Eqyptian museum did lose some artifacts

fljustice · Post by **fljustice** » Sun February 13th, 2011, 5:44 pm

I've been following the Egyptian turmoil closely in all its aspects, but blogging on the situation of the museums and monuments. All looked well for quite some time, but Dr. Zahi Hawass posted yesterday that some items were stolen from the museum. Details here: http://www.drhawass.com/blog/sad-news

SonjaMarie · Post by **SonjaMarie** » Sun February 13th, 2011, 6:46 pm

[quote=""fljustice""]I've been following the Egyptian turmoil closely in all its aspects, but blogging on the situation of the museums and monuments. All looked well for quite some time, but Dr. Zahi Hawass posted yesterday that some items were stolen from the museum. Details here: http://www.drhawass.com/blog/sad-news[/quote]

Awful, just awful!

SM

LoveHistory · Post by **LoveHistory** » Sun February 13th, 2011, 10:09 pm

That's despicable!

rockygirl · Post by **rockygirl** » Sun February 13th, 2011, 11:22 pm

It's so sad. The Egyptian people have suffered a great loss.

Divia · Post by **Divia** » Mon February 14th, 2011, 2:10 am

[quote=""rockygirl""]It's so sad. The Egyptian people have suffered a great loss.[/quote]

A great loss for everyone. I hoped this wouldn't happened, but I had a feeling.

annis · Post by **annis** » Mon February 14th, 2011, 5:00 am

Sadly, looting is an inevitable accompaniment to political unrest and disasters - someone will always take their chances.

parthianbow · Post by **parthianbow** » Mon February 14th, 2011, 10:45 am

I'm not surprised in the least. It also wouldn't surprise me if it turns out later that the items had been 'pre-ordered' by 'collectors'

. It turned out to be the case in Iraq after the second invasion in 2003, when countless thousands of artefacts were taken, never to be seen again.

Ash · Post by **Ash** » Mon February 14th, 2011, 1:12 pm

Actually I think a large percentage of them were eventually found. But yes, its horrible to see. At least the US military wasn't on guard. In Iraq, they did nothing while the museum was emptied out. (the troops were following orders, I don't blame them. The higher ups were at fault here.) Hopefully these from Egypt will be found and returned.

ETA This is a good review of what happened and what has been returned. Its several years old tho, so I think they've found more.

http://www.culturekiosque.com/art/news/ ... useum.html

fljustice · Post by **fljustice** » Mon February 14th, 2011, 4:54 pm

[quote=""Ash""]ETA This is a good review of what happened and what has been returned. Its several years old tho, so I think they've found more. http://www.culturekiosque.com/art/news/ ... useum.html[/quote]

Thanks for the link, Ash. I blogged about the Iraqi artifacts a couple of months ago, about 5000 items have been recovered of the 15,000 stolen from the museum. (This doesn't count the thousand's more looted from vulnerable archaeological sites across the country.) There have been some amazing returns, but as Ben said, many were "pre-ordered" and have disappeared into private collections.

Madeleine · Post by **Madeleine** » Tue February 15th, 2011, 4:49 pm

I would imagine that some of them at least were stolen to order - I would think the better-known artefacts would be difficult to sell on the open market. Hope they get them back for the people's sake.