Statement of Dr Maarten Raven (Field Director, Leiden mission to Saqqara)

saqqara.nl

We are pleased to hear that the situation in Egypt is becoming more or less normal again. Several excavations have already resumed their activities in the field, others (mainly in the south of the country) have never stopped working. In Saqqara, however, an assessment of the damage inflicted on the monuments during the troubles is still taking place. Objects from isolated magazines (such as those in Abusir) are being moved to the central storage facilities for better protection. So far, our colleagues of the Czech mission in Abusir are the first to be back in the field, but the conditions for work are still complicated.

Therefore, and because our team members are not easily available due to other obligations, we have decided to postpone further fieldwork until the winter of 2012, when we hope to have an ordinary season in the field. Soon we shall try to carry out a final inspection of our site to assess the minor damage incurred (mainly some modern wooden doors which have been kicked in). During the months January and February, we hope to carry out the projects originally planned for 2011, such as the exploration of the shaft of the anonymous tomb found in 2010 and a survey of the area situated to the south of the tomb of Meryneith. If the team of the Dutch-Flemish Institute will be free to join us again, further work will be undertaken to locate the proper entrance to the Archaic galleries located under the tomb of Meryneith.

In the meantime, great progress has been made with the preparations of our field reports. We expect to see the final publication of the tomb of Horemheb any day now (The Memphite Tomb of Horemheb V). Almost the whole text of The Tomb of Meryneith at Saqqara has now been edited and the illustrations have been ordered. The preliminary report on the season 2010 is in print.

The Pyramidales Interview with Jean-Pierre Houdin, Part One

Em Hotep (Shemsu Sesen)

Just hours before the premier of Kheops Renaissance (also called Khufu Reborn), Jean-Pierre Houdin granted an exclusive interview to fellow Egyptology blogger Marc Chartier, proprietor of the website Pyramidales. Timed for release immediately following the event, Marc’s interview is a perfect introduction to Episode Two and the Project Khufu material that will be forthcoming from both Pyramidales and Em Hotep.

Previously available only in French, this is the first official English language translation, made available through our partnership with Pyramidales and Dassault Systèmes. Over the next few weeks I will be publishing, in addition to Part Two of this interview, translations of additional material that is being very kindly provided by Marc, Jean-Pierre, and the Project Khufu team at Dassault Systèmes.

The unread masterpiece of Evliya Çelebi

Saudi Aramco World

A slightly tenuous link with Egypt, but Evliya Çelebi did visit Cairo on his travels, and this is mentioned in the article. I'm including it mainly, however, because it is a very good read!

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of the world’s least-known great traveler, a man who visited the ends of the earth for the sheer pleasure of doing so. For Evliya Çelebi, court favorite of the Ottoman sultan and a native son of his beloved Istanbul, the ends of the earth were the western, eastern, southern and northern boundaries of the Ottoman Empire, and at the time of his death, probably in the year 1683, it can be said that he even surpassed those limits, having visited—if he can be taken at his word, which was not always reliable—Amsterdam, Persia, Ethiopia and Russia.

Evliya’s written legacy is the Seyahatname, or Book of Travels, comprising 10 volumes and thousands of pages composed in the highly recondite language of Ottoman Turkish. To date, only parts of it have been translated into English, by Robert Dankoff and Sooyong Kim, from whose book the quotations in this article are taken. As the translators note, their job was not easy, for Evliya’s language is prolix, exuberant and playful, full of allusions to the Qur’an, folk proverbs in Arabic and Turkish, and classics such as Firdawsi’s Shahnama and Sa'di’s Gulistan.

And, as things often went in the Ottoman Empire, it was due to the good offices of an unusual palace insider—in this case, Hajı Beşir Ağa, the Chief Black Eunuch—that Evliya’s manuscript was plucked from obscurity in a Cairo library decades after his death and brought to Istanbul in 1742, where it was copied and widely read.

In the words of Dankoff, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago and a lifelong student of Evliya’s work, it is “the longest and fullest travel account in Islamic literature, perhaps in world literature.” Yet it is also both less and more than this. Dankoff has compared the Seyahatname to a mine that can be dug into deeply here and there, but is rarely tunneled through from end to end. For Evliya, he wrote, “travel was not a diversion but rather an obsession. He had to see everything, and he had to record everything he saw.”

Online Resource: The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Sciences

EJRS

Thanks to AWOL for posting this on the above page.

Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Sciences is a peer reviewed journal under the responsibility of the National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS). It aims at publishing quality research scientific articles that will cover all aspects of remote sensing and its applications in different subject areas such as: geology, mineral exploration, hydrogeology, geomorphology, planetary geology, soil sciences, agriculture, space archeology, surveying, urban planning, environment, engineering geology, image and signal processing, coastal research and space sciences.

Photo for Today - more from Jeme / Medinet Habu

Reward for the return of looted artefacts

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

Egyptian antiquities ministry offers LE 500 - 50 thousand ($86 - $8500) for the return of missing artefacts or information that leads to their whereabouts

The ministry of state for antiquities affairs (MSAA) offers a reward to any Egyptian citizen for the return or information that leads to the discovery of any of the artefacts that were stolen in the break-ins at the Egyptian museum and other archaeological sites during the chaos of Egypt’s January 25 Revolution.

Zahi Hawass minister of state of the MSAA, said that the cash compensation will range from between LE 500 to 50 thousand ($86 - $8500).

55 objects seized in El Wadi El Gedid, but are they genuine?

Luxor Times

With photo. A committee is being sent to inspect the seized items and ensure that they are genuine.

55 antiquity objects of various sizes including 2 sarcophagi dated back to different eras were seized by a police force on a raid on a known criminal’s residence in El Wadi El Gadid. The raid on Mohamed A.A. – 37 years old, residence resulted finding the mentioned antiquities plus police uniforms which led to believe they were stolen during the recent turmoil.

Hawass meeting with the Grand Museum team

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

With 2 photos.

Today I had a meeting with Mr. Stephen Greenberg, the President of Metaphor, which is the company that is helping to plan and design the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM).

Stephen and I had a very successful meeting, he showed me models that his team has created for some of the galleries in the Museum, which show how the tourists will move through them, as well as how the displays will look and what colors they have chosen that will show the objects best. He explained their plan for the galleries to me, and how they have designed them to have enough space for many people to view the objects without causing crowding. They will also make benches and places for people to sit, so they can rest and appreciate the incredible objects.

Recent online updates from the Griffith Institute

The Griffith Institute

Thanks to Ancient World Online and Chuck Jones for the above link.

The Griffith Institute has updated its site and the above pages give details of new additions. If you're anywhere near Oxford, UK, you may be interested to know that there is a display of twenty selected photographs by Harry Burton in Art (formerly Green's) Cafe, 14 Bonn Square, Oxford.

EES Delta Survey comes to a close

EES Delta Survey

I've enjoyed following the EES Delta Survey and am sad to see them go.

Our first season at Daba has gone very well. We were able to survey the whole site and now have a much better understanding of its archaeological remains and the development of the tell’s current appearance. Next year, we hope to return and undertake targeted excavations to try to establish the dates of the brick walls and house plans that we have noted and started to investigate this year.

Egypt tourism remains in disarray

Al Masry Al Youm

From the Pyramids of Giza to the Red Sea resorts, tourist numbers have plummeted to just a trickle, dealing a devastating blow to the millions of Egyptians whose livelihoods depend on the 14 million or so visitors who once thronged to the country.

At the height of the 18-day uprising that ousted president Hosni Mubarak, embassies issued travel warnings and many tour groups canceled their trips, throwing an industry that is a major source of foreign currency into crisis.

Two months later, the chaos has largely subsided, the police who deserted their posts during protests are mostly back on the job and the travel warnings have been eased.

But the tourists have yet to return, and Egypt's tourism minister has forecast the industry's 2011 revenue will be 25 percent lower than the previous year.

From Egyptian Museum to 'torture chamber'

Al Masry Al Youm (Ali Abdel Mohsen)

This is an article about allegations that the military used the museum for interrogating and possibly torturing people they arrested in Tahrir Square during the revolution but there are also sections discussing the status of the museum in the eyes of Egyptians following these alleged events. There is also an interesting mention of multiple break-ins by looters, one/some after February 11th. Here's an excerpt:

Despite the testimonies of Sobhy and others, many refuse to believe that the armed forces are perpetuating the human rights abuses of the previous regime by imprisoning, torturing and humiliating protesters within the walls of the nation’s most prominent cultural landmark. But regardless of the extent of brutality allegedly taking place on its grounds, there is little doubt that the role of the Egyptian Museum has significantly shifted during the revolution, in a way that mirrors the complicated and at times contradictory nature of the current Egyptian situation.

“The museum is clearly very valuable, and precious, to the Egyptian people,” said Fayza Haikal, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. This value, though, is double-edged. Immediately following the withdrawal of police forces, the museum was seen as a jackpot for looters, whose pilfering was largely prevented by a brigade of volunteer civilians forming a human shield around the building.

“The museum was looted more than once, especially after 28 January and 11 February. Luckily, most of what was stolen was retrieved, and all that remains missing is a few smaller artifacts," Haikal said.

“The fact that civilians took it upon themselves to defend the museum from looters is an indication of how valuable it is to Egyptians. Both in terms of our historic wealth, and as a cultural icon."

Haikal seems to be among a minority who do not think the museum’s status as a “symbol of the Egyptian people” will suffer in the face of allegations that the institution is currently doubling as a “torture camp.”

Photo for Today - More from Jeme / Medinet Habu

Remains of Coptic Jeme, Medinet Habu

Lahun excavation is shut down

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

Hopefully further information will emerge to clarify the situation.

Excavations at the Lahoun archaeological site in Fayoum have been halted due to negligence of the excavators

The Permanent Committee of Egyptian Antiquities decided today to stop all excavation works being carried out by the Egyptian mission at Lahoun archaeological site in Fayoum.

The committee has also approved the decision taken by the archaeological mission which was sent in early March to inspect excavation works being carried out in Lahoun and the artefacts discovered there.

The archaeological mission was sent at the request of Zahi Hawass, who was then minister of state for antiquities affairs, and found that the site was subject to deterioration.

Ancient Coptic graffiti adorns walls of 3,200 year-old Egyptian temple

Unreported Heritage News (Owen Jarus)

A new research project led by Professor Jennifer Westerfeld, of the University of Louisville, is taking a look at a unique set of graffiti scribbled onto the walls of a 3,200 year old Egyptian temple.

The temple was built at Abydos by Seti I, a powerful pharaoh who pushed the borders of the Egyptian empire as far as modern day Syria. It contains two courtyards, two hypostyle halls, chapels and an enigmatic structure known as the “Osireion,” which may commemorate the Egyptian story of creation.

Today this complex is covered in a large amount of graffiti dating from ancient times up until the medieval period. Westerfeld believes that a community of nuns contributed to this defacement, writing on its walls around 1,500 years ago.

New site openings

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

According to Hawass the following sites are to open soon. There are some notes about some of the sites on the above page.

• The Hanging Church (Coptic), Cairo
• Suez Museum
• Crocodile Museum, Kom Ombo
• Visitor Centre, Amarna (Thanks to Claudia Ali for the correction)
  
• Zaghloul Mosque, Cairo
• Six Islamic-era houses, Rashid
• Salaheddin Citadel, Taba
• Qalawoun complexes in Al-Muizz Street, Cairo
• The mosque of Prince Soliman, known as the Hanging Mosque, Cairo
• The restored Serapeum, Saqqara
• New Kingdom cemetery (including tombs of Maya and Horemheb), Saqqara
• The restored Temple of Hibis, Kharga Oasis

Hawass faces criticisms about his job, ties to Mubarak

Washington Post (Philip Kennicott)

After two months of revolution and recrimination, which has seen him in and out of power, he is madly multitasking: Struggling to preserve ancient sites from theft and the encroachment of illegal construction, while working just as frantically to preserve his power base in a wildly shifting political landscape.

“I am not from the old regime,” Hawass says.

On March 3, with angry young archaeologists calling for his head, Hawass resigned from the top ministerial position given to him by now-deposed president Hosni Mubarak. That job not only made him powerful in Egypt, it also gave him sway over the careers of international archaeologists who work in this land of pyramids, temples, churches and mosques. But 27 days later, Hawass was put back in charge, because, he argues, no one else can do the job.

His position is far from secure. On Sunday, a criminal court convicted him for ignoring an earlier civil judgment brought against his ministry in a case involving concession contracts at the Egyptian Museum. It is likely only the first step in a protracted legal battle, and the sentence — a year in jail, loss of his post and a fine — hasn’t been enforced.

The ugly web of controversy in which he is embroiled, however, goes well beyond this latest contretemps, which Hawass describes as no more than a misunderstanding.

Hawass and the avoided prison sentence

Hawass has been figuring very prominently in the headlines at the moment, partly because of the clothing line he gave his name to (see post below) but mainly because of the prison sentence which he has now apparently escaped. A law suit had been brought against him for failure to comply with a court ruling regarding the gift shop in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The judgment and sentence were fought in a court of appeal and the the original court's ruling was overturned.

Articles and posts about avoiding the prison sentence:

Al Ahram Weekly (summary from the point of view of the Ministry of Antiquities, but before the results of the appeal had been announced)
Talking Pyramids (Vincent Brown's summary of the reasons for the original judgement, looking at the evidence)
drhawass.com (a statement by Zahi Hawass on the reprieve)
CNN (an overview of the reasons for the lawsuit and the arguments made at the appeal)
Africa Online (short summary)

Hawass and the designer clothing line

Hawass again found himself under fire in the headlines, this time for selling his name to a clothes designer who launched a clothing line named after him, currently for sale in Harrods. Part of the furor was that seemed as though they had used the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to promote the new line, but Hawass and the team who took the photographs say that the photo shoot actually took place in the U.S. when the Tutankhamun exhibition was touring and that any of the objects handled or sat upon were replicas. The photographic team also confirms that a photograph of a model with a foot on an item was achieved with photo manipulation. He is quoted saying that all his income from the line will go to a children's cancer hospital in Cairo.

Al Ahram Weekly (a summary of the case for the defense)
New York Times (a good summary of the furor and a description of the line, together with one of photographs used to promote it)
Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues (Paul Barford wonders if the world has gone mad, over-reacting to the Hawass-branded clothing line)

Egypt’s antiquities ministry releases first official replicas

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

A state monopoly on 1:1 reproductions?

The new Egyptian Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs (MSAA) production unit has just fabricated its first batch of replicas. The batch includes 130 replica statues depicting the unique collection of King Tutankhamun. The replicas are to be produced for tourists and hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh, which bought them from the MSAA for LE2.3million to be paid within 18 months.

Zahi Hawass, minister of state of the MSAA, stated that the newly created production unit is an implementation of the new antiquities law and its amendments, such as article number 36 of the law, which establishes the intellectual property rights and trade mark of the MSAA production of replicas. According to the law, the MSAA is the only foundation with permission to produce exact replicas on a 1:1 scale.