Crispina Posted January 30, 2011 Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 I saw a video of people making a human chain around the Cairo Museum of Antiquities to try and keep it safe. The government building nearby is still burning and they are afraid it will spread to the museum, the last I heard they were calling for help to keep the fire away. Do you think they will loot or vandalize the museum? Didn't something similar happen in Iraq? I know there are more important issues involved here, but still. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viggen Posted January 30, 2011 Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 Would-be looters broke into Cairo's famed Egyptian Museum, ripping the heads off two mummies and damaging about 10 small artifacts before being caught and detained by army soldiers, Egypt's antiquities chief said Saturday.... ...via NPR ...i am watching the last two days Aljazeera English, (which by the way just outguns all the other news stations around the world when it comes to non US non EU news, amazing channel) and i am not having a good feeling about the museum, just a few days before the outbreak of the riots, the egyptions demanded officially Nofretete back from the germans... sigh Is this not a case against "all treasures should be back to the homeland were its origins", is it not a much safer approach to preserve cultural valuable pieces spread around the world, to protect them from things what we just see? ...to ask about Iraq, oh boy they plundered, looted and destroyed allot... cheers viggen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caesar novus Posted January 30, 2011 Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 I was practically hounded out of this forum by daring to suggest Zahi Hawass had no right to bully and manipulate the west in returning large amounts of egyptian artifacts - and that politi-correct appeasers of the west shouldn't allow world treasures to be consolidated to home locations with all the attendant risks. Now that ghastly regular of TV documentaries is bemoaning how, although looters have been driven out of the museum in a trail of destruction, the burning building next door threatens to crush the museum. The mobs may be protective of the museum but they are targeting adjacent areas with collateral damage a possiblity. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/01/29/world/middleeast/AP-ML-Egypt-Protest-Antiquities.html?_r=1&ref=news I have been to a lot of less developed countries, but few seemed such a civil powderkeg as Egypt. They have bottled up resentments that were visceral on the streets even years ago, and seem too pervasive to go away with a simple change of a leader or two. What a place to put all your artifacts in one basket. It isn't just an Egyptian thing. It was looney to place a large proportion of Dali's paintings beachside in hurricane alley. St Petersburg FL has just spent umpteen millions to relocate them to a bunker museum. Yecch what a waste, but at least it's more responsible than consolidating them all in, say a Basque liberation army stronghold closer to the artists home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kosmo Posted January 30, 2011 Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 I don't think there are many fans of Hawass or of returning artifacts on this forum. Dali was catalan not basque and the museum he built in his home town is at the french border, widely exposed to the hordes of marauding tourists that pillage Catalonia every summer. Egypt was a police state that struggled to maintain safe access for tourists to important historical sites and collections despite ferocious attacks on tourists like the massacre in Luxor or the bombings in Sharm. Largely the same situation was in Tunisia. If instability and anti-western attitudes are given a boost not only artifacts are in danger but our access to them. The days of Egypt and Tunisia as tourist destinations are maybe over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursus Posted January 30, 2011 Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 What worries me is is a Taliban like element comes to power, and all the great relics of Egypt go the way of the Afghan Buddhist statues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryaxis Hecatee Posted January 30, 2011 Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 I think it's all of northern Africa which is currently exploding, due to political and especially food issue (and we are very early for food revolts, they usually come around in march or april, not january...). We have to hope that archeological remains won't be damaged in Algeria (which is also in turmoil even if not as important as those in Egypt or Tunisia) or in Yemen, also being troubled by protests against the corrupt governements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caesar novus Posted January 30, 2011 Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 I don't think there are many fans of Hawass or of returning artifacts on this forum. Before I challenge that by the below quotes, some sentence padding here will make it more readible. So I will add to your anti-western theme in Egypt some internal fractures. There is bitter resentment of a kleptocracy class. The gypsies are treated brutally. Common folks are kept in poverty because they can't get enforceable property rights over their makeshift homes, etc. As a side note, I posted yesterday that Hawass has not given permission to the two Italian brothers who claim to have discovered the Lost Army in the Egyptian desert. Hawass should be boycotted by all archeologists, and all escavation funding frozen. What may have started as revenge for a Unesco appointment has turned into an escalating shakedown of western museums because they have been so spinelessly aquiescent. Why? For combating looting? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caesar novus Posted January 30, 2011 Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 I think it's all of northern Africa which is currently exploding, due to political and especially food issue (and we are very early for food revolts, they usually come around in march or april, not january...). We have to hope that archeological remains won't be damaged The food issue seems so needless - they should have very slowly reduced food subsidies so that local farmers could benefit and ramp up production before city dwellers felt much pain. Export bans raise internationally traded food costs dramatically. The US wastes massive farmland due to irrational but mandated biofuel production. The EU stifles production with genetic modified bans. Well, maybe this will be a painful birth of a more rational world Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crispina Posted January 30, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 I can just see Zahi Hawass standing out in front of the entrance with a machine gun. Anyone remember his tv series of specials last year? When he got mad, he'd yell and kick ass! "You are fired"! Woke up this morning to see on TV and this thread my fears realized, but they said the museum is being protected now from looters. The collapsing building is another matter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artimi Posted January 30, 2011 Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 (edited) I fear for the artefacts (clues) to past human history. They are reused, looted, destroyed. on another matter, is this really a popular uprising? or an uprising of specific part of the population orchestrated from behind. (yes my paranoia is alive and well). Curious, what do these uprisers(??) want to put in place of the government they are trying to destroy(I know these governments are oppresive etc.). A vacuum gets filled (at least on earth) and quickly no matter what the destroyers intensions are.. Also any one remember the Domino theory from the before the Vietnam war? I ramble, but reading the newspaper and the news on line etc, I seem to hear many cliches. I have heard them before and as before they resulted no real improvements or changes in totaltarian leadership(now isnt that an oxymoron). The emphasis on who/what is oppressed is changed but oppression is still there. A aah for a Sunday morning, my cyncism is at all time high. (thankfully I can listen Elvis from 50's. lol) Edited January 30, 2011 by Artimi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viggen Posted January 30, 2011 Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 On Friday, January 28, 2011, when the protest marches began in Cairo, I heard that a curfew had been issued that started at 6.00pm on Friday evening until 7.00am on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, on that day the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, was not well guarded. About a thousand people began to jump over the wall on the eastern side of the museum into the courtyard. On the western side of the museum, we recently finished something I was very proud of, a beautiful gift shop, restaurant and cafeteria. The people entered the gift shop and stole all the jewellery and escaped; they thought the shop was the museum, thank God! ...via a very useful site with the latest information on the for us relevant situation... http://egyptology.bl...trickle-in.html cheers viggen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryaxis Hecatee Posted January 30, 2011 Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 Saqqarah, Luxor, Abusir, Port Said museums, archeological sites and Supreme Council of Antiquities depots all looted in the last few hours, reports of mass illegal digging in some areas, of attack by peoples with guns and trucks against archeological depots near Port Said,... It seems that amidst the global chaos some people are looking for money to make without regard for the scientific and cultural value of what they loot, and I must say that I wonder wether at least some of those activities are not orchestrated by international criminal associations or rich collectors looking for specific items. There are reports of specific sections of wall painting being stolen, of designated crates being opened, and many other similar attacks. Paul Barford, the famous anti-collectors archeologists, has compiled some reports (http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2011/01/tomb-robbing-in-luxor.html) and the blog mentionned by Viggen is also one of the most up to date. International researchers are currently in relationnship with colleagues in Egypt to attempt a full diagnosis of the situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crispina Posted January 30, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2011 Opening sealed tombs? digging? Truly awful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostOfClayton Posted January 31, 2011 Report Share Posted January 31, 2011 (edited) Sadly, when the (seemingly very thin) veneer of civilisation breaks down, museums are seen as easy and lucrative targets from those elements that already had little respect for the aquisition of knowlege. Those same elements seem also to be the ones who are first to react, usually with violence. I have nothing but the highest respect for those who chose to try and defend the Cairo Museum of Antiquities, but would have feared very much for their safety, being most probably of a non-violent nature. Edited January 31, 2011 by GhostOfClayton Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludovicus Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 Feb 2, The New York Times: A vast majority of Egypt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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