Close Call for King Tut: The Break-In at Cairo's Prized Museum

[cbdo2007]

By RANIA ABOUZEID / CAIRO Rania Abouzeid / Cairo – Sun Jan 30, 1:45 pm ET

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. (See scenes of Egypt's unrest.)

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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20110130/wl_time/08599204515500

[gateley]

1. Eek --

:scared:

I think of all the world lost when the museums in Baghdad were looted - devastating. I'm so happy people are protecting these treasures.

[sufrommich]

2. This freaked my 10 year old nephew out like nobody's

business today when he saw it on the news.He was more worried about King Tut than what was going on in a faraway place. The thought that someone would mess with King Tuts mummy!

[justiceischeap]

3. King Tut was never in danger -- those 'looters' had strict orders from Mubarak

to only rough up a few items but not to steal anything.

*Just speculation on my part but keeps with the reports coming our of Egypt that the majority of the 'looters' were secret police.

[madmax]

15. We think alike. nt

[Lorien]

20. Highly probable, especially since they broke in through the roof

helicopter, maybe?

[Bolo Boffin]

30. Most of the damage I saw was cases being smashed.

That's bad enough - shards of glass in the artifacts, and there were some things thrown on the ground, mummies beheaded (which doesn't take much, just picking one up a little clumsily will break pieces off). The worst thing I saw was a grand funerary boat which had something hurled into it. If you were there to steal, there was plenty more to have done, and why would you destroy if you wanted to loot?

I agree that the likelihood of this being something to discredit the protesters is strong.

[gateley]

33. Yeah, sure sounds like they were there to destroy. If there WERE

looters, good lucking selling anything from the museum.

[leftstreet]

4. How dare they! Those are OUR tourist spots!

Man, the propaganda is really starting to flow :puke:

Apparently the M$M missed all the tweets and blogs directly out of Egypt describing citizens coming together to PROTECT public places.

Crazy

[sufrommich]

6. They are not "tourist spots", they part of the history of mankind. nt

[WolverineDG]

29. Over-react much?

People aren't concerned about what's in the Egyptian Museum because it's a "tourist spot." They're concerned because the Museum holds priceless artifacts of ancient Egyptian society, which is a major part of human history.

:eyes:

dg

[JohnnyRingo]

5. A country's cultural treasures must be protected during political chaos

I remember how saddened I was when the Taliban in Afghanistan blasted the "statues of the Buddha called Bamiyan in an attempt to cleanse the country of Afghanistan of what they perceived as Hindu heresy".
http://archaeology.about.com/od/heritagemanagement/a/buddha.htm

When I saw the destruction of such towering ancient art, I felt great contempt for them and wished for their ultimate demise without condition. I'm not sure what reaction people who destroy antquities expect, but I can't imagine this helping one's cause.

It'd be akin to a public burning of Harley and Davidson's 1903 "Silent Gray Fellow" to protest helmet laws, or permanently defacing the Statue of Liberty to bring notice to one's plight against NY harbor pollution. No way to win friends and influence people, to say the least.

[sufrommich]

8. I agree ,watching those buddhist statues blow up was gut

wrenching.

[Turborama]

7. Oh, another article about the staged "break in" where "looters" didn't loot and just vandalized

[Major Hogwash]

9. Last night's news showed soldiers stationed inside the museum.

They probably should have been there 3 days ago.

[Turborama]

11. Yep. Funny how it happened at the same time the police just vanished, too.

And at the same time secret police were staging lootings and vandalizing all over Egypt.

[Major Hogwash]

12. A lot of the glass display cases had been broken, but it didn't look like they had been emptied.

As if they just broke the glass, but didn't steal the contents inside the glass display cases.

I also read that 2 mummies had been desecrated.
I'm not sure that is what really happened, but Yahoo had a story on it.
They said their heads had been ripped off.

That's really sad, if true.
I'm sure we'll know for sure within a few days or a week or so.

[LibertyLover]

26. The sad part about the 2 mummies is that they

were commoners, Yuya and Thuya, the father and mother of Tiye, the commoner who married Pharaoh Amenhotep III. They were the great grandparents of Tutankhamon and their mummies were two of the best preserved in Egypt. I am saddened that looters desecrated their bodies.

[Bolo Boffin]

31. OMG - I'd been waiting to find out which mummies had been damaged.

Yuya and Thuya were two of the most extraordinarily preserved mummies we had. UGH!

ETA: Hang on, this blog has reasons to think that it wasn't them now --

http://www.eloquentpeasant.com/2011/01/29/statues-of-tutankhamun-damagedstolen-from-the-egyptian-museum/

[gateley]

16. Donning their "looter" garb. nt

[Raine]

10. After having seen many of those treasures myself

I have such a special feeling about them. The thought of them being destroyed or stolen and others never seeing them is just horrifying.

[pokerfan]

13. Now when he was a young man, he never thought he’d see

People stand in line to see the boy king...

http://www.hulu.com/watch/55342/saturday-night-live-king-tut

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Damn, You beat me to it.

:cry:

[pokerfan]

17. Someone had to do it

:rofl:

[roguevalley]

21. I believe his body is in the Valley of the Kings, the only mummy

given the honor of remaining in his tomb. His belongings are in the museum. I wonder what mummy got desecrated. Too awful. Could be Ramses the GReat. What a dishonor to this man, the supposed Exodus Pharoah, the master building of the world.

[bklyncowgirl]

23. The mummy is in the Valley of the Kings. Tut's treasures are in the museum

There are conflicting reports as to whether or not the valley has been taken over yet by the army. According to some of the Egyptology blogs local citzens on the west bank of Luxor have set up citizen militias to guard the sites.

According to Zahi Hawass, the antiquities chief there were two groups of looters. One was a large group which rushed the museum and apparently cleared out the gift shop. The other was a more organized group who knew where the valuable stuff was. These are the 8 or 9 guys who came in through the roof. They did get into the Tutankhamon exhibit and smashed two statues, apparently trying to get the gold off of them. There were two mummies damaged. There's been no official confirmation but some archaeologists are worried that the damaged mummies may be those of Yuya and Thuya, King Tut's great grandparents.

Hawass makes it clear that the protestors were not the looters, and that along with some of the museum security guards who stayed on the job, they are the ones who saved the museum. There are rumors that this was an inside job by disgruntled museum guards and security police.

The major museums are now under army control but there's been heavy looting of unguarded storerooms of archaeological sites throughout the country. Some of these were done by organized gangs with guns and trucks who could well be police. There are also reports of unauthorized digging at Saqqara and other sites.

[roguevalley]

25. it makes me sick to know this is happening but I know it was done

by everyone but the protesters. They want their country back including their history.

[AnnieBW]

18. I'm glad that a lot of it is on tour

The Tour de Tut just closed in NYC, and is currently en route to Denver. I think that his mummy is in there, but I'm not sure. They did damage a couple of pieces, though.

Check this blog from an Egyptologist: http://www.eloquentpeasant.com/ for more information.

[cbdo2007]

19. No, his mummy and the majority of the items are still back in Egypt in the museum...

the current tour has 50 pieces of the Tut exhibit with only one of the major pieces. Really these looters must have been stupid as the second floor with all the Tut stuff sounds like it would have been a treasure trove of gold pieces.

[bklyncowgirl]

24. There were two groups of looters--the guys who came in through the roof knew what they were doing.

A large group apparently rushed the doors and got into the gift shop. They cleared it out but fortunately got nothing for their efforts but some overpriced tourist swag and maybe a slot on some show called "The world's dumbest criminals". They did not get into the museum proper.

The second group were the 8 - 9 guys who came in through the roof. These were well organized. They knew where the good stuff was kept and did the damage in the King Tut exhibit before they were caught. There are rumors that they were disguntled museum guards who took advantage of the situation to rob the place. They were caught by the few museum guards who remained on duty assisted by a group of protestors. Two of them were caught with mummies heads under their arms.

Here's the official account from antiquities chief Zahi Hawass.

http://www.drhawass.com/blog/situation-egyptian-antiquities-today

[TorchTheWitch]

22. Egypt doesn't allow the mummies out of the country

Any of them. I learned this when I went to the Tut exhibit when it came to Philly again a few years ago. Egypt doesn't allow any of the mummies to leave the country mostly because of their fragility... moving them from one place to another within the country is difficult enough and only done for reasons they deam important enough.

I was disappointed to learn that the mummy itself wasn't part of the exhibit but understand why Egypt has it that way, and it was still an interesting not to be missed exhibit. The sarcophegus wasn't part of the exhibit either for some reason (I guess it stays in Egypt with the mummy) but they had one of one of his relatives that was very impressive.

I ended up being more facinated with every-day items of his that were included in his tomb like a stool he used or chest he put things in, and stuff like that. Though "every-day" items for him were impressive - damn near everything was gilded. I was also really impressed by how incredibly preserved these things were especially things that used wood, cane or cloth that you'd think would have disintigrated ages ago. For some reason that damn stool sticks in my mind more than anything else.

[LibertyLover]

27. Actually that's not strictly true -

several years ago Egypt permitted the mummy of Ramses II to go to Paris, France for conservation and then to be part of an exhibition on Ramses II and his times. The mummy had, if memory serves me, developed a stubborn mold problem that the French national museum conservation lab had expertise in destroying without harming the mummy. Tutankhamon's mummy is in extremely poor condition and fragile, so there is very little chance it will be permitted to leave Egypt. Egyptians have an odd relationship with mummies, especially the royal mummies. On one hand the mummies are respected due to their historicity, but on the other, they are dead bodies. More than one of my Egyptian colleagues has told me that they don't know what to do with the mummies - some think they should be kept and studied, others think they should be reburied and forgotten, and some think they should be destroyed.

As for Tutankhamon's sarcophagus, it remains in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, sheltering the outermost of the three coffins and his mummy. Tutankhamon's mummy is the only one that remains in situ in the Valley (except of course for any tombs not yet discovered which Zahi Hawass has hinted at) and recently went on display. When I visited there several years ago, all you could see was the sarcophagus with a piece of plexiglass over it and the outermost coffin. Now I understand they have opened the coffin and Tut's mummy is on display, or at least you can see the head. As in the Royal Mummy Room in Cairo, that is the only part visible, the rest of the body is swathed in linen.

[WolverineDG]

28. Considering they haven't categorized or inventoried 3/4 of what that museum has

it's a miracle the damage was so slight. (yes, I dared to use the "m" word)

With the exception of a few displays (King Tut, ancient mummies, Akenaten), much of what's on the floor is simply warehoused, for lack of a better term. I spent over 6 hours in that museum & still didn't see all of it. Glad to hear that what was damaged can be repaired & the major items that they do have are still safe for others to enjoy.

dg

[backscatter712]

32. The provocateurs were likely under orders not to damage the really famous stuff. n/t