Egypt gets 25,000 artifacts from Britain
Mar 6th, 2010 | By Mohamed Abdel Salam | Category: Culture, Egypt, Egyptology, News
CAIRO: The Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni announced on Thursday that Egypt restored 25,000 pieces of antiquities from Britain, some dating to the middle of the Stone Age, 200,000 B.C.
Hosni said that “some of the pieces date back to the middle Stone Age, while other pieces date back to the pre-civilizations period and prehistoric era and of the dynasties from the 7th Millennium to the 3rd B.C.”
The pieces arrived on Wednesday to Egypt on board on an Egyptian plane in 85 boxes.
For his part, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said that “these memorials are the basic building block of the establishment of a museum for the monuments of the prehistoric eras in the city of Naqada in Qena, Upper Egypt, which is considered one of the oldest centers of civilization in the world.”
He added that some of these monuments would be shown to the visitors in the prehistoric era center in Farafra oasis in el-Wadi el-Gedeed governorate, “which is considered the only center that gives information on the importance of prehistoric civilizations in the Western Sahara.”
Hawass told reporters that “we had a long way to go in order to restore [the artifacts], through talks that were started with the University of London, a year before the University’s decision to repatriate such monuments and artifacts to us.”
He continued: “this brings the number of artifacts that Egypt recovered since I took the post of Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, 31,000 artifacts and is expected to increase during the coming years.”
BM
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Now these are for a change good news.
I have always wondered and still do why Egypt does not follow the example of the Jews who are filing law suit after law suit against governments as well as private parties for valuables and “valuables” which have been confiscated from them before and during WWII. Their legal actions can also go back to events which took place hundreds or thousands of years ago and they always get their way and will.
So what’s wrong with the Egyptians? The most beautiful national treasures have been stolen and looted by forreigners and/or their colonialist governments and at times given away or sold by “honorable rulers”. Isn’t it time that the Egyptian fight for their rights and get back what’s theirs???
No???
I can’t stop wondering …
Eleonora,
I agree with you on the principle of restoring our National treasures, but not right now. Because the current managers will stock them in store rooms, and no one will be able to see them (example: Mohamed Ali treasures). Also, our great Pharaoh and his royal family will raid them, since they think they own them and us.
Right now, they are in safe good hands and well displayed in spectacular manner. We can collect a fee for leasing them until we develop planes of how and where to display them. Simply, it is not the right time to move anything valuable in or to Egypt.
I don’t trust our national treasures in the hands of the current ignorant manager. If the government is not capable of collecting street trash, would you trust them with our history.
Mish Toon – where you’re right … you’re right! Silly me, I didn’t think of that. I love your comparison with the garbage collection.
The idea with the fees is excellent. But who would collect those? Safest would be to put them in an escrow account and out of reach of the octopus and his fangs = pharao and his closest loved ones!
~*~*~
Talking of antiquities: we got worried when Ahmed Ezz kept pushing for a law to allow to sell antiquities freely (although today he denies it). Imagine someone would have gone and sold our pharao …
!
Have a good one
Eleonora,
I don’t care if they raid the escrow, or even if we lease it for free, but leave the Treasures alone and away from Egypt. These treasures probably will be the only one left for us after they finish ransacking the country. Why now they are looking for our artifacts and treasures? They robbed our present and future, now its turn to rob our past, hallelujah.
By the way, I met a guy who regularly smuggles Egyptian antiquates out of Egypt. They are small artifacts (birds mummies, small statues…etc), never the less still considered treasures and important for history research. In the same time while he was explaining to me of how he smuggles them out of Egypt. I was planning to report him to the highest authority in Egyptian Antiquates. However he explained to me that the highest authority allowed to show one of the closed to the public Pyramids in Saquara for a fee that was collected by group of tourists. It is very frustrating to have the guy’s information but don’t know to whom should I report him, since none of them can be trusted. I could easily get hurt in the process, since it is a lucrative business.
History channel just broad-casted the Exodus, and took films in a sensitive military outpost in Sinai. The film maker explained that they are not even allowed in this area. We are dealing with people that sold their soul. It is hopeless to get rid of the cancer, since it spread to all the cells of the body.
Mish Toon,
We make a fist in the pocket to control our anger and chocke from frustration and spin on our heels and have nowhere to go – only to ourselves. I do understand where you’re coming from; I feel the same. At times I want to bang my had against the wall. We have to watch how our country and history is plundered. If you report the guy you’d probably be talking to the boss who gets a cut himself
. And yes, it is a very lucrative business inside and outside Egypt. The “smuggling” would not be possible if all the ways where not cleared … and who can do that?!
Cancer can be beaten – sometimes with drastic measures. After Chemotherapie there is always as a last means the amputation. Only when the heart stops and the brain waves cease the patient is clinically dead and there is no hope anymore. It seems to me the patient is not dead yet. You and I and many many others are still – or again? – putting some energy into the subject.
All the bickering which is already going on within the real opposition and the “opposition” and which will increase is draining energy which should be channeled into the right direction. Let’s fight off the distraction and stay on course. Hopefully that way we can avoid a repeat of the French Revolution.
Have a good day