Eqypt's Antiquities Boss Is Sacked

Eqypt's Antiquities Boss Is Sacked

by Andrew Lawler on 18 July 2011, 3:29 PM

From: Science Insider, 18.07.2011

After nearly a decade as chief of Egypt's antiquities, Zahi Hawass is now out of a job.

The 64-year-old archaeologist was fired yesterday by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf as part of a wider shakeup of his cabinet. Protestors at Cairo's Tahrir Square had been calling for his ouster as minister of antiquities for months. "All the devils united against me," Hawass told Science Insider.

The country's most prominent figure in archaeology, Hawass was instrumental in sending large blockbuster exhibits abroad, creating a host of new museums and secure storerooms, and pressuring foreign excavators to publish their finds more quickly. But he was also criticized for his portrayal on American television of archaeology as treasure hunting, excoriated for his dictatorial management style, and accused of shoddy research in carrying out his own digs. Sharaf is said to have appointed Abdel-Fattah El-Banna as Hawass' replacement, but there are reports that protestors have rejected that nomination, and that Sharaf might reverse his decision and name someone else.

El-Banna is an engineer and stone specialist at Cairo University with experience in restoring ancient buildings. He has been an outspoken critic of Hawass in recent months, accusing him of being involved in the illegal antiquities trade, a charge that Hawass denies.

Egyptian critics say they are delighted by the departure of Hawass, who became a minister in January when the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), the organization he has led since 2002, was given Cabinet status. "Finally we got rid of him," says Amany Taha, a Cairo tour guide active in the protests.

But some foreign archaeologists say they will be sorry to lose Hawass, who has been a dynamic if controversial leader of the country's ancient monuments. "In the ensuing free-for-all, now that he is gone, I beg you to remember all the good that Zahi did for Egypt and Egyptian antiquities in his term as SCA," says W. Raymond Johnson, an archaeologist of the University of Chicago in Illinois who works at Luxor. "It's easy to condemn, much harder to give credit for what is due."

Hawass resigned in March to protest the looting of sites, but was recalled to help bring tourists back to Egypt. For now, Hawass says, "I will rest."

Zahi Hawass: the 'Real Indiana Jones'

Zahi Hawass was the self-styled real Indiana Jones, calling himself the keeper of Egypt's heritage.

From: The Telegraph, 18.07.2011

Mr Hawass, the public face of the pyramids, was head of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities for 10 years, and before that in charge of the Pyramids and Sphinx on the Giza plateau outside Cairo.

He staged regular press conferences unveiling new discoveries from the time of the pharaohs. He was made minister of antiquities in one of Hosni Mubarak's last acts as president.

Dr Hawass was popular among journalists, visitors and for a time Egyptians themselves for his flamboyant style and unchallenged commitment to promote Egypt's treasures and to use them to attract tourists.

He also led populist campaigns to return Egypt's heritage from museums abroad, most notably the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum.

However, local archaeologists accused him of stealing credit for their achievements, and "recycling" discoveries for publicity.

More seriously, as the Egyptian revolution unfolded, his finances, friendship with Mr Mubarak's wife, Suzanne, and management of resources came into question.

He was revealed to receive a regular income from the National Geographic channel, and was put on trial over the contract under which a company which marketed a "souvenir Hawass clothing line", including copies of the trademark hat, was awarded the rights to run the souvenir shop in the National Museum in Cairo.

He claimed that proceeds from the hats went to children's charities, of which Mrs Mubarak was patron.

Egypt International Conference demands return of Antiquities (T)

The East Pediment of the Parthenon (Birth of the goddess Athena), kept in the British Museum, London. Photo: Ethnos, 10.04.2010

Top priority for "stolen" Greek antiquities are the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum, for which Greece has been fighting for almost thirty years.

Greece, along with another six countries - Egypt, Syria, Guatemala, Nigeria, Peru, and Libya - have already submitted their lists with antiquities that they prioritise among their demands for items to be returned from other countries, as Zahi Hawass announced, as soon as the two-day International Conference in Cairo ended.

At the conference that was carried out in the Egyptian capital and had the as its theme the "stolen" antiquities, decided that a list should be created which shall include the "stolen" antiquities that the participating countries demand be returned in order of priority.

Nefretity, kept in the Altes Museum, Berlin.
Photo: Ethnos, 10.04.2010

The rest of the countries, apart from the seven already mentioned, have one month to submit their own lists, announced mr. Hawass.

The priority for Cairo, according to the head of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, is the return of six antiquities of great value, including the bust of Nefretiti from Berlin (Altes Muzeum), the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum in London and the Zodiac Cycle of Dedera from the Louvre in Paris.

Peru announced that is has asked for the return of the collections from the Inkas City of Machu Picchu from the Museum of the American university of Yale [on this, see here and here], and the coins, ceramics and tissues of the Paracas civilasation that are kept in the Museum of World Culture in Göteborg, Sweden.

The Rosetta stone, kept in the
British Museum, London.
Photo: Earth-History.com

The Cairo conference was called "historic", while all the participating countries agreed to "fight together", mentioned Zahi Hawass.

Textile of the Paracas Civilisation in the Museum of World Culture in Göteborg, Sweden. Photo: Paracas.se

"It is necessary", he added, "to reinforce international cooperation and legal and tribunal proceedures for the protection of cultural heritage".

Source: Ethnos, 10.04.2010
Translation/Adaptation: ArchaeologyMatters

Egypt: International Conference on Recovering Ancient Artefacts from Abroad

Unite to recover looted artefacts, Egypt forum told

Egyptian antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass on Wednesday urged countries attending an international conference on recovering ancient artefacts from abroad to unite to recover their stolen heritage.

"We need to cooperate, we need a unification between our countries," Hawass told antiquities officials, deputy culture ministers and museum directors from 22 countries at the two-day Cairo meeting.

"Every country is fighting alone, every country suffered alone, especially Egypt," Hawass told the delegates from countries that have seen their national heritage looted over the centuries.

"We will battle together," he said, adding that "maybe we will not succeed in a lifetime (but) we have to open the subject."

Hawass, who heads Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), urged delegates to draw up lists of artefacts missing from their countries and displayed in museums abroad.

"This conference shows the importance many countries place in joining forces," said Elena Korka, who is in charge of protecting Greece's cultural heritage.

Korka confirmed that the return of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum is Greece's top priority. Athens has been locked in a 30-year antiquities "war" with London to retrieve them from the British Museum.

Egypt has been fighting for the Rosetta stone from Britain and a bust of Nefertiti from Germany.

Hawass said that other outstanding claims included against the Hildesheim museum in Germany for a statue of Hemiunu, believed to be the architect of the Great Pyramids of Giza, and a statue of Ramses II from the city of Turin in Italy.

Italy is represented at the conference, but countries like France, Germany or Britain have regularly given Egypt the cold shoulder over its claims of Pharaonic antiquities.

Egypt also hopes to recover the zodiac of Denderah, held by the Louvre museum in Paris, as well as the Pharaonic bust of Ankhaf that is owned by the Fine Arts Museum of Boston.

Greece was to chair a conference session devoted to examining "problems faced by countries in attempts to recover their antiquities."

A major aim of the conference is to call on the United Nations cultural body UNESCO to amend a 1970 convention banning the export or ownership of stolen antiquities acquired after that date.

The convention prohibits the illicit import, export and sale of cultural property, but stipulates there will be no "retroactive" measure for artefacts acquired before the convention was signed.

Since becoming head of antiquities in 2002, Hawass has helped Egypt reclaim 31,000 relics from abroad. Last year he insisted that "what has been stolen from us must be returned."

But he is still eyeing the Rosetta stone held by the British Museum for more than 200 years and the 3,400-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti on display at the Neues Museum in Berlin.

Germany has repeatedly rebuffed Egyptian claims to the rightful ownership of the Nefertiti bust and says the priceless sculpture was acquired legally nearly a century ago. Egypt says it was spirited out of the country.

In March, Egypt said it retrieved from Britain some 25,000 ancient artefacts, including a stone axe dating back 200,000 years and pottery from the seventh millennium BC.

Hawass stressed that the countries were not reclaiming all antiquities, only those proven to have been taken illegally, and artefacts of great historical value for the country's from where they were taken.

He praised the United States as the "first country for the restoration of ancient artefacts," after it recently returned a Pharaonic sarcophagus that was illegally taken more than 125 years ago.

Twenty-two countries are attending the conference, five more than initially announced.

Austria, Chile, China, Cyprus, Ecuador, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Italy, Libya, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Syria, the United States are present in addition to Egypt, the majority represented by senior culture and antiquities officials.

Source: AFP, 07.04.2010

Ancient false door unearthed at Karnak

An Egyptian excavation team has made a new discovery at Karnak during routine excavation works. A large red granite false door belonging to the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut's vizier User and his wife Toy has been unearthed in front of the Karnak Temple.

Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, explained that the door is 175 cm tall, 100 cm wide and 50 cm thick. It is engraved with religious texts, as well as different titles of the vizier User, who took office at the time of the fifth year of Queen Hatshepsut's reign, circa 1474 BC. The official's titles included mayor of the city, vizier, and prince. Hawass said that tomb number 61 on Luxor's west bank belonged to User.

Mansour Boraik, the head of the Egyptian excavation mission, said that the newly discovered door was reused during the Roman period: it was removed from the tomb of User and used in the wall of a Roman structure previously found by the mission.

A chapel of User was also found at Gebel el-Silsila, a mountain quarry site at Aswan in use from the 18th Dynasty to Greco-Roman times. This attests to vizier User's importance during Pharaoh Hatshepsut's reign, as well as to the importance of the post of vizier in ancient Egypt, especially during the 18th Dynasty. Mansour Boraik added that User is the uncle of the very well-known noble and official Rekhmire, who was King Tuthmosis III's vizier and one of the most well-known viziers of the 18th Dynasty.

Other notable officials that served this New Kingdom Dynasty were Ramose and the military chief Horemheb, who later came to Egypt's throne as the last king of the 18th Dynasty.

This announcement comes only weeks after the discovery of a colossal 18th Dynasty statue that depicts Thoth, the pharaonic deity of wisdom, as a baboon. The statue was discovered in four pieces in Luxor, where workers were reducing the ground water beneath Luxor in a bid to preserve the city's famous temples. Last month a 2.5m head of Amenhotep III - now assumed to be King Tut's grandfather - was unearthed in the Kom El-Hettan area of Luxor's West Bank. Dr Hawass said, "It is a masterpiece of highly artistic quality and shows a portrait of the king with very fine youthful sculptured features," adding there were still traces of red paint on the head.

Source: The Independent

Pyramid of Mystery Pharaoh Possibly Located

By Rossella Lorenzi

The long lost tomb of the 4,300 year old Egyptian pharaoh Userkare may have been located.

THE GIST:

• The second pharaoh of the 6th Dynasty, Userkare, has long been lost from history.
• New research points to a series of invisible lines in South Saqqara as the spot of Userkare's tomb.
• Userkare's tomb is the only missing piece in the grid.

The missing pyramid of an obscure Pharaoh that ruled Egypt some 4,300 years ago could lie at the intersection of a series of invisible lines in South Saqqara, according to new astronomical and topographical research.

Connecting the funerary complexes raised by the kings of the 6th Dynasty between 2,322 B.C. and 2,151 B.C., these lines would have governed the sacred space of the Saqqara area, in accordance with a number of criteria such as dynastic lineage, religion and astronomical alignment.

"We are talking of meridian and diagonal alignments, with pyramids raised at their intersections. The only missing piece in this sort of grid is the pyramid of Userkare," Giulio Magli, professor of archaeoastronomy at Milan's Polytechnic University, told Discovery News. His research will appear in the next issue of the journal Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry.

Known only from the king lists, Userkare was the second pharaoh of the 6th Dynasty and ruled briefly between Teti and Teti's son Pepi I. He took power after Teti was murdered, perhaps in a conspiracy he himself had maneuvered.

Little is known about this shadowy pharaoh.

"When Pepi I took control a few years later, Userkare disappeared from history. Finding his tomb might help understand those obscure years. The walls in his burial might also contain intact copies of the Pyramid Texts," Magli said, referring to the oldest known religious texts in the world that were carved on the walls and sarcophagi of the pyramids at Saqqara during the 5th and 6th Dynasties of the Old Kingdom.

Magli's hunt for the lost pharaoh evolved around previous studies on the pyramids of the Old Kingdom. Indeed, from the Step Pyramid of Djoser (second king of the 3rd Dynasty) to the now-collapsed pyramid of Unas (the last king of the 5th Dynasty), all these monuments appear to be connected by a pattern of diagonal invisible lines.

"Diagonal axes -- generally oriented northeast by southwest -- governed Giza, Abusir and the Saqqara central field. But we have a different pattern with some 6th dynasty kings: their funerary monuments in South Saqqara appear to have been planned according to meridian, north-south axes," Magli said.

According to this pattern, the pyramid top of Pepi I (third king of the 6th Dynasty) aligned with that of Userkaf (first king of the 5th Dynasty), while the pyramid apex of Merenre (fourth king of the 6th Dynasty) aligned with that of Unas (last king of the 5th Dynasty).

"It is difficult to think that this rigorous meridian structure is just a coincidence. However something does not match in this pattern: no pyramid aligned with the Step Pyramid of Djoser, by far the most important and revered pyramid at Saqqara,"Magli said.

The position was allegedly free, but the pharaohs choose different, sometime more complex sites. For example, Pepi II, the third king of the 6th Dynasty, moved further to the southwest, and aligned the top of his pyramid with that of 3rd Dynasty King Sekhemkhet.

"There could be a simple explanation: the position in meridian alignment with the Step Pyramid was not free at all, being occupied by Userkare's complex," Magli said.

He suggested that Userkare's tomb is located approximately in the middle of the line connecting Pepi I and Merenre's diagonals, in alignment with Djoser's pyramid.

According to Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev, at the French Institute of Archaeology in Cairo, the suggestion makes sense on the satellite map, but is difficult to see on the field. Dobrev believes Userkare's tomb lie on a different, north-south diagonal in South Saqqara which would chronologically link the 6th Dynasty kings.

Indeed, he is excavating a 15-hectare area in Tabbet al-Guesh, where he has found several graves of priests from the 6th Dynasty.

Since the presence of a necropolis is a strong hint to a pyramid nearby, Dobrev believes Userkare's lies just there.

"These priest come to this place to serve the cult of a dead King. We do not have the name of Userkare yet, because the priests speak systematically about the 'King, their God.' They obviously refer to the dead King, whom everybody knew the name," Dobrev told Discovery News.

According to Magli, the hidden structure may rather turn out to be a double-tomb complex.

"Apparently, a similar, 5th Dynasty double structure -- not a pyramid -- exists in Abusir. However, I'm confident Userkare's tomb will come to light in South Saqqara. Future excavations will solve the riddle," Magli said.

Source: Discovery News

Egypt: Statue of Thoth discovered (14th-13th century B.C.)

Colossal statue of ancient monkey god found in Egypt

CAIRO, March 16, 2010 (AFP) - Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a colossal ancient statue of the pharaonic deity of wisdom, Thoth, in the shape of a baboon, the council of antiquities said in a statement on Tuesday.

The four-metre (13-foot) tall statue was discovered in four pieces along with two statues while workers were lowering ground waters beneath Luxor to help preserve the city's pharaonic temples, the statement said.

It dates back to the 18th Dynasty, which ruled Egypt until 1292 BC.

"It is the first time that a statue of Thoth, depicting him as a monkey, of this magnitude has been discovered," Mansur Boraik, head of pharaonic antiquities in Luxor, told AFP.

The statues were discovered near the temple of Amenhotep III, who ruled until 1372 BC.

Another statue, of which only the upper half was found, depicted the king and the sky god Horus, represented as a falcon, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said in the statement.

"The team also discovered an alabaster statue base that is expected to have been the base of one of Amenhotep III's statues," he said.

A granite statue of the pharaoh Ramses III, who ruled about 3,000 years ago, was also found.

Source: Arab Times, 16.03.2010; see also: The Straits Times

Ancient wooden sarcophagus returned to Egypt from US

Egypt says the sarcophagus was smuggled out of the country in 1884

A 3,000-year-old wooden sarcophagus stolen from Egypt more than 125 years ago has been returned from the US.

It was confiscated at Miami airport by customs officials after it arrived in a shipment from Spain in 2008 and the importer was unable to prove ownership.

The sarcophagus dates back to the 21st Dynasty (1070-945BC) and is thought to have belonged to a noble called Imesy.

The head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities travelled to Washington on Wednesday to lobby for its return.

Zahi Hawass accompanied the item on its return to Cairo on Saturday, when he announced that Egypt would also take back a number of other antiquities illegally shipped to the US, including coffins, pottery and art.

Investigations had found that the coffin was stolen more than 100 years ago and taken to Spain, before it was shipped to the US in recent years.

Thousands of antiquities were taken from Egypt during its colonial era by archaeologists, adventurers and thieves.

During the past few years, the Egyptian authorities have stepped up their efforts to recover stolen artefacts.

Source: BBC News