Unearthing the Museum's Basement

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/751/hr2.htm

Zahi Hawass on the subject of one of the world's most sought-after basements: "Recently I have become interested in digging in a new place, a place without sand -- the basement of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. There is a maze of corridors lying under the museum. For decades, no one knew what was hidden down there: boxes of all sorts of treasures discovered by foreign and Egyptian expeditions were brought in and stored over the years, without proper recording of the artefacts. There were objects of stone and wood, mummies, and even objects made of precious metal. But no one knew exactly what was there. It became known among scholars that if anything was sent to the basement it would be lost forever". Quite an admission. See the Al Ahram Dig Days item for more.