“The artifacts were discovered hidden in cheap vases during an inspection of a shipping container from Alexandria, Egypt, at the Port of Valencia on Spain’s Mediterranean coast,” said Director-General of Guardia Civil Arsenio Fernandez de Mesa.

The ancient Egyptian artifacts, with a total value of between 200,000 and 300,000 euros (U.S. $225,000-339,000), were recovered as part of a comprehensive crackdown launched by agents from European law enforcement authorities in 14 countries to prevent looting, theft and illicit trafficking of cultural artifacts.

The Spanish police showed the press 36 of the recovered Egyptian artifacts including “a majestic bust of Sekhmet, the ancient Egyptian warrior goddess, worth an estimated 100,000 euros ($125,000),” Spanish Police Captain Javier Morales was quoted as saying by news24.

Also among the most valuable recovered artifacts is a statue of Isis, ancient Egyptian goddess of magic, and a vase covered in hieroglyphics, said Morales.

“During the comprehensive operation, dubbed ‘Aureus,’ the agents carried out checks on 6,244 individuals, 8,222 vehicles, 27 vessels, as well as 2,352 inspections at antique and art dealers, auction houses and secondhand outlets. Checks were also stepped up at airports, land borders and ports in Europe,” according to Europol.

Most of Egypt’s major archaeological sites have been targeted for looting since the 2011 uprising toppled former president Hosni Mubarak. Thousands of ancient Egyptian artifacts, most of which were obtained from illicit digging activities, are now flooding the global markets, auction houses and electronic commerce websites.

In spite of the Egyptian government’s efforts to track smuggled artifacts inside Egypt and in auction houses abroad, the issue is still unsettled.

“During the past four years, Egypt has recovered over 1,600 artifacts and is currently working on other cases in many European countries,” Ministry of Antiquities’ Museums Sector head Ahmed Sharaf previously told The Cairo Post.

It is estimated that around $3 billion in Egyptian antiquities have been looted since the outbreak of the January 25 Revolution in 2011, according to the International Coalition to Protect Egyptian Antiquities, a U.S.-based initiative partnered with Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry.

Author: Rany Mostafa | Source: The Cairo Post [January 29, 2015]

The golden funerary mask, seen Friday by AFP at the Egyptian Museum, showed the sticky aftermath of what appears to have been overzealous use of glue to fix the mask's beard in place.

A museum official, who spoke anonymously to avoid repercussions, told AFP the beard had fallen of accidentally when the mask was removed from its case last year to repair the lighting.

Museum head Mahmoud al-Helwagy denied that conservation workers had damaged the mask

"This is illogical and inconceivable," he told AFP. "These are conservation workers, not carpenters."

Antiquities Minister Mahmud al-Damaty also denied that the 3,000-year-old relic was treated carelessly.

"The job was done correctly," he told AFP, without explaining why curators needed to fix the mask.

Monica Hanna, an Egyptologist who inspected the mask, said what she saw had so shocked her that her group was taking the matter to the public prosecutor.

"We are presenting a complaint on mismanagement to the prosecutor tomorrow," said Hanna, from Egypt's Heritage Task Force, which has long battled mismanagement and looting of Egypt's legendary ancient artefacts.

According to the museum official, "there seems to have been a lapse in concentration and the mask hit the case and almost fell" when it was removed from its case.

"So (the curator) grabbed it in his arms to break the fall, and the beard separated," he said.

The long braided beard fit into the mask with a peg, and had been separated before, the official said.

"This mistake can happen. But what caused it to get worse? The curator was scared and he fixed it hastily."

The epoxy glue dried very quickly, said the official.

"You should use material (that dries slowly) and then support it, maybe over several hours or 24 hours, so you can fix mistakes," he said.

"Renovation work needs an adhesive that is easy to remove in case there is any damage, without leaving any traces."

Museum director Helwagy told the official MENA news agency that epoxy glue is used internationally to fix artefacts.

The death mask of the enigmatic boy king is one of the crown jewels of the museum, which also houses the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses II.

The museum used to attract millions of tourists before a 2011 revolt -- centred in nearby Tahrir Square -- brought down president Hosni Mubarak and unleashed four years of tumult.

Author: Mohamed El-Shahed | Source: AFP [January 23, 2015]

The museum is one of the city's main tourist sites, but in some areas, ancient wooden sarcophagi lay unprotected from the public, while pharaonic burial shrouds, mounted on walls, crumble from behind open panels of glass. Tutankhamun's mask, over 3,300 years old, and other contents of his tomb are its top exhibits.

Three of the museum's conservators reached by telephone gave differing accounts of when the incident occurred last year, and whether the beard was knocked off by accident while the mask's case was being cleaned, or was removed because it was loose.

They agree however that orders came from above to fix it quickly and that an inappropriate adhesive was used. All spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of professional reprisals.

"Unfortunately he used a very irreversible material — epoxy has a very high property for attaching and is used on metal or stone but I think it wasn't suitable for an outstanding object like Tutankhamun's golden mask," one conservator said.

"The mask should have been taken to the conservation lab but they were in a rush to get it displayed quickly again and used this quick drying, irreversible material," the conservator added.

The conservator said that the mask now shows a gap between the face and the beard, whereas before it was directly attached: "Now you can see a layer of transparent yellow."

Another museum conservator, who was present at the time of the repair, said that epoxy had dried on the face of the boy king's mask and that a colleague used a spatula to remove it, leaving scratches. The first conservator, who inspects the artifact regularly, confirmed the scratches and said it was clear that they had been made by a tool used to scrape off the epoxy.

Egypt's tourist industry, once a pillar of the economy, has yet to recover from three years of tumult following a 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Museums and the opening of new tombs are part of plans to revive the industry. But authorities have made no significant improvements to the Egyptian Museum since its construction in 1902, and plans to move the Tutankhamun exhibit to its new home in the Grand Egyptian Museum scheduled to open in 2018 have yet to be divulged.

Neither the Antiquities Ministry nor the museum administration could be reached for comment Wednesday evening. One of the conservators said an investigation was underway and that a meeting had been held on the subject earlier in the day.

The burial mask, discovered by British archeologists Howard Carter and George Herbert in 1922, sparked worldwide interest in archaeology and ancient Egypt when it was unearthed along with Tutankhamun's nearly intact tomb.

"From the photos circulating among restorers I can see that the mask has been repaired, but you can't tell with what," Egyptologist Tom Hardwick said. "Everything of that age needs a bit more attention, so such a repair will be highly scrutinized."

Author: Brian Rohan | Source: Associated Press [Jabuary 22, 2015]

Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty told Ahram Online that the necropolis, in the Gebel Mahran area, includes a collection of tombs called Likoli, which have holes engraved in a rock-hewn wall.

The tomb raiders unearthed a collection of artefacts including 20 clay lamps, 18 glass bottles and a large number of clay pots.

Eldamaty said the pots give us a view of the pot industry during that period.

The ministry of antiquities is to send an archeological mission to the site to continue excavations and reveal more of these tombs.

The Tourism and Antiquities Police caught the criminal red-handed and they are now under investigations.

Author: Nevine El-Aref | Source: Ahram Online [January 20, 2015]

The skeleton came into the possession of the university according to the division law. The law allowed foreign missions to have a share in the artefacts they discovered at archaeological sites in Egypt.

Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty explained that the skeleton was unearthed in the Nazlet Khater area of the Upper Egyptian city of Sohag during an excavation by the Leuven University archaeological mission.

After diplomatic efforts, he continued, the university agreed to return the skeleton because it is a very important artefact in the history of Egypt.

Ali Ahmed, head of the Stolen Antiquities Recovery Section, told Ahram Online that the skeleton will arrive next week and a committee is now studying how to put it on display at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat.

Author: Nevine El-Aref | Source: Ahram Online [January 18, 2015]

“The committee has agreed to found a joint fund to complete stalled renovation projects to many mosques and other Islamic sites.” said Gamal Mostafa, part of the new committee and director general of the archaeological sites of Al-Sultan Hassan and al-Rifaai mosques. “[The committee] aims to tackle the bureaucracy and obstacles that inhibit the completion of Islamic heritage development projects.”

Over the past decade, several development projects – particularly in Cairo which is one of the world’s oldest Islamic cities – have been launched to protect Egypt’s ancient mosques, but lack of funding coordination and security following the 2011 revolution meant the majority of projects were abandoned.

The Egyptian government has been criticised over the increase in thefts, not only in mosques, but in Egypt’s heritage sites across the country. Following the 2011 revolution and the subsequent collapse of the country’s government, armed gangs, looters and general destruction placed the country’s rich cultural history in peril. As a result, Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab requested support from UNESCO to try and stem reports of ongoing chaos at Egyptian heritage sites.

Author: Tom Anstey | Source: Leisure Management [January 13, 2015]

Egypt's Antiquities Ministry stated Sunday it was monitored and suspended the sale of 10 ancient Egyptian artifacts that were listed for sale in an Australian auction house.

The artifacts, spanning several periods of ancient Egyptian history, were spotted on the website of the auction house a few weeks ago, Antiquities Minister Mamdouh al-Damaty said.

“As soon as the artifacts were monitored, the ministry’s Restored Artifacts Department (RAD) in cooperation with Egypt’s embassy in Australia initiated the required legal procedures to retrieve the artifacts after their authenticity was confirmed by experts,” head of the RAD Aly Ahmed said.

After the experts were deeply skeptical about some of the artifacts, the department pursued the diplomatic path and contacted officials at the Australian government and at the auction house to verify and present the artifacts’ provenances, said Ahmed.

“The Australian authorities responded and seized the artifacts and will send them back to Egypt during the coming few weeks,” said Ahmed, who confirmed the artifacts are the outcome of illicit digging activities that occurred in several archaeological sites across the country in the aftermath of the January 25 Revolution and its consequent security lapse.

Keeping track of registered artifacts that have been stolen from archaeological sites, museums and storerooms of the antiquities ministry, “is definitely the easiest part of our job, while the process of detecting and repatriating unregistered ones is like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Ahmed previously told The Cairo Post.

We can monitor what is being sold in public but we cannot monitor what is being sold in secret. There is no record of how many artifacts have gone missing so far as many were taken from illicit digging, and there is no way to know that they even exist, ” Ahmed said.

During the past four years, Egypt has recovered over 1,600 artifacts and is currently working on other cases in many European countries, he said.

Author: Rany Mostafa | Source: The Cairo Post [January 04, 2015]

The Stone Towers by Zaha Hadid Architects

VIA «Zaha Hadid will construct Stone Towers in Cairo»

A rectangular scrap measuring about 4.five inches by 1.five inches and featuring 15 partial lines of Homer's epic poem The Iliad in the elegant hand of a 4th Century Egyptian scribe was just [DEC] picked up by an unidentified European purchaser for £16,000 right after a feverish Net auction battle.

That value was way above the posted estimated but is standard of the sums that collectors will now devote to lay their hands on these fingerprints from the previous. Indeed, it is not just modern day art that has been setting jaw-dropping records at auction lately - so have ancient scrolls.

When a fragmentary parchment sheet from the 3rd century AD featuring portions of Paul's epistle to the Romans was bought at Sotheby's for £301,000 auctioneers and antiquity authorities alike have been stunned.

But even though there is no suggestion of any impropriety in these unique sales, scholars are alarmed by the burgeoning online trade as some unscrupulous sellers also cash in. They portray a no cost-ranging trade, particularly on the on line auction giant eBay, exactly where precious documents are carved up for sale, potentially stolen goods are trafficked and forgers can flourish.

Brice Jones, a papyrologist and lecturer in New Testament and Early Christianity at Concordia University in Montreal, has turn into an on the web scrolls sleuth, scouring auction web-sites for manuscripts that are usually incorrectly labeled or their provenance unclear.

A couple of pieces are straightforward forgeries. Most famously, the papyrus fragment called the Gospel of Jesus's Wife created headlines for apparently overturning almost two millennia of theological teaching that Jesus was unmarried, but is now widely viewed as a forgery.

Considerably a lot more distressingly, some sellers are dismembering papyrus books to sell things page-by-page, a financially lucrative endeavor that amounts to small extra than vandalism of ancient works.

A single eBay papyrus seller turned out to be two sisters who ran an online beauty supplies store. They had inherited a Book of Revelation from which they cut person pages to sell on an ad hoc basis to fund the wedding costs for one.

But Mr Jones has also identified a proliferation of scrolls becoming sold of which the origin and ownership is unknown or unclear. A fragment of papyrus with neatly penned Greek script of Homers Iliad, 565-580, 4th Century AD. Ex Hamdy Sakr collection, London, formed in the 1960's. There had been only two serious bidders on the piece and it probably went a lot greater than either of them had anticipated.

Papyrus itself is a tall, fibrous reed plant that grew along the shallow banks of the Nile River in Egypt. 'Papyrus' is the Latin type of the Greek word papuros, from which the English word 'paper' is derived.

The papyri - mostly written in ancient Greek and Coptic - variety from items such as rare biblical texts or the lines of the Iliad to hum-drum but fascinating each day records of book-maintaining accounts or letters amongst loved ones members. All exert an incredible lure for collectors, historians, archaeologists and theologians.

But under American and Egyptian law, only antiquities that can be verified currently to have been in private hands ahead of the early 1970s can be traded. Those guidelines are intended to avoid looting and end the export of papyrus that is generally still identified by Bedouin tribesmen, preserved by the arid desert situations. But critics say that lots of sellers skirt or ignore the guidelines on Internet internet sites that are difficult to monitor and regulate.

The disapproving tone from academia also reflects a deep philosophical objection by many scholars to how manuscripts flow by means of private hands, fearing that priceless scripts will disappear forever amid the frenzy of trading.

"The study of ancient papyri is a fascinating field of historical inquiry, simply because these artefacts are the fingerprints of true men and women from a bygone era," Mr Jones told The Telegraph.

"Each time I study a new papyrus, it is as if I am peeking over the shoulders of the scribe who wrote it, eavesdropping on a conversation that in several cases was meant to be private: an argument in between a husband and wife, a divorce contract, an invitation to dinner, a letter in between a father and son.

"But when private collectors acquire papyri for private enjoyment and restrict scholarly access to them, the instant consequence is that we drop worthwhile historical info that would otherwise advance our understanding about ancient people."

Nonetheless, the owner of a little specialist World-wide-web auction corporation, who asked not to be named due to the fact of the sensitivity of the situation, pushed back against these criticisms.

"We are scrupulous about producing certain of ownership despite the fact that not everybody is so fussy and it's accurate that there are some people today who know practically nothing who are out attempting to make a buck in the wild West of the Web," he mentioned.

"But some of these archaeologists and purists simply hate the reality that that any private person would personal, invest in or sell antiquities.

"They ignore the reality that things like this have always been collected. Indeed, some of these scripts have been commissioned by the private collectors of that time.

"Collectors play a crucial function in preserving these items with their interest. A lot of these items would stay hidden, forgotten, fading away, unknown to the scholars, if there was not a industry for them."

Amongst specialists in the research of early Christianity, there is specific concern about the emergence of eBay as a absolutely free-wheeling marketplace for antiquities, with low opening bids and normally exaggerated language to lure in possible purchasers.

An eBay spokesman, however, stated that its150 million buyers and sellers "must make certain listings comply with our clear policy on artefacts. We operate with regulators, law enforcement and other parties which includes the Egyptian Embassy to apply this policy, and if a listing of concern is identified we will need proof that it was legally exported and take away any listing exactly where this proof is not supplied."

As a specialist who spends his life studying such scrolls, Mr Jones also has concerns for the preservation and conservation of sensitive centuries-old documents when they are handled by traders.

He cited then instance of the well-known papyrus codex of the Gospel of Judas, which published in 2006. It was stored by one particular of its owners in a protected-deposit box on Long Island for sixteen years, and then placed in a freezer by a possible purchaser who thought that was the ideal way to preserve it.

"The benefits of these choices have been horrifying: the codex crumbled into quite a few hundreds of tiny pieces and what was after a practically total codex was now badly deteriorated and tricky to restore," he stated.

The booming trade has clearly revealed to scholars how numerous papyri have survived down the centuries.

"This prompts the question: just how quite a few ancient manuscripts are sitting in the basements, match boxes, drawers, safes, or shelves of private collectors about the globe?" Mr Jones asked lately.

"It is nearly certain that numerous ancient manuscripts or fragments thereof are just sitting in the dark closets of their collectors, decaying and crumbling to pieces. The public demands to be conscious of the importance of the preservation of antiquities, for the reason that when they are gone, they are gone forever."

Author: Philip Sherwell | Source: The Telegraph [December 28, 2014]

The burial site in the Valley of the Queens was opened for ten days in mid-October to celebrate the 110th anniversary of its discovery by the Italian archaeologist Ernesto Schiaparelli. Speaking at an event in London last month, Egypt’s minister of tourism, Hisham Zazou, proposed that the site remains open. “I want to make sure [this period] is expanded, so it is open every month,” Zazou said, adding that the tomb would be open one week a month to a limited number of tourists. Access was restricted to 150 visitors before it was closed in 2006.

Egypt’s tourism industry has suffered since the 2011 revolution, with just 7.1 million visitors from January to September this year, compared with 14.7 million in 2010, according to Zazou. Although tourism has increased in resorts around the Red Sea, numbers remain low at cultural sites. Egypt’s authorities now hope to attract visitors back to the Nile Valley by opening new archaeological sites.

Nefertari’s tomb is renowned for its colourful paintings showing the queen with deities, but the remarkably well-preserved works quickly deteriorated after the tomb’s discovery due to rising humidity levels and associated salt damage, partly brought on by the breath of tourists. From 1986 to 1992, the Getty Conservation Institute used emergency conservation measures to stabilise the works. The tomb reopened in 1995, but renewed concerns led to its closure to the public in 2006, although the antiquities ministry continued to grant access for private tours.

The Getty has monitored the tomb regularly over the years, and according to a spokesman for the institute, there has been “no apparent deterioration as a result of visitors or due to humidity from visitors”. There has been physical damage, however, which the Getty has “ascribed to filming in the tomb”.

Author: Garry Shaw | Source: The Art Newspaper [December 18, 2014]

The recent illegal construction of a residential building, which has partially blocked the view of Giza Pyramid “is a blatant encroachment of Egypt’s building laws which restrict urban housing in a five km radius from the Giza plateau,” Coordinator of the Popular Front to Defend Antiquities Osama Karar told Youm7 Saturday.

“If encroachments of building residential units in the area continue at the same rate witnessed since the January 25 Revolution, the Giza Pyramids won’t be seen from more than 30-meters away,” said Karar in response to photos published in Youm7 Friday.

The photos show an under-construction residential building located in Abu el-Houl street, walking distance from the foot of the Sphinx. The photos also show mobile network towers installed on rooftops, within the perimeter of the area where construction is restricted.

“Several residential buildings, with ranging from 5 to 11 stories tall, are being built in streets located less than 200 meters from the Giza Pyramids area. It is a blatant encroachment,” he added.

The Giza Plateau is part of a zone of 50 square kilometers that is protected by UNESCO, which stretches to the funerary complex at Saqqara, further south.

“The ancient ruins of the Memphis area , including the Pyramids of Giza , Saqqara , Dahshur , Abu Ruwaysh , and Abu Sir, were collectively designated a World Heritage site in 1979,” archaeologist Sherif el-Sabban told The Cairo Post Saturday.

Following the 2011 revolution and the lack of proper security, private construction companies demolished some of the area’s old villas and 4-story residential buildings and replaced them with tall, residential buildings that encroach on the neighborhood’s small alleyways.

Karar says that bureaucracy, a lax approach from the government in implementing building code along with corruption issues are common in Egypt’s official bodies issuing building permits, and represent a threat to Egypt’s cultural heritage.

“The Ministry of Antiquities seems unwilling to admit failure, but the Egyptian government should take action to ensure that archaeological sites do not end up in a disaster,” he said.

Author: Rany Mostafa | Source: The Cairo Post [April 12, 2015]