Neil MacGregor talks about the need to protect artefacts abroad – yet his museum is one of the worst culprits at hanging on to artefacts from these countries – many of which were taken during times of civil unrest in the past.

From:
Times of India

Museums enable societies to ask questions: MacGregor
Vithal C Nadkarni, Feb 9, 2011, 04.42am IST

MUMBAI: British Museum director Neil MacGregor says he was extremely encouraged by the Egyptian people’s response to the recent attack on their national museum in Cairo’s Liberation Square. Not only did the police catch the vandals quickly but volunteers spontaneously formed a 3,000-strong human chain around the edifice to protect it from further damage.

“This shows how important ideas of collective history and national identity have become to people today,” he told TOI in an exclusive chat at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya before his talk, ‘Stories of the World: Museums, History and Contemporary Society’.
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Following the looting of the Egyptian Museum, Zahi Hawass’s story about the events that occurred has changed many times. It will be interesting to see if he manages to keep his job for long in an Egypt no longer ruled by Mubarak.

From:
The New Yorker

February 18, 2011
Speaking with the Sphinx
Posted by Jenna Krajeski

The gates to the office of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, and of Zahi Hawass—the council’s Secretary General, then Minister of Antiquities Affairs, and now object of public scorn—were padlocked yesterday, in an effort to keep out protesters. Unemployed graduates of Egypt’s archaeology programs milled around on the sidewalk outside the building, in Cairo’s Zamalek district, demanding jobs and Hawass’s resignation. The calmness of their demonstration raised the question: Was the security measure really necessary, or was it an act of theater staged by Hawass? The gift store inside was still open.

Since the Egyptian Museum was looted on January 28th, Hawass’s official story has fluctuated. First he said that daft, amateur looters stole nothing of value—“They thought the shop was the museum, thank God!”—and all was well. Hawass was appointed as Minister of Antiquities Affairs in Mubarak’s interim government, and announced that protesters should go home; the Sphinx, he wrote on his Web site, agreed: “I looked carefully into his eyes, and imagined that I saw tears. The Sphinx is sad because of what has happened; Egypt will lose billions and billions of dollars, and for Egypt to recuperate this money it will take at least three years.” Then Mubarak resigned, and Hawass revealed that eight pieces remained missing from the museum, among them a statue of Akhenaten and two of Tutankhamun. Broken bits were being recovered from the area around the museum.
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Are modern-day sensibilities altering the way that museums in the UK display artefacts such as Egyptian mummies?

From:
Independent

The curse of the vanishing mummies
Museums have been hiding away priceless collections of human remains, for ideological reasons
By Tiffany Jenkins
Wednesday, 16 February 2011

Egyptian mummies used to be among the most popular displays in British museum collections. But their days as a visitor attraction may be numbered. Increasingly they are being secreted away by curators, hidden away from the public without consultation.

In the coming year, Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery will publish its first policy specifically on the use and display of human remains. It is clear from the draft that staff are increasingly sensitive about exhibits of ancient bodies and skeletons. Recommendations include erecting signs to “alert” visitors that such material is on display – and reconsidering whether to show it at all.
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Further coverage of some of the problems affecting Egypt’s antiquities at present.

From:
Sky news

Priceless Objects Stolen From Egypt Museum
3:44pm UK, Sunday February 13, 2011
Juliet Bagnall and Lorna Blount, Sky News Online

Looters appear to have made off with some of Egypt’s priceless antiquities during the anti-government protests of the past three weeks.

The minister in charge of antiquities has reported that 18 items are missing from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, including two gilded wooden statues of Tutankhamun.
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Following the recent unrest in Cairo, museums around the world are looking out for any artefacts that may have been looted from sites there that were ransacked by protesters. An interesting change in approach, as 100 years ago, the museums would have been taking the artefacts for themselves… Interestingly though, this new public-spiritedness doesn’t apply retroactively to other artefacts in their collections acquired in similar circumstances.

From:
Reuters

Museums on high alert for ancient Egyptian loot
By Mohammed Abbas
LONDON | Wed Feb 2, 2011 2:49pm GMT

LONDON (Reuters) – International museums are on high alert for looted Egyptian artifacts and some archaeologists have even offered to fly to the country to help safeguard its ancient treasures, museums said Wednesday.

Egypt has been rocked by an unprecedented nine days of demonstrations against President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year-rule, and fears are high for the country’s priceless heritage after looters broke into the Egyptian Museum in Cairo last week.
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Some more of the many articles calling for the protection of Cairo’s artefacts – a position that of course contradicts the fact that many of the museums of the west acquired large amounts of their collections amid similar scenes of chaos & lawlessness as the ones currently being seen in Egypt – & the fact that they were willing purchasers only added an incentive to would be looters.

From:
Guardian

Tomb raiders: why does no one care about Cairo’s Egyptian Museum?

Judging by reports from Cairo, the west does not understand that one of the greatest antiquity collections on Earth is in danger

If petrol bombs were being thrown in St Marks Square in Venice, or outside the British Museum, what would reports say? We would never stop hearing about the threat to humanity’s cultural heritage. Yet, as I scan the news sites for the latest reports from Cairo, it is strange how little stress has been placed on the unique importance and fragility of the contents of the Egyptian Museum, which stands at the very heart of the unfolding tragedy. That is why I must reiterate my previous attempt to draw attention to this silent witness and victim of events.
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Despite significant coverage of looting of antiquities, the same antiquities often re-surface a few years later at auctions, or appear in museums. In some cases, this is because some parties choose not to ask too many questions when buying artefacts, but in many other cases, it is merely because the scale of the international art market is so huge, that it is almost impossible to track & catalogue every item accurately & thereby trace their true provenance.

From:
Washington Post

Reputable auction houses try to get all (arti)facts before selling antiquities
By Brian Vastag
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 1, 2011; 8:10 PM

The first Indiana Jones movie, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” offers many a scene to make archaeologists wince, but none more so than a quiet moment early on when the intrepid Professor Jones sells plundered artifacts to Marcus Brody, director of the fictional National Museum in Washington.

“The museum will buy them as usual,” Brody says with a wink. “No questions asked.”
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Zahi Hawass has written about the problems for Egypt’s antiquities during the recent upheavals in the country.

From:
DrHawass.com

The Situation in Egyptian Antiquities Today

On Friday, January 28, 2011, when the protest marches began in Cairo, I heard that a curfew had been issued that started at 6.00pm on Friday evening until 7.00am on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, on that day the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, was not well guarded. About a thousand people began to jump over the wall on the eastern side of the museum into the courtyard. On the western side of the museum, we recently finished something I was very proud of, a beautiful gift shop, restaurant and cafeteria. The people entered the gift shop and stole all the jewellery and escaped; they thought the shop was the museum, thank God! However, ten people entered the museum when they found the fire exit stairs located at the back of it.

As every one knows, the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, is naturally lit and due to the architectural style of it, there are glass windows on its roof. The criminals broke the glass windows and used ropes to get inside, there is a distance of four metres from the ceiling to the ground of the museum. The ten people broke in when I was at home and, although I desperately wanted to go to the museum, I could not leave my house due to the curfew. In the morning, as soon as I woke up, I went directly there. When I arrived, I found out that, the night before, three tourist police officers had stayed there overnight because they were not able to get out before the curfew was put in place. These officers, and many young Egyptians who were also there, helped to stop more people from entering the museum. Thankfully, at 10.00pm on Friday night, the army arrived at the museum and gave additional security assistance.
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A lot has been made in some news sources, of the amount of damage (or potential damage, because at the time that things like this are reported, it is often hard to make a full assessment) done to the collections of museums in Egypt during the recent protests there. Many sources then jump straight on to the next conclusion that this means that it is right to keep disputed Egyptian artefacts in the big museums of the West, despite the fact that even a year ago these riots could not be anticipated & that no one appointed certain big museums as official custodians of global culture.

Further to this, there is of course the fact that artefacts aren’t necessarily safe in any country.

One promising thing though, is that while some rioters were vandalising the museums, many more Egyptian citizens were making every effort they could to try & protect these places from damage.

From:
Wall Street Journal

Egypt’s Antiquities Fall Victim to the Mob
A definitive answer to the question: Should the Elgin Marbles be returned to Greece?
February 1st 2011

When Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, came to work at the Egyptian Museum on Saturday, he found that looters had broken in and beheaded two mummies—possibly Tutankhamun’s grandparents—and looted the ticket booth. Reports indicate that middle-class Egyptians, the tourism police and later the military secured the museum. But now it appears that many other museum’s and storehouses have been looted, along with archaeological sites. A vast, impoverished underclass seems less taken with either the nationalist narrative of Egyptian greatness that stretches back to the pharaohs, or the intrinsic value of antiquities for all humanity, and more intrigued by the possibility of gold and other loot. For his part, Mr. Hawass has now been appointed state minister for antiquities by President Hosni Mubarak.

These events make Mr. Hawass’s quest to return all Egyptian objects to Egypt misguided or at least poorly timed. Last week he again demanded the return of the bust of Nefertiti from Berlin. The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum has long been on Mr. Hawass’s wish list, along with the Zodiac Ceiling in the Louvre and statues in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and museums in Hildesheim, Germany, and Turin, Italy. And a few weeks back he complained bitterly that the obelisk known as Cleopatra’s Needle, a gift to the U.S. from the Khedive of Egypt that has graced Central Park since 1881, was in poor condition and might have to be reclaimed. He has made similar demands for the repatriation of Egyptian artifacts around the world, whether purchased, donated or stolen. But can Egypt even look after what it has? This question is now out in the open.
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Despite repeated requests, various museums holding Egyptian artefacts seem reluctant to ever enter into any sort of serious negotiations over the disputed pieces, instead meeting any return requests with an immediate rebuttal.

From:
Modern Ghana

NEFERTITI IN ABSURDITY: HOW OFTEN MUST EGYPTIANS ASK GERMANS FOR THE RETURN OF THE EGYPTIAN QUEEN?
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Fri, 28 Jan 2011

“On the other hand, even after giving away the colourful bust of Nefertiti, the Berlin Museum would still be far superior to all other collections, including that in Cairo, as regards the number and artistic value of the artworks from the Amarna period. And among our stock are many pieces that are of higher artistic rank than the elegant bust of the colourful queen”.
James Simon, 28 June 1930 (1)

The latest argument for detaining Nefertiti is clear evidence that the holders of the cultural property of others have no valid reason for depriving them of their cultural symbols. (2)
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More coverage of Germany’s refusal to return the Bust of Nefertiti to Egypt.

From:
Press TV

Germany not to return Nefertiti bust
Wed Jan 26, 2011 5:37PM

Germany has once again refused to return the bust of Queen Nefertiti, an ancient Egyptian sculpture housed at the Neues Museum in the city of Berlin.

Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) had sent a request to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, asking for the 3,400-year-old piece which attracts more than one million visitors every year.
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In a move that will surprise few people, Germany has once again rebuffed requests for the return of the Bust of Nefertiti from Berlin’s Neues Museum.

From:
Yahoo News

Germany Denies Egypt’s Request for the Return of 3,300-Year Old Bust of Queen Nefertiti
Vanessa Evans Vanessa Evans – Tue Jan 25, 5:26 pm ET

The latest round in the debate between Egypt and Germany over the rightful ownership of one of Egypt’s most prized antiquities hit another snag on Monday when Germany again refused to turn a bust of Nefertiti over into Egyptian hands. Currently housed in Berlin’s Neues Museum, where it has been for decades, the 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti is at the top of a list of artifacts that Egypt would like returned to their home soil.

Germany, for its part, is maintaining it acquired the bust through legal channels and it belongs to them. It further maintains the artifact is too fragile to travel, so even a temporary loan back to Egypt would not be possible.
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