Amid protests and looting, officials work to preserve Egypt's treasures

[bklyncowgirl]

Source: Washington Post

Archaeologists expressed deep concern on Sunday that many of Egypt's historical treasures were threatened by looters in the wake of the nation's uprising, while Egypt's top antiquities official said that all 24 national museums were now under protection of the Army and that damage to the main Cairo museum that shelters thousands of priceless artifacts appeared limited.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/30/AR2011013003244.html

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Sadly a mixed bag of news here. Thanks to brave protestors, some honest museum guards and just plain dumb luck the Egyptian museum was saved from serious damage but several other archaological sites have had their storerooms looted. The army and citizen militias have protected others.

[SkyDaddy7]

1. Just like in Iran...

Many think the secret police were the ones who broke into the museum & busted up the place just to blame on the protesters! After all it was the protesters who were protecting the place at first!

[bklyncowgirl]

4. If they did it didn't work.

For what it's worth, Zahi Hawass, the head of the antiquities department and a Mubarak appointee seems to be going out of his way to praise the protestors for helping to save the museum.

Given the way the looting went down I wouldn't be shocked if the people who went through the skylights weren't rogue museum guards or security police--someone with a knowledge of the layout of the museum. They seem to have found their way to the Tutankhamon rooms pretty quickly and trashed, among other things a beautiful little statue of the king standing on a jaguar. Fortunately, it should be restorable.

The crowds who forced their way in and ransacked the gift shop, fortunatly stealing nothing more than a bunch of overpriced tourist swag could have been a planned diversion from these real crooks--or maybe they were just Egypt's dumbest criminals.

[targetpractice]

2. Looting like Iraq?

Releasing prisoners into the population probably contributes to this. I think Saddam used that tactic to add to the chaos and make regime change more difficult. Gutting.

[Robb]

3. Ah, but here the government released opposition members.

It was a conciliatory gesture, they released members of the Muslim Brotherhood who were imprisoned simply for belonging to an outlawed organization.

I highly doubt bona fide political prisoners (the real kind, which these guys are) headed out to do some looting their first day out. No, the looting is human nature, predictable as sunrise.