New Law, New Effects

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

Two months after the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) launched a new administration to document all the antiquities held in private possession, what are the results?

Under the new Antiquities Law 3/2010, passed in mid-February, the SCA set up the Archaeological Collection Administration (ACA) as part of its professional echelon. The new body aims at inspecting the authenticity of all unregistered antiquities that are in the possession of members of the Egyptian public, and ensuring that they are properly documented.

The law appears to be working. "It was really unexpected," Hussein Bassir, director of the ACA, admitted to Al-Ahram Weekly. He said that over the last two months the SCA had received 100 requests from people possessing historical articles and asking for their collections to be examined. Following inspection, 80 per cent of the artefacts were found to be genuine while the rest were replicas.