  The public, however, has failed to grasp this.  They are likely, however, to react in disbelief if hundreds of items were stolen but no theft was spotted, although in curatorial terms failure to spot the theft of many more minor items might be easier to understand.  If proven, this new list of stolen items is likely to generate a hue and cry within Egypt and internationally.
3. The former director, Dr Wafaa el-Saddik, reported within days that many "figures of the gods" had been stolen and that the break in was an "inside job".  Her report was rubbished by Dr Hawass.  If she was right about the theft of figures of the gods, then it again raises questions about why Hawass denied the thefts and whether the break in was an "inside job".  We shall have to wait and see which version is proved to be  correct.
4. It will be easy for the museum to refute any losses which have been fabricated to discredit them or to sow dissension: they can invite in a respected international Egyptologist to verify that the losses are not as described in the Dobrzynski inventory, and to check against books like Hawass' own new guide to the treasures of the Egyptian Museum (which I have on order by the way).
5. One of the fans reported stolen appeared in initial TV footage of the damage.  This either means that there are errors in the Dobrzynski interview and perhaps some of the items are being restored, or perhaps that it is entirely fabricated. The alternative would be losses after the Al Jazeera cameras were allowed in.  Later losses would fit with the present-then-missing statue of Akhenaten.  Barford also wonders in his piece whether the collection was disturbed between the Al Jazeera filming and the later filming by CNN.

This is a story that won't go away.  Hopefully the Egyptian Prosecutor will announce an independent commission to determine the facts.  Given the importance of the collection is vital that the truth comes out.  That is also important to allow innocent staff within the SCA to clear their names.

We still do not have photographs of the items which the museum has confirmed stolen.  That is critical in stopping the thieves escaping the country and they should have been published immediately.  For me not publishing photos of these items and the false doors reported stolen from Saqqara is far more reprehensible than the lapses of security in the first place.  It might be unpopular, but I also think the excavation license should also be withdrawn from any foreign mission which cannot provide photos of items missing from their storehouses.  As soon as items are removed from the ground, they should be photographed as a precaution against theft, accidental damage or simple environmental degradation.  In the days of cheap, digital cameras there really is no excuse for not photographing all but the most trivial of items.

Finally, Vincent Brown has published an article about Zahi Hawass and the Museum Gift Shop. It is not about the thefts but it makes very interesting reading for anybody trying to build a full picture of how the SCA has been operating.

Hawass has resigned.  Originally reported by the Arabic Seventh Day, it has also been confirmed in a phone call with Kate Taylor of the New York Times.  The impression is that he has stepped down entirely.

That leaves a vacuum of power which is dangerous and will need to be filled quickly.  News over the next few days might be even more hard to come by than usual.  However, in my opinion his handling of the crisis has left Dr Hawass fatally compromised and he had to go.   

It will be very interesting who is appointed in his place.  If it is a Hawass acolyte, there might be few changes.  However, we could get a new broom who wants to sweep clean and make sure that all the bad news is out right at the start of his tenure so he cannot be blamed for any of it.  It could be an interesting week ...

In a new statement on his blog, Dr Hawass gives a list of sites which have been attacked, looted or vandalised.  Although widely reported as very bad news, actually most of these attacks had already been reported; several incidents are weeks old.  As he gives neither dates nor details, it is very dificult to determine which are new incidents.  For instance, he reports that the Tomb of Impy at Giza was broken in to, but the first reports of break ins ay Giza appeared at the end of January, but an armed raid was also reported a few days ago.  So is the attack in Impy new or old?  I have incorporated the new report into the Looting Database.

Genuinely new in terms of the reports I have seen are attacks on some Islamic sites.  Fortunately these do not seem to be severe and there are no new reports of attacks on monasteries.

One part of Hawass' report is definitely new:

The tomb of Ken-Amun in Tell el-Maskhuta, near Ismailia, was completely destroyed. It is the only known 19th Dynasty tomb in Lower Egypt.

The photo (courtesy SCA) shows a relief from the tomb.  We only have the Hawass report and don't know whether the tomb was vandalised or whether reliefs were removed.  While normally the hacking out of reliefs from tombs is dreadful news, in the context of "complete destruction", we obviously hope it was looted so that something might one day be recovered.  If you would like more information about the tomb, Discovery News covered its recent discovery:

Beautifully decorated, the tomb features scenes from the Book of the Dead, culminating with the famous vignettes from Chapter 125, which depict the critical judgment ceremony.

The situation for ancient sites in Lower Egypt continues to be of concern with two storage warehouses at Giza looted on Monday. I have consolidated the links for the reports onto the Giza page of the Looting Database.  In the first report (NY Times interview), Dr Hawass says he is unable to keep sites safe and is considering resignation.

There is a worrying report that Egypt's ancient monasteries are under threat.  The report comes from the U.S. Copts Association so it is a one-sided report, but I think it is probably factually accurate all the same.

“Three monasteries have been attacked by outlaws and have asked for protection from the armed forces, but were told to defend themselves.” said activist Mark Ebeid. “When the terrified monks built fences to protect themselves, armed forces appeared only then with bulldozers to demolish the fences. It is worth noting that these monasteries are among the most ancient in Egypt, with valuable Coptic icons and manuscripts among others, which are of tremendous value to collectors.”

The full details are in the article. Separately, a Coptic priest has also been found murdered, although it is unclear whether religion was a motive.  There has also been religious tension in Cairo.

The newly sworn in cabinet does, however, include two Coptic Christians which gives some grounds for optimism.  I am not sure whether the Culture Ministry or the Ministry for Antiquities is responsible for the ancient monasteries.  In fact a new cabinet was sworn in today and I cannot find a list to confirm whether or not the Ministry for Antiquities survived as a separate ministry or whether it has been re-absorbed into the Ministry for Culture.

Spiegel Online has run an interesting interview with Dr Hawass in which at last he criticises the withdrawal of the police.  It is worth reading, although Google Translate always struggles with translation from German.

If the article is interesting, the accompanying photo gallery is excellent.  Photo 9 for instance shows the Akhenaten statue in its case with a clear picture of a small carved head next to it.  Is this the stolen head?  We don't know as there has been no official word, but it would make sense.  It is worth reviewing all of the photos as they are a good collection.

All sites are in Egypt were supposed to have re-opened.  Whether it is particularly easy to get to some sites yet is perhaps somewhat questionable, but hopefully the situation should quickly revert to normal.

Ahram Online says that some museums are still shut, but doesn't specify which, although it does confirm some which have re-opened.

This is another BBC radio broadcast.  The main segment starts at 26:14. It doesn't add much new but we do have the oddity of a BBC journalist saying (starting 28:34) that the Egyptian Museum was well-protected against theft but Dr Hawass sharply contradicts.  It's a strange world when an official's reputation is best defended by saying that a museum he was responsible for was vulnerable to illegal entry.  Again, Hawass says that had it been an inside job, they would have taken a masterpiece ... erm, not famous statues of Tutankhamun then.

Noel O'Neill has been has been working on the identification of the statues again:

The figure of Tutankhamun harpooning on a papyrus skiff that was stolen is (JE 60710) . The base that the second figure is standing on has a large split from under the skiff to front of the base. (JE 60709). See page 130 of the complete Tutankhamun by Dr Nicholas reeves.

Dr Hawass in his own web site is showing the photo of (JE 60709) as the stolen figure and this is not helping.

The is no computer data base of the artefacts in the Cairo museum. They are still using the big leather ledgers and some are nearly 100 years old.  So trying to check what has been stolen from the museum is going to be very slow. Dr Hawass in a past interview said that he hoped to have a up to date data base by the time the Grand Egyptian Museum opens, and that is not for another two years. Both Dr Reeves and Dr Hawass in there books on Tutankhamun use the tomb numbers that Howard Carter gave each artefact, and if Dr Hawass is not using the museum numbers what hope for the rest of us.