this could have been a terrible loss for the ages! thank the ancient gods the looters were complete morons. a mummy's curse on them! where the hell did they think they were going to fence world-class treasures? or would they have melted down history??
Pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut
Tutmoses
Nefertiti
The break-in at Cairo's Egyptian Museum could have been a disaster of historic proportions, a repeat of the rape of Baghdad's multi-millennial heritage after Iraq's equivalent museum was looted in 2003. It wasn't. But only thanks to sheer dumb luck.
On Friday, Egypt's government declared a 6 p.m.-to-7 a.m. curfew. The much detested riot police, who had fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters all day, suddenly withdrew from the streets at around the start of the curfew, including from their positions guarding Cairo's famed antiquities museum in the heart of the capital, on Tahrir Square, which is the epicenter of the uprising against President Hosni Mubarak. Immediately, Egypt became a police state without police.
The museum had been closed all day because of the street demonstrations, but after virtually all police abandoned their posts, "people began to enter the museum," says Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's antiquities department. They climbed over walls, forced open doors and entered the museum's vast souvenir shop. "I'm glad that those people were idiots," Hawass told TIME. "They looted the museum shop. Thank God they thought that the museum shop was the museum."
The Egyptian Museum itself is extraordinary, the repository of many of the country's greatest ancient treasures, including those from Tutankhamun's tomb, which take up nearly half of the second floor. It's an obligatory stop for virtually every tourist; thousands each day gape at Tut's exquisite golden death mask — displayed in a special room along with two of his three golden coffins and other pharaonic jewelry — and wander through a darkened gallery displaying a number of royal mummies. Elsewhere, there are stone statues of pharaohs and ancient Egyptian gods that reach heights of 20 ft. or more; intricately painted sarcophagi; papyri; brilliant blue faience animals and delicate glass objects; even mundane household objects made of wood or clay. Also on display is a 5,000-year-old stone carving known as the Palette of Narmer: not only does it feature one of the oldest known hieroglyphic inscriptions, but it is thought to depict the unification of upper and lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, Narmer.
While many of the intruders were dazzled by the souvenir shop, a few others knew there was more to the museum. Nine of them apparently realized that the real treasures were elsewhere. They entered a room containing artifacts dating back to 500 B.C. The intruders broke into some 13 glass panel display cases as well as one case in the Tutankahmun exhibition. Hawass did not give TIME permission to view the destruction in the museum, which has been shut for the duration of the crisis. But video footage from several Arabic satellite networks, including al-Arabiya, showed shards of glass littering the floor and several artifacts carelessly tossed around, some resting on splinters, others haning out of display cases. "They were looking for gold," Hawass told TIME, just like the grave robbers of old.
The military, which has taken over security duties throughout Cairo and in many other cities, did not arrive on the scene until 10 p.m. In the meantime, ordinary Cairenes, aware of the security vacuum, flocked to protect the museum. "That was wonderful," says Hawass. "The Cairo museum is like the place for our identity. If the museum is safe, Egypt is safe."
The citizens, as well as three police officers who refused to leave their posts, apprehended the nine alleged culprits as they tried to flee the museum with their loot, including two mummy skulls and a statue of Isis. Hawass says that nothing is missing from the museum although about 100 items were damaged — though not irreparably. "They're easy to restore," he says.
The military is now securing the vast salmon-colored building and preventing onlookers from loitering in its vicinity. Built in 1902, the museum, until a decade or two ago, was anything but state of the art. It was dim and dusty, and a visitor would need a flashlight to read the faded, flyspecked labels. A new facility, the Grand Egyptian Museum — which is intended to hold many of the collection's highlights, including Tut's treasure — is currently under construction near the Pyramids at Giza. It is supposed to be finished in 2013.
You know what the terrible loss of the ages is? It's that those fucking rag-headed peoples are still fucking fighting. We are prepping for a massive troop buildup in Afghanistan and some African countries and it still won't fucking make them stop. As soon as we turn our backs, they will be right back at it.
Heat must do terrible things to your brain. That's all I can figure. Vegas, Egypt, Africa in it's entirety, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan - all fucked up places. No wonder Dick is starting to slip.
(03-15-2013, 07:12 PM)aussiefriend Wrote: You see Duchess, I have set up a thread to discuss something and this troll is behaving just like Riotgear did.
(CNN) -- Egypt's major archaeological sites, monuments and museums were under the protection of the country's army on Monday, according to the nation's Supreme Council of Antiquities.
However, unease persisted among Egyptologists and archaeologists, who fear some of the nation's priceless treasures may fall victim to looters or vandals, amid unrest and uprisings fueled by what protesters see as a lack of economic opportunity, widespread poverty and pervasive corruption.
Egypt is "the greatest open-air museum in the world," said Peter Der Manuelian, the Philip J. King professor of Egyptology at Harvard University. He said he and his colleagues are "trying to stay on top of (the situation) as best we can," given spotty internet service in Egypt.
Friday night, a group of "criminals" entered the Cairo Museum using a fire department staircase, Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told CNN early Sunday.
Once inside the museum, they went to the Late Period gallery, Hawass wrote. "When they found no gold, they broke 13 vitrines (glass showcases) and threw the antiquities on the floor."
The intruders then went back to the gallery housing artifacts from King Tutankhamun's tomb, where they opened one showcase, broke a statue of King Tut on a panther and threw it to the ground, he wrote.
A group also entered the museum gift shop and stole jewelry, Hawass wrote in a blog post Sunday.
Hawass told CNN early Sunday there were nine suspects, but in the blog post he said there were 10. One of them asked the people guarding the museum for water, he said, but "they took his hands and tied him to the door that led to the gift shop so he could not escape," according to the post.
Hawass told CNN that when the suspects were apprehended, authorities found the remains of two mummies and some small artifacts with them. However, he said Sunday, everything that had been damaged can be restored.
It may be that Egyptian citizens' national pride in their heritage works to the advantage of its treasures, experts said.
(02-02-2011, 04:52 PM)Maggot Wrote: It still pisses me off that Napoleons soldiers shot the nose off the sphinx.
This is probably an urban legend. Or at least there's no evidence for it. His artists drew almost everything and the nose wasn't there in the drawings though it could have already happened.
It's interesting that his artists caught the vertical lines on the east side of G1 (Khufu's Pyramid) and these lines are very faint today and require just the right camera angle to see. These lines are all over the great pyramids yet no one seems to have seen them until now. There are deep vertical grooves on G1 that egyptologists don't talk about in polite company since these don't fit their preconcieved notions. You can see them in th second picture down here;
Another feature that's rarely mentioned can be seen in the first picture. The sides are indented so that the shadow plays across them exactly at noon on th equinoxes. Since they're also in a line with the solstice this means that the pyramids would serve as both a clock and a calender and could be seen from as far away as the hills of Lebanon. The vertical lines describe the routes the stones took to the top and prove there were no ramps.
Everything you've ever been told about the pyramids and their builders is probably wrong.
I believe what the people are protesting is the tremendous inequlity in the distribution of wealth. The people doing the work are getting barely enough to get by while the big shots are rolling in more loot than the country has seen since it built the last great pyramid. Most of the pople aren't a lot better off though thy do have most of the modern conveniences now days including internet connections and refrigerators. Nearly half though are just scraping by. Back when the whole country was poor with just a few wealthy the inequality wasn't so obvious. This isn't about religious fanaticism or anti western sentiments so much as the feeling that their future is being used up by those in power.
The Egyptian people need support though God knows what the best outcome can be and whether they'll waste this opportunity by allowing the power vacuum to be filled by those who seek only power or only a chance to grind axes. Their economy is perilous and much of the new found wealth will simply evaporate if they make poor choices. I wouldn't presume to tell them what to do but perhaps the best bet is to simply force the government to hold elections or to establish some sort of provisional government to restore order before voting on direction.
I pray that the Gods (or Allah) are still potecting these people as th pyramid buildrs suggested when they built the ka of the king to watch over the people eternally. One thing is sure and that is the ancients weren't sun addled.
Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- At least 17 artifacts from the Egyptian Museum of Cairo are missing following a break-in, the country's minister of antiquities said Sunday.
The missing objects include a gilded wood statue of King Tutankhamun being carried by a goddess; parts of a a gilded wood statue of Tutankhamun harpooning; a limestone statue of Akhenaten; a statue of Nefertiti making offerings; a sandstone head of an Amarna princess; a stone statuette of a scribe from Amarna; 11 wooden shabti statuettes of Yuya; and a heart scarab of Yuya.
The discovery that the ancient treasures are missing came after museum staff took an inventory, Zahi Hawass said in a statement.
The police and army plan to question people who are already in custody, Hawass said.
CAIRO – A Cairo teenager found a priceless statue of Pharaoh Akhenaton near a garbage bin after it was stolen from the Egyptian Museum during anti-regime protests, Egypt's antiquities chief said Thursday.
The museum's world-renowned collection was burgled and several artifacts went missing last month, including statues of King Tutankhamun and Pharaoh Akhenaton -- and many of the looted antiquities have been returned or discovered, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said.
In addition to the Akhentaon statue, the missing Heart Scarab of Yuya was recovered near the museum gardens, where wooden fragments belonging to a damaged coffin were also found. A search team found one of the eleven missing shabtis of Yuya and Thuya underneath a showcase. Fragments belonging to the statue of Tutankhamun being carried by the goddess Menkaret have been found; all the located fragments belong to the figure of Menkaret.
The country still is sifting through the damage from the tumult of the past few weeks, however. Dr. Sabry Abdel Aziz, head of the Pharaonic Sector of the Ministry of State for Antiquities Affairs, reported Thursday that the tomb of Hetep-Ka in Saqqara was broken into, and the false door was stolen along with objects stored in the tomb. And in Abusir, a portion of the false door was stolen from the tomb of Re-Hotep.
The newly returned statue of Akhenaton had been display at the Egyptian Museum. It is about 3 inches high and depicts the king standing, wearing a blue crown, and holding an offering table in his hands. The statue is composed of limestone, with the exception of an Egyptian Alabaster base.
A 16-year-old protester found the sculpture near a rubbish bin in Tahrir Square, the focal point of the demonstrations which brought down Hosni Mubarak, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said.
He took the statue home, where his uncle Sabri Abdelrahman, a professor at the American University in Cairo, recognized the piece and returned it to authorities, Hawass said.
"The statue is one of the most beautiful statues of Akhenaton, which highlights the skill of Egyptian artists at the time," Egyptian Museum director Tarek al-Awadi said.
The statue would be restored before going back on display in the museum.
Akhenaton was a ruler of the 13th Dynasty. Last year, Egypt announced that DNA tests had confirmed him to be the father of famed King Tutankhamun.
There is a huge disconnect there for them not to take into consideration that this is THEIR history they are dickin' around with. Iraqi's did the same damn thing.
CAIRO – Taking advantage of Egypt's political upheaval, thieves have gone on a treasure hunt with a spree of illegal digging, preying on the country's ancient pharaonic heritage.
Illegal digs near ancient temples and in isolated desert sites have swelled a staggering 100-fold over the past 16 months since a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak's 29-year regime and security fell apart in many areas as police simply stopped doing their jobs. The pillaging comes on top of a wave of break-ins last year at archaeological storehouses -- and even at Cairo's famed Egyptian Museum, the country's biggest repository of pharaonic artifacts.
Horrified archaeologists and antiquities authorities are scrambling to prevent smuggling, keeping a watch on European and American auction houses in case stolen artifacts show up there.
"Criminals became so bold they are digging in landmark areas." including near the Great Pyramids in Giza, other nearby pyramids and the grand temples of the southern city of Luxor, said Maj.-Gen. Abdel-Rahim Hassan, commander of the Tourism and Antiquities Police Department.
"It is no longer a crime motivated by poverty, it's naked greed and it involves educated people," he said.
In a country with more than 5,000 years of civilization buried under its sands, illegal digs have long been a problem. With only slight exaggeration, Egyptians like to joke you can dig anywhere and turn up something ancient, even if its just pottery shards or a statuette.
But in the security void, the treasure hunting has mushroomed, with 5,697 cases of illegal digs since the start of the anti-Mubarak uprising in early 2011-- 100 times more than the previous year, according to figures obtained by The Associated Press from the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of police.
Related crimes have risen as well -- 1,467 cases of illicit trading in antiquities and 130 attempts to smuggle antiquities abroad. At least 35 people have been killed in incidents connected to illegal digs, including 10 buried alive in the southern city of Naga Hamadi in March when the hole they dug in the ground caved in. Others were killed in disputes when thieves fell out over sharing the finds, according to Interior Ministry officials familiar with the incidents. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.
Those are just the crimes that police uncovered.
In their digs, fortune hunters pick spots that are just outside major archaeological sites in hopes that treasures can be found some distance beyond their parameters. Others dig in areas set aside for future excavations by the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Egypt's top state archaeological agency.
Last month, police arrested two men who lived just behind the temple of Khnum in the southern town of Esna for illegally digging under their homes. Police said they found a 10-yard deep hole under the houses with hieroglyphic inscriptions dating to the Ptolemaic dynasty as well as ancient clay pots.
Farther south in the Nile-side city of Aswan, police last month arrested a government employee who also dug under his house, uncovering clay pots, an incense urn and tablets bearing images of lotus flowers.
The ministry officials said the surge reflects in part the failure of the police to fully take charge of security after they melted away on Jan. 28 last year, after deadly clashes with protesters on the fourth day of the 18-day anti-Mubarak uprising. Since then, many police have been balking at investigating crimes and pursuing criminals, whether out of resentment over the "revolution" or because of the continued lack of strong political authority.
The night of Jan. 28, thieves broke into the Egyptian Museum, located on the edge of Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the anti-regime uprising and scene of some of the bloodiest clashes between protesters and Mubarak's hated police. The robbers made off with 51 pieces that were on display -- of which 29 have since been recovered. The most valuable stolen piece, a statue of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, was found by a 16-year-old protester and his family returned it to the museum, the antiquities ministry said at the time.
Soon after Mubarak's Feb, 11, 2011 ouster, the officials said, a Jordanian man was caught trying to smuggle as many as 3,753 artifacts out of Egypt. These, they said, included 48 ancient Egyptian statutes, Roman Age coins and 45 pieces of jewelry dating from the Medieval years of the Islamic era.
The months that followed saw a rash of break-ins at antiquity storehouses around the country.
"At the end, it's a question of security," said Ahmed Mustafa, who until December headed a government department tasked with recovering stolen artifacts. "The robberies of the warehouses took place in broad daylight by armed thieves. Some were raided twice," said Mustafa, who now lectures on archaeology at a private Cairo college.
One of the largest warehouse thefts took place a year ago in the Sinai city of Qantara, from which roughly 800 artifacts were stolen or damaged by thieves. The pieces, according to regional antiquities chief Mohammed Abdel-Maqsoud, were mostly clay pots, bronze coins and spears dating back to pharaonic and Islamic items.
Nearly 300 of these have been recovered, he said.
Now that security has been beefed up at most warehouses, thieves have turned to digging.
Mansour Bureik, the chief archaeologist in the Luxor area, said there was little chance treasure hunters would run across gold and gems that they dream of -- which are found only in royal or aristocratic tombs.
But Galal Mouawad, a senior archaeologist in the Giza area, said the potential for lucky strikes exist just about anywhere in the country.
"Egyptians have over the centuries settled anywhere in Egypt until they have finally settled along the banks of the Nile," he said. "There is something valuable to be found anywhere."
This has been going on for a very long time. Back about three years ago there was a bad collapse of the ground under a couple houses that sat on where is believed to be the Great Pyramid (so-called) Valley Temple. People had been digging down under the foundations of the houses to bring up artefacts and simply took out too much. Three or four men were killed as I remember.
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