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Returning Egypt's antiquarian
treasure remains a problem
VANISHING HISTORY:
Defaced gods on an Egyptian wall. / Photo by Bethany
Crane
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By Bethany Crane
November 25, 2008 | Small boys surrounded us,
picking up stones that littered the ground around
the hillside tomb entrances. Showing us their
finds they were eager to search for whatever we
wanted. The boys were descendents of ancient tomb
robbers from the village of Gurneh, and they still
explore these hills today, collecting what remains
of the treasure left behind by the ancient dead.
The practice of selling off artifacts to tourists
and museums has been a long standing one that
is embedded with controversy. It is hard to control
how many artifacts leave a country illegally,
especially when not all of them are accounted
for. By not knowing what is being taken out we
lose precious information that can only be obtained
by seeing the objects in situ.
Most of the monuments that I visited during
my travels in Egypt showed evidence of vandalism
and damage. Some were defaced for moral reasons
because they were believed to be vulgar, others
were removed entirely to be sold on the illegal
antiquities market. |
TREASURE: A gold-capped
obelisk. / Photo by Bethany Crane |
By selling off pieces of their country's
history they are making some immediate income for things
that they know there are plenty of. In most cases the
artifacts were sold for quite a bit less than their
real value, and generally left the country. Egypt has
vast amounts of artwork, statuary, and tombs, some of
which we don't even know about, but there certainly
isn't a lack of evidence of the ancient inhabitants.
The biggest rub for the Egyptians are the pieces that
left the country before organizations like
Dr. Zahi Hawass work very hard to preserve what
remains, and get back as much as they reasonably can
from other countries. If people make a conscientious
effort to make sure the provenance of artifacts they
purchase are legitimate, especially through online auction
sites, we can make a contribution to preventing a rich
heritage from being lost.
NW
MS |
