Illegal excavation in Luxor

[BENNU]

House basements used for illegal excavation discovered in Luxor

Al-Masry Al-Youm

http://www.egyptindependent.com//news/h ... ered-luxor

Isna Prosecution in Luxor ordered the seizure of two basements of a house in Darb al-Rawageh area, where illegal excavations were taking place. Fourteen ancient artifacts and relics were found and delivered to the stores of the antiquities authority.

Major General Essam al-Hamly, Luxor security chief, was notified by the tourism police that a 39-year old employee was excavating monuments. The employee was previously involved in two other similar cases.

Police troops arrested the suspect while he was excavating. Inside his house, a hole 1.5 meters in diameter and seven meters in depth was found, leading from the northeastern side to a basement three meters in length and containing a wall made of sandstone with hieroglyphic writings and a royal cartouche.

Another basement was found from the southeastern side. It contained a colored sandstone wall with drawings on it. From the western side, a hole with a depth of two meters was found.

A committee was delegated to draft a technical report about the basements. Various ancient relics were found, ten of them dating back to the Greek era, while the other four date back to the Ptolemaic era.

Two archaeological chambers were found inside the basement. There were writings and drawings of Nut, the ancient Egyptian goddess of the sky, in addition to a cartouche of King Ptolemy VI.

Another, third basement was found, however, its length was not determined as it extended under the neighboring houses.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

[Major Thom]

Seems like a second wave of tomb robbers. Looking to make cash due to their hardships.

[carrie]

Nothing new then Bennu been going on for years hasn't it.

[BENNU]

Nothing new then Bennu been going on for years hasn't it.

Yes it has, Carrie, and not only in Luxor. The news is that they have discovered three basements.

[Hafiz]

According to US sworn court evidence in the early 2000's by a notorious UK crook active in Egypt in the 80's and 90's you could for little money bribe staff in the Cairo Museum to obtain objects from the displays and then go back later and observe the outline of dust of the 'removed' object.

Until the late 80's you could buy original objects, legit, from the Museum warehouse.

The whole country is brimming with sites and objects. Does Egypt want to spend billions on policing every last object or does it want to make a legit dollar out of artifacts? Its a bit like the black currency market. Destroy it by providing a legit alternative - otherwise mobilize a couple of hundred thousand to police every sand mound or craggy rock.

In an ideal world Egypt could do everything. Dig new sites, restore old collections, build museums, police sites etc. The reality is that, even in good times, it has performed poorly on the most basic tasks in preserving and protecting its heritage. Creatures like the hatted one have focused on international marketing and building endless new Suzanne Mubarak Egyptian Museums on any vacant land in Egypt whilst simple tasks went undone. For example, after decades, there is still no list, even an informal one, of the holdings of the Cairo Museum. You could steal a thousand objects and no-one would know - except by the outlines of the dust from the places they formally occupied.

The hatted one's screeching for the return of long removed objects ignored the fact that under him new ones were flowing out of Egypt. He was a master of diversion.

Rounding up local crooks is a publicity exercise to assure Egyptians that their heritage is being looked after when it is the people in charge who have failed in this task.

It can't even staff the local museums.http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/703 ... ic-museums

Egypt must be the only country in the world that doesn't have a local research facility on its own history but survives on guest reaearchers to tell it about this. For example there is not a single learned journal on Egyptology which is based in Egypt: nor is there a single research or teaching institute that anyone wants to attend. If you want to study Egyptology you don't go to Cairo, you go to Cambridge or the US. As a result the world leaders in Egyptology have never been Egyptians. By way of comparison imagine if the study of UK history was so degraded that the only valid study option was Berlin and all the UK digs were done by foreigners. This is the actual situation in Egypt even though Egyptology is important to the nation and an important adjunct to tourism.

Maybe I am wrong, maybe there is a single dig in Luxor which is fully conducted by Egyptians.

Round up the crooks by all means but don't imagine that this is the answer to any real problem.

[A-Four]

Maybe I am wrong, maybe there is a single dig in Luxor which is fully conducted by Egyptians.

Round up the crooks by all means but don't imagine that this is the answer to any real problem.

During the latter days of Mubarak, when you know who, was in charge of anything old and smelt of gold, he sent down a team of senior Egyptian Egyptologists, the work they carried out in the King's and Western Valley was the most expensive carried out in modern times and produced nothing, and actually hid evidence of another more profitable site.

When they removed the homes on the WB hillside, the authorities thought they were going to find tonnes of antiquities, even though they used huge bulldozers to remove the houses,.....they found nothing.

At this same period, the antiquities authority did a huge raid on land behind and to the West of German House, all the house at this position belonged to the descendants of the Rassul family. It was said at the time that there were more antiquities buried in houses than what is hidden away in German House,...............though, I would dispute that.

I lived on the WB long enough to know that the locals were not the biggest crooks there. .