(Ten) Egypt Archaeologists Face Smuggling Trial

The Guardian (UK) ^ | 12-13-2004

[blam]

Egypt Archaeologists Face Smuggling Trial

Monday December 13, 2004 8:16 PM

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Ten Egyptians, including three top archaeologists, will stand trial on charges of stealing and smuggling tens of thousands of antiquities, the nation's chief prosecutor said Monday.

Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel Wahid also decided to send the chief of Pharaonic antiquities, Sabri Abdel Aziz, to a disciplinary tribunal on charges of negligence of duty, Egypt's Middle East News Agency reported.

The officials were part of a gang that the government accuses of stealing 57,000 artifacts from antiquity warehouses and smuggling thousands of them abroad.

The Egyptian officials, appointed to protect the country's antiquities, were arrested in January 2003 on suspicion of taking bribes to allow merchants to smuggle the treasures out of Egypt.

The arrests came after Cairo airport customs police discovered pieces from Egypt's Pharaonic, Roman and Greek eras packed in a box for air shipping to a private dealer in Spain. Airport officials at the time said a merchant, Mohammed al-Shaaer, had a certificate from the government's Supreme Council of Antiquities identifying the items as modern fakes made in Cairo's main tourist bazaar.

The officials' duties included issuing certificates confirming that pieces leaving the country are replicas. A 1983 Egyptian law declared all antiquities not in private collections by that time to be the property of the government and banned their sale or export.

Egypt, which has long lamented the export of its antiquities, has recently been stepping up its efforts to stop trafficking of its treasures and get them back.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities has issued a catalogue of goods taken out of Egypt since 1970 and warned that the country will refuse to cooperate with museums that fail to return the antiquities.

Egypt's chief prosecutor has launched a criminal investigation of a number of people involved in excavating and selling the objects from numerous archaeological sites.

The maximum sentence for receiving bribes is 15 years in prison with hard labor; the sentence for smuggling antiquities is five years.

[blam]

FYI.

[JimSEA]

The huge amount of antiquities and the very limited museum display and research capacity presents both a problem for researchers and a temptation for crooks. Here in Thailand, many, if not most, temples have their own small museums or display areas for Buddhist Era antiquities plus a large legal trade in antiquities. Still, the illegal trade is large and damaging to efforts to preserve and catalogue the past. The situation in Cambodia is well known, however Burma and Laos also have real problems. The loss of information is troubling.

One problem here is the difficulty in documenting and dating the paeoliolitic period and the beginnings of the neolithic. The sites are damaged by looters so that accurate dating and the search for the origins of agriculture are blocked. At the same time, most artifacts are poorly catalogued and stored away in warehouses, essentially hidden.

[blam]

"The sites are damaged by looters so that accurate dating and the search for the origins of agriculture are blocked. At the same time, most artifacts are poorly catalogued and stored away in warehouses, essentially hidden."

A sad situation for sure.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam.

The Egyptian officials, appointed to protect the country's antiquities, were arrested in January 2003 on suspicion of taking bribes to allow merchants to smuggle the treasures out of Egypt. the items as modern fakes made in Cairo's main tourist bazaar.

Whaaat?!? Egyptian officials taking bribes? Ridiculous! ;') the items as modern fakes made in Cairo's main tourist bazaar.

The arrests came after Cairo airport customs police discovered pieces from Egypt's Pharaonic, Roman and Greek eras packed in a box for air shipping to a private dealer in Spain. Airport officials at the time said a merchant, Mohammed al-Shaaer, had a certificate from the government's Supreme Council of Antiquities identifying the items as modern fakes made in Cairo's main tourist bazaar.

I have to believe that similar certificates, but testifying to the authenticity of the artifacts, and proclaiming their legitimate export, were produced for all the exports.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[SunkenCiv]

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