More re Abdel Fattah

Bikya Masr (Joseph Mayton)

Abdel Fattah is not a well-known figure across Egypt, but archaeologists told Bikyamasr.com that they believe he will be a solid replacement and is not as controversial as Hawass.

One German researcher in the country said that Abdel Fattah is “known to be a fair and honest man and is open to different opinions, unlike Hawass.”

A number of archaeologists are excited with the change, hoping that it will enable greater discourse, which they say was stifled by Hawass’ rule, where “too often opinions that were not in line with what he [Hawass] thought true were ridiculed and sometimes foreign workers were barred from digging.”

Abdel Fattah told local newspapers that he would complete several unfinished construction projects, while cautioning that others would have to be postponed because of a lack of money.

Tutankhamun shatters visitor records in Australia

eTravelBlackboard

The love is mutual between Aussies and Tutankhamun, with the Pharaoh breaking visitor records at Melbourne Museum and extending his stay until 4 December this year.

Welcoming up to 500,000 since it opened in April this year, the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibition originally dated to leave early November, will stay the extra month down under before leaving for his permanent residence in the new Museum in Egypt.

The exhibition shattered Melbourne Museum records before it opened earlier this year, with up to 150,000 tickets pre-sold and exceeding 500,000 visits before the end of the second last month.

Updates about Libyan antiquities

Past Horizons

Libyans are being warned to guard against looting of their cultural heritage amid the country’s turmoil.

The director of the UN cultural agency is also cautioning the international art and antiquities trade to be “particularly wary of objects from Libya in the present circumstances” because they might be stolen.

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said in a statement that she contacted authorities in Libya and neighbouring countries to urge them “to protect Libya’s invaluable cultural heritage.”

She warned that past conflicts have led to looting and damage to artefacts and archaeological treasures.

The Guardian

With thanks to Larry Rothfield's blog for highlighting the relevant paragraph.

The opposition National Transitional Council (NTC) said on Tuesday that guards from a specially trained Tripoli brigade, made up of fighters from the capital, were being stationed at the national museum as well as other key cultural sites.

The Independent

Parts of Libya's cultural heritage have been threatened before: in the 1950s, two British soldiers stationed in the country when it was a British protectorate took a selection of ancient relics back to the UK. The items, some of which were up to 2,500 years old, included the bronze prow of a Greek ship found during a diving excursion off the coast of Benghazi. They were returned last year as part of an ongoing Libyan effort to secure the return of its treasures, many of which were removed during the colonial era.

The problem persists to the present day. Libya's wealth of important historic sites has long been one of its key appeals to tourists, but museum officials say that government underfunding has meant their relics have lacked adequate security.

In 2006, the BBC reported that Tripoli Museum had no security cameras: as a result, at least 90 important pieces had been stolen since 1988 – a figure probably far higher in reality.

Archaeological dig sites were also said to be at risk because of underpaid and untrained guards. The government, for its part, blamed failures on the museums.

Libya is by no means alone in the problems it faces in securing its heritage in the aftermath of conflict. Egyptian treasures were looted during the widespread unrest before and after President Mubarak was forced from power.

Commentary on SLAM Mummy Mask Case

Cultural Heritage Lawyer (Rick St. Hilaire)

The current civil litigation surrounding whether the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mummy mask is contraband is worth following given the current legal arguments in play.

The mask, located at the St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM), is claimed by the federal government to be contraband, which is always unlawful to possess. SLAM, meanwhile, argues that the mask, if it is contraband, must be considered derivative contraband, compelling the government to prove that the mask was utilized in the commission of a crime.

It is open to discussion whether the mummy mask fits into the same category as contraband like illegal narcotics. It is also remarkable to think of the mummy mask as derivative contraband like a car used in illegal gun running. It may be that both legal theories are inexact.

The mummy mask might be categorized as proceeds or fruits instead.

KMT Volume 22, Number 3, Fall 2011

KMT Journal


Thanks as usual to John Rauchert for sending me the latest contents.

Includes Five Feature Articles:

The Swiss Coffin Project: Rediscovering Egyptian Treasures in Swiss Museums by Alexandra Küffer

“The Fascination with Ancient Egypt” Exhibition in Orvieto, Italy, by Lucy Gordan-Rastelli

Strictly Tabubue: The Legacy of an Ancient Egyptian Femme Fatale by Steven Vinson

Senenmut’s TT353 at Deir el Bahari: New Considerations by Francisco J. Valentin Martin & Teresa Bedman

“Life and Death in the Pyramid Age” The Emory Old Kingdom Mummy, an Exhibition by Peter Lacovara

Plus “Nile Currents” & “For the Record,” as well as reviews of: Lily of the Nile: A Novel of Cleopatra’s Daughter by Stephanie Dray; The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan;

Herakleides: A Portrait Mummy from Roman Egypt by Lorelei Corcoran & Marie Svoboda; Spells for Eternity: The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead by John H. Taylor; Hidden Hands: Egyptian Workforces in Petrie Excavation Archives by Stephen Quirke; Life Everlasting: National Museum of Scotland Collection of Ancient Egyptian Coffins by Bill Manley & Aidan Dodson

New Book: Hellenizing Art in Ancient Nubia

Brill

Hellenizing Art in Ancient Nubia 300 B.C. - AD 250 and its Egyptian Models. A Study in "Acculturation" by László Török

Presenting a large body of evidence for the first time, this book offers a comprehensive treatment of Nubian architecture, sculpture, and minor arts in the period between 300 BC-AD 250. It focuses primarily on the Nubian response to the traditional pharaonic, Hellenistic/Roman, Hellenizing, and “hybrid” elements of Ptolemaic and Roman Egyptian culture. The author begins with a history of Nubian art and a critical survey of the literature on Ptolemaic and Roman Egyptian art. Special chapters are then devoted to the discussion of the Egyptian-Greek interaction in the arts of Ptolemaic … read moreEgypt, the place of Egyptian Hellenistic and Hellenizing art within the oikumene, the pluralistic visual world of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, as well as on the specific genre of terracotta sculpture. Utilizing examples from Meroe City and Musawwarat es Sufra, the author argues that cultural transfer from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt to Nubia resulted in an inward-focused adaptation. Therefore, the resulting Nubian art from this period expresses only those aspects of Egyptian and Greek art that are compatible with indigenous Nubian goals.

Crossing the Holy Land

Biblical Archaeology Review


For anyone interested in Coptic history there is an article in the current issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review by Dorothy D. Resig entitled “Crossing the Holy Land:”

One of the seven cities in Revelation; the possible site of Zechariah’s tomb; the Avenue of the Sphinxes in Luxor; and a Coptic monastery in the Egyptian desert. What do all they all have in common? Ancient churches have recently been excavated at each of them. Each has its own story to tell, including a case of some beautiful but tragic mosaics.

Photo for Today - Last photo from the Open Air Museum at Tod

Two fragments of an Old Kingdom cartouche:
Userkaf, first king of the Fifth Dynasty

More re Mohamed Abdel Fattah, the replacement for Hawass

New York Times (Kate Taylor)

Mohamed Abdel Fattah, the head of the antiquities sector at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, will become the council’s secretary general, the position Mr. Hawass held before former President Hosni Mubarak elevated the council to a ministry. Mr. Sharaf had previously indicated that he planned to return the council to its former status.

Mr. Abdel Fattah’s positions are not well-known, and reaction to his appointment, which was first reported last week in the Egyptian press, has so far been muted. He was quoted by the Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm as pledging to resolve disagreements among the council’s leadership and root out corruption. He said he would complete several unfinished construction projects, while cautioning that others would have to be postponed because of a lack of money. Much of the council’s budget comes from ticket sales to museums and archeological sites, and tourism to Egypt has been decimated by the revolution.

Mr. Abdel Fattah is expected to wield less power than Mr. Hawass, a media celebrity who was credited with increasing tourism and securing the return of antiquities from foreign museums and collectors.

Art Media Agency

Mohammed Abdel Fattah was already leading the antiquity department of the SCA. He previously served as head of the Museums sectors and director of Antiquities in Upper-Egypt. So far, the response to this appointment seems to be cautiously positive, unlike the sharply negative response to the previous nomination of non-archaeologist, Abdel-Fattah El-Banna, to the same post. The announcement sparked controversy and had immediately been rescinded.

ARTINFO

Now the council is in the hands of Fattah, who previously served as the head of the antiquities sector at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, a vague and tautological job description that is just about the only background information provided.

Fattah says that his agenda will be to make peace among the council members, to take on corruption, and to prioritize construction on projects such as the Rams Road in Luxor, the Step Pyramid, and the Sharm el-Sheikh Museum. As for the question of government salaries, he announced that the country's central bank had given him a loan of 350 million Egyptian pounds ($59 million) for this purpose.

What’s Next for Egypt’s Artifacts?

New York Observer (Dan Duray)

In late January, during the protests that eventually led to the revolution in Egypt, the news broke that looters had raided the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, current home to some of the most impressive artifacts of early human history. The thieves made off with 18 objects and The Huffington Post, practicing its own brand of excavation, lovingly brushed away the dirt covering the sexiest part of the story and placed it in the headline: “Egypt Looters Rip Heads Off 2 Mummies at Famed Cairo Museum.”

As they were dead, the mummies were ultimately O.K., but the news hinted at a question that would become increasingly pertinent in the coming months: what were the implications of the revolution for those who work with Egyptian artifacts the U.S.?

In the subsequent months, we’ve learned more about the provisional government’s attitude toward its cultural artifacts. The Supreme Council of Antiquities (S.C.A.), the organization responsible for handling such matters, was downgraded from a cabinet ministry. Its prominent and outspoken head, Dr. Zahi Hawass—famous for his Indiana Jones fedora and soapbox passion for repatriation—said in March that he would step down. The impending departure of Dr. Hawass, the face of modern Egyptian archaeology, indicates a shift in the way Egypt will handle its artifacts. Not much is known about Mohamed Abdel Fattah, the man appointed his successor just this week, and the question remains as to how Dr. Hawass’s successor will navigate the tricky role of being both a goodwill ambassador and a staunch nationalist faced with colleagues who own works that, spiritually, still belong to his country.

More disputes in Ka-Nefer-Nefer Mummy Mask Case

Cultural Heritage Lawyer (Ricardo St Hilaire)

In the latest round of legal papers filed in the case of United States v. Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, the St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) says that its possession of the ancient Egyptian mummy mask cannot be likened to possession of cocaine as the US government's lawyers claim. (See July 31, 2011 blog post for background.)

SLAM's attorneys describe two kinds of contraband. They explain that there is contraband per se, which include items illegal to possess under any circumstance (author's note: think of counterfeit money) and which can be automatically confiscated by the government without a hearing. They also say that there is derivative contraband, which include lawful items that are forfeitable because they are connected with a crime (author's note: think of a car used in drug trafficking). SLAM argues that if the mask is in fact contraband, then it must be characterized as derivative contraband that is not automatically forfeitable. Because the mask is not automatically forfeitable contraband per se, SLAM argues that the government must present evidence that the object is forfeitable as an item that derives from a criminal act.

Tourism, bikinis and Pharaonic monuments

The Media Line (David E. Miller)

Sunbathing in Alexandria may soon be a thing of the past, at least if some Egyptian Islamist politicians have their way.

Egypt's tourism industry has suffered a severe blow since the outburst of anti-regime demonstrations in January. But that did not stop the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, from demanding stricter regulations over what tourists can do and wear while visiting the country. The party is urging officials to ban skimpy swimwear and the consumption of alcohol on Egyptian streets. . . .

But bathing suits are not the only worry of Egypt’s Islamists. Abd Al-Munim A-Shahhat, a spokesman for the Salafi group Dawa, has said that Egypt's world-renowned pharaonic archeology – its pyramids, Sphinx and other monuments covered with un-Islamic imagery – should also be hidden from the public eye.

"The pharaonic culture is a rotten culture," A-Shahhat told the London-based Arab daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat on Wednesday, saying the faces of ancient statues "should be covered with wax, since they are religiously forbidden." He likened the Egyptian relics to the idols which circled the walls of Mecca in pre-Islamic times.

Photo for Today - Open Air Museum at Tod

Ceiling fragment

Egyptian museum inventory will not be completed in under 2 years

Al Masry Al Youm

The Egyptian Museum's inventory committee will not finish its work in less than two years, said Ra’fat al-Nabarawy, a member of the committee.

It will form seven subcommittees after Eid al-Fitr, which takes place at the end of August this year, to help the main committee and ensure that none of the artifacts are fake, Nabarawy added.

Around 1700 relics in the museum have been checked by the committee so far and all have been proved originals, Nabarawy said.

The committee also found two pieces previously thought to have been stolen from the museum after 28 January, known as the Friday of Anger.

Issues topping the Antiquities agenda in Egypt

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El Aref)

Following the 25 January Revolution and the drastic decrease in tourism to Egypt, the income of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) reached its lowest level ever and its budget had to be curtailed. This meant that all development and restoration works in progress had to be put on hold. Among these projects were the structural repair and reinforcement of the inner chambers of Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara and the rehabilitation work of the renowned Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria.

Media rumours too have taken their toll. It was claimed that delays in processing payment to companies carrying out restoration work on both projects had led to work being neglected. Blocks in inner chambers of Djoser's Step Pyramid were falling, while some pieces in the collection of Alexandria's Graeco-Roman Museum that had been moved further along the coast to the Marina archaeological galleries were deteriorating because of poor storage conditions.

Another article re Nefertiti and repatriation

ABC News /Spiegel Online (Michael Sontheimer and Ulrike Knöfel)

Comprehensive four-page overview of the case and its history.

Germany and Egypt have long been at odds over the return of the famous bust of Nefertiti. Now documents found in archives show that the conflict was started by a Frenchman who had fought the Germans in World War I and considered them to be swindlers. He may have been right.

This queen owes her immortality to a gifted artist. The bust he fashioned out of gypsum and limestone some 3,350 years ago became an eternal monument to her beauty. As realistic as the image is, it has the radiance of a goddess. "It's no use describing it; you have to see it!" said the German archeologist who unearthed the bust of the Egyptian queen in the desert sand almost a century ago.

Hardly anyone is familiar with the name of the sculptor, Thutmose, but the bust is of the famous Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile, Great Royal Wife of the Pharaoh Akhenaten. And thanks to a coincidence, a minor detour of history, her likeness is not on display in a museum in her native Egypt, but in Berlin. Or was it not a coincidence at all, but rather fraud?

For the Germans, Nefertiti is their perceived property, a national cultural treasure, their entry in the canon of the sublime. The bust represents many things, but most of all it stands for both the splendid epoch of ancient Egypt and the age of spectacular digs around the beginning of the last century, when Europe's archeologists set out for the Nile. Today, she is the star of the Neues Museum in Berlin's Mitte district, which was reopened in 2009. There, the bust is prominently displayed in the middle of a domed hall, bathed in soft light and admired by thousands every day. Of the more than 1 million visitors the museum attracts each year, most come to see the bust of Nefertiti, as if they were making a pilgrimage to admire this queen of the Nile. Nefertiti is Berlin's Mona Lisa, except that she is perhaps even more beautiful, more mysterious and more magnificent.

Of course, the Egyptians would prefer to have this heirloom of their magnificent history in their own country.

More re Amenemhat II statue at the Met

New York Times (Ken Johnson)

With seven photo slideshow

A giant 4,000-year-old Egyptian visitor looms over the crowd of live humans milling antlike throughout the vast entry hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is an extraordinary specimen of regal manhood. Carved from a single block of dark gray granodiorite, he sits in a form-fitting kilt on a cubic throne covered by hieroglyphics. He has the broad shoulders, narrow waist and muscular legs of a well-developed athlete. Sporting a headdress of folded striped fabric, he gazes out over the masses with imperturbable self-assurance and open eyes set in a round, youthful face. He is as thrilling as anything in the Met’s great Egyptian collection.

Scholars think this 10-foot tall, almost nine-ton monument originally portrayed the 12th-dynasty pharaoh Amenemhat II, who reigned from about 1919 to 1885 B.C. Later artists evidently altered the facial features to make him more like Ramesses II, the king who ruled from about 1279 to 1213 B.C. He has belonged to Berlin’s Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection since 1837. But now the courtyard in Germany where he usually presides is under reconstruction, so he will be a guest of honor in New York for the next 10 years.

Exhibition: Le genie de l'orient, l'Europe moderne et les arts de l'Islam

Al Ahram Weekly (David Tresilian)

Far from giving rise to nostalgic reverie, the Islamic arts could have been the foundation of an 'oriental renaissance' in 19th century Europe, writes David Tresilian in Lyon

Closing last month after a three-month stint at the Musee des beaux-arts in the southern French city of Lyon, Le genie de l'Orient, l'Europe moderne et les arts de l'Islam was an ambitious, wide-ranging exhibition that invited visitors to rethink much of what they might have been told about the relationship between Europe and the Islamic world in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including about the sometimes thorny topic of European orientalism.

While the exhibition included materials from the fine and visual arts, notably from the orientalist picture-making associated with the French painter Jean-Leon Gerome, the emphasis of the exhibition lay with the European decorative arts and particularly with what European designers, architects and decorators may have been looking for in the arts of Islam and what they may have taken from them.

Photo for Today - Open Air Museum at Tod

Carcinogenic substance found in a flacon belonging to Hatshepsut

EurekAlert

Press Release

The corpus delicti is a plain flacon from among the possessions of Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who lived around 1450 B.C., which is on exhibit in the permanent collection of the Egyptian Museum of the University of Bonn. For three and a half millennia, the vessel may have held a deadly secret. This is what the Head of the collection, Michael Höveler-Müller and Dr. Helmut Wiedenfeld from the university's Pharmacology Institute just discovered. After two years of research it is now clear that the flacon did not hold a perfume; instead, it was a kind of skin care lotion or even medication for a monarch suffering from eczema. In addition, the pharmacologists found a strongly carcinogenic substance. Was Hatshepsut killed by her medicine?

When Michael Höveler-Müller became the curator of the Egyptian Museum of the University of Bonn in 2009, it occurred to him to examine the interior of the vessel that, according to an inscription, belonged to Pharaoh Hatshepsut. Its neck had been blocked with what was generally considered "dirt," but Höveler-Müller suspected that it might also be the original clay stopper. So possibly, some of the original contents might still be inside. In Dr. Helmut Wiedenfeld from the Pharmacy Institute, he found just the right partner, to get to the bottom of this question and of the flacon.

At the Radiology Clinic of the Bonn Universitätsklinikum, the flacon was subjected to a CAT scan. Here, the Egyptologist's suspicion was confirmed – not only was the closure intact, but the vessel also held residue of a dried-up liquid. In the summer of 2009, Professor Dr. Friedrich Bootz from the Klinik und Poliklinik für Hals-, Nasen- und Ohrenheilkunde (laryngology, rhinology and otology) of the University of Bonn took samples, using an endoscope.

History.com

The Egyptian queen Hatshepsut might have accidentally poisoned herself with skin lotion, according to a new study. Researchers have detected a highly carcinogenic substance in the dried contents of a cosmetic vial found among the female pharaoh’s possessions. One of ancient Egypt’s most powerful rulers, Hatshepsut is thought to have died of bone cancer in 1458 B.C.

A flask of lotion believed to have belonged to the female pharaoh Hatshepsut contains a carcinogenic substance that might ultimately have killed the Egyptian queen, German researchers said today. Part of the permanent collection at the University of Bonn’s Egyptian Museum, the vessel was thought to have held perfume until a two-year study uncovered traces of what appears to be an ancient treatment for eczema or psoriasis. Its ingredients include palm and nutmeg oil, fatty acids that can relieve certain skin conditions and a type of cancer-causing tar residue, which is also found in cigarette smoke.

“We have known for a long time that Hatshepsut had cancer and maybe even died from it,” said Michael Höveler-Müller, the collection’s curator. “We may now know the actual cause.” He also said that other members of the queen’s family are thought to have suffered from inflammatory skin diseases that tend to be genetic.