Recovered Artifacts, UK: Ushabti Figurine to Be Recovered From London

The recovered ushabti figurine

A wooden Ushabti figurine stolen from an Aswan storehouse to be returned from London. Written By/ Nevine El-Aref.

The Egyptian embassy in London received a wooden Ushabti figurine that was stolen in 2013 from an Aswan storehouse and illegally smuggled out of the country. The figurine is to be returned to Egypt soon.

Shaaban Abdel Gawad, the head of the antiquities repatriation department at the Ministry of Antiquities, told Ahram Online that the Ushabti was uncovered in 2009 by a Spanish archaeological mission in Qubet Al Hawa necropolis in Aswan and was stored among other artifacts in the storehouses.

In 2013, following the departure of the mission, the Aswan storehouse was subjected to looting and the Ushabti figurine was stolen, along with other artifacts. The statuette is 16.5 cm tall and carved in wood with golden decorative elements.

In 2016, Abdel Gawad explained, a curator at the British Museum in London noticed the figurine with a British citizen and reported the incident to the antiquities ministry. After diplomatic negotiations, the Ushabti was recovered and handed to the Egyptian embassy in London.

Source: Ahram Online

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Opening Soon, Cairo: Hunting Museum Reopens in Manial Palace

After a decade of closure, the Hunting Museum in Manial Palace is to be reopened soon. Written By/ Nevien El-Aref.

Mummified gazelle heads

In the arched corridor beneath the walls of the Manial Palace in Cairo where the Hunting Museum is located, curators, restorers, designers and workers are all racing against the clock to reach the deadline for the museum’s reopening.

Armed with yellow helmets and grey gloves, workers are putting the showcases in position, while restorers with their white gowns and technical tools are installing a skeleton of a camel that once transported the Kaaba cover, a vast piece of embroidery, from Cairo to Mecca in the early 1900s.

“Work is at full swing,” Elham Salah, head of the Museums Department at the Ministry of Antiquities, told Al-Ahram Weekly, adding that the Hunting Museum was scheduled to be officially reopened in mid-February during the mid-term school holiday after a decade of closure.

She said that when Manial Palace was officially inaugurated in 2013 after restoration work, the Hunting Museum was not among the halls that were opened to public. Last month, with a budget of LE140,000 provided by the Historic Cairo Rehabilitation Project, the Museums Department began the renovation and restoration of the museum in order to open it to the public during the mid-term holiday.

Salah and Badawi inspecting the displaying scenario

The museum displays preserved animals, birds and skeletons from the collection of former King Farouk and Princes Mohamed Ali Tewfik and Youssef Kamal collected during their hunting trips. “Among the most beautiful and unique collection on display is the butterfly collection of prince Mohamed Ali Tewfik, the former owner of Manial Palace,” Salah said, adding that the collection consisted of 7,000 butterflies. 

Sameh Al-Masri, the designer of the museum’s galleries, has brought the aura of the jungle into the galleries of the Hunting Museum, Salah said, adding that the roar of lions, sound of chickens, screech of eagles, and trumpeting of elephants would echo on the audio system. Visual effects would be used to suggest something of the ambiance in which the objects on display were collected.

Walaa Badawi, director of the Manial Palace, told the Weekly that the story of the museum started after the 1952 Revolution when an inventory was carried out of the property of members of Egypt’s former royal family.

When the committee in charge of the inventory detected a large collection of animals and birds, a section of the arched corridor beneath the palace walls was transformed into a Hunting Museum with 15 galleries displaying 10,000 animals and birds from the collection of former King Farouk, who was very fond with hunting, and princes Youssef Kamal from his palace in Matariya and Mohamed Ali Tewfik in Manial Palace.

The museum was inaugurated in 1963, closing in 2007 for restoration. Even after the reinauguration of the palace, the museum remained closed, however. “In 2015, I took the initiative to call for the restoration of the Hunting Museum as it is unique of its kind in Egypt,” Badawi said. Funds were found earlier this year, and restoration work started by restorer Manal Abdel-Moneim and her team. Some of the animals were in bad condition due to temperature and humidity fluctuations, but much of the damage was reversibl......READ MORE.

Source: Ahram Online

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News, Cairo: Temporary Exhibit On Religion in Egypt to Be Inaugurated Thrusday at Egyptian Museum

The 'Egypt, The Cradle of Religions' exhibit will be inaugurated tonight at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir. Written By/ Nevine El-Aref.

Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Enany will inaugurate Thursday evening the “Egypt, the Cradle of Religions” temporary exhibition at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir. The exhibition comes as part of the ministry’s framework to organise a series of temporary exhibits in an attempt to raise cultural and archaeological awareness.

Elham Salah, the head of the Museums Department at the Ministry of Antiquities, said that the exhibition put on show a collection of 57 artefacts that were carefully selected from the Egyptian Museum, the Coptic Museum and the Museum of Islamic Art.

The exhibition aims to shed light on religion in Egypt since ancient times; from the monotheistic era of King Akhenaten to the appearance of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Among the objects on display are the Terracotta head of the oldest ancient Egyptian deity discovered in Beni Salama, the statue of priest Hotep Di If from the third ancient Egyptian dynasty, a relief of King Akhenaten and his family worshipping the god Aten, and a relief of the goddess Isis and the god Harpocrat from the Greaco-Roman era.

Wooden boxes that were used as holders of the Torah and religious silver pots are also among the objects on display, as well as icons depicting the Virgin Mary and Jesus during their voyage to Egypt, and a copy of the Holy Quran and a silver Islamic-era chandelier decorated with foliage ornaments.

Six Islamic-era lamps recently recovered after being stolen from Cairo’s Al-Refai Mosque will be on special display within the exhibition, as well as items that were recently seized in Egyptian ports before they could be smuggled abroad.

Source: Ahram Online

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Recovered Antiquities, Cairo: Lamps Stolen From Cairo's El-Refai Mosque Recovered

Egypt's Tourism and Antiquities Police has recovered six Khedivate-era lamps that were stolen late December from the El-Refai Mosque in Cairo’s El-Khalifa district, with the culprits behind the theft arrested earlier this week, the Ministry of Antiquities said on Tuesday.

El-Saeed Helmy, head of Islamic and Coptic Antiquities Department at the Ministry of Antiquities, told Ahram Online that a committee of archaeological experts has confirmed the recovered lamps’ authenticity.

Mona Ahmed, a restorer at the Museum of Islamic Art who specializes in glass artefacts, told Ahram Online that the lamps are in good condition, and that they bear the rank of Khedive Abbas Helmy II, who ruled Egypt and Sudan from 1892 to 1914.

The Tourism and Antiquities Police say that the people who stole the lamps were working with a film crew that was shooting inside the mosque.

The police arrested two suspects, one of whom is an antiques dealer, while a third is at large. Police say the suspects intended sell the lamps for EGP 900,000. Helmy says the six lamps were among 15 adorning the ceilings of the mausoleums of King Fouad and Princess Ferial at El-Refai Mosque.

The lamps, which date to 1910, are made of glass adorned with a Quranic verse written in Mameluke raised script. “Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp,” says the verse from the Surat An-Nur.

Helmy says the lamps were recovered quickly due to the swift action by the antiquities ministry, which was quick to report the theft, and that the minister of antiquities has taken measures to prevent similar thefts in the future.

Source: Ahram Online

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News, Aswan: Swedish Ambassador Visits Lund University Archaeological Mission in Upper Egypt

Swedish ambassador in Egypt visits Gebel Silsila archaeological mission of Lund university.

Following the astonishing discovery of 12 New Kingdom tombs by Lund university mission directed by Dr. Maria Nilsson, H.E. Charlotta Sparre paid her second visit to the site during the 9th season of the mission's work on Saturday 21st. The first visit was in May 2015.

Moamen Saad, PHD researcher at Gebel Silsila and head of inspectors in Karnak temples complex, told Luxor Times "The work of the Swedish mission in cooperation with the ministry of antiquities is shedding the light on this important site which would result in attracting tourists."

Mr. Saad also said that H.E. expressed her content of the volume of Swedish-Egyptian cooperation in archaeology and historical studies. She also praised the work she witnessed between both sides and the support of the ministry under the patronage of Dr. Khalid El-Enany.

Mr. Nasr Salama (director of Aswan antiquities), Ahmed Said (director of Gebel Silsila), Khalid Shawky (head inspectors of Gebel Silsila) and Mohamed Ibrahim (Kom Ombo antiquities inspector) accompanied the ambassador during the visit.

Ahmed said told Luxor Times "The discoveries of the mission during the past seasons of work has contributed in reshaping the knowledge of scholars of the site of Gebel Silsila as it is not just a quarry site."

"The mission has been training the inspectors of the area which allow to exploit their abilities and give them experience to work on different sites in the grounding Aswan area." Mr. Shawky told Luxor Times.

Source: luxor Times Magazine

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Our Exhibition Abroad, Japan: Pyramids Treasure in Toyama

Nevine El-Aref enjoys a trip back to the age of the pyramid builders in the Japanese city of Toyama.

Residents and visitors to the Japanese city of Toyama fell under the spell of the Giza Pyramids last week on the opening of the sixth leg of the Golden Pharaohs and Pyramids touring exhibition in Japan.

Posters of the Great Pyramids at Giza, the pharaoh Khufu’s solar boat, the golden mask of Amenemopet, the limestone pyramidion of Ry and Maya, the black basalt statue of Khafre and jewelry embellished with precious stones have been decorating the walls of Toyama train station, shops, hotels and streets.

For the next two months, Toyama residents will be able to travel back in time to the ancient Egyptian civilisation and explore one of its most important and powerful eras – the Old Kingdom, the age of the Pyramid builders.

A gala ceremony was organised at the Toyama Civic Centre last Friday to celebrate the opening of the exhibition, with Japanese officials, Egyptologists and curators gathering to attend the inauguration. 

Among them were Kiyotsugu Yamashi, president of Tulip TV which organised the exhibition, and Osamu Yamamato, director-general of civic affairs and culture at the Toyama prefectural government.

The Egyptian delegation was headed by Gharib Sonbol, head of restoration at the ministry of antiquities in Cairo. The present exhibition is the first ancient Egyptian exhibition to tour Japan after a three-year hiatus following the Tutankhamun: Golden Age of the Pharaohs touring exhibition in 2012. 

That exhibition was cut short and returned to Egypt before the end of the planned tour after some Egyptian archaeologists filed a lawsuit against the ministry in the aftermath of the 25 January Revolution. The lawsuit sought to end the sending of touring exhibitions of ancient Egyptian artefacts abroad.

The present exhibition was inaugurated in October 2015 in the Japanese capital Tokyo and is scheduled to tour seven other cities in Japan over a 25-month period, including Matsuyama, Sendai, Kagoshima, Kyoto, Toyama, Fukuoka, and Shizuoka. 

“The exhibition does not only shed light on the Old Kingdom and the age of the Pyramid builders, but also highlights the strong bilateral relationship between Egypt and Japan in all domains,” minister of antiquities Khaled Al-Enany told the Weekly. 

He added that the exhibition was a very good opportunity to promote tourism and to encourage Japanese tourists to return to Egypt.

Al-Enany said that Egyptian-Japanese cooperation in the cultural field was being seen in many distinguished projects. Among the most important was the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) overlooking the Giza Plateau which will put on display 100,000 artefacts and welcome millions of visitors every year. 

“This is thanks to the Japanese government and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for their continuous efforts and support in offering two soft loans to complete one of the most important cultural projects in the world,” El-Enany said.

In addition, Japan had provided technical and scientific support through the provision of scientific equipment and materials to the GEM’s conservation centre. There are also many joint Egyptian-Japanese missions at various archaeological sites in Egypt that have yielded important results. 

Waseda University, for example, has been excavating in Egypt since 1966, and was amongst the first foreign institutions to introduce advanced technological tools to better understand Egypt’s archaeology.

One of the University’s recent projects is the exploration of Khufu’s second solar boat in its pit on the Giza Plateau. “The exhibition is the first of its kind in Japan,” Sakuhi Yoshimura, president of the Higashi Nippon International University in Japan and the exhibition’s supervisor, told the Weekly, adding that exhibitions featuring the Pyramids were rare throughout the world... READ MORE.

Source: Al-Ahram Weekly

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Re-Opening, Cairo: Cairo's Museum of Islamic Art to Open Friday After Two-Year Closure

The museum, badly damaged in a car bomb explosion in 2014, was inaugurated Wednesday by President Sisi and other top officials. Written By/ Nevine El-Aref.

Qur'an - ink on parchment, Abbasid 9th century

Egypt's Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) in downtown Cairo's Bab El-Khalq area is set to open its doors to visitors Friday after two years of closure for restoration and repair.

On Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail and Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Enany inaugurated the museum, in a ceremony attended by other top officials. The museum will offer admission to visitors free of charge beginning Friday 20 January, and continuing through Saturday the 28th.

The MIA sustained severe damage in January 2014 when a car bomb exploded outside the adjacent Cairo Security Directorate building. The blast destroyed the façade of the building, several columns, display cases and artifacts, as well as the nearby Egyptian National Library and Archives building.

In 2015, nearly a year after the blast, Cairo received a grant of EGP 50 million from the United Arab Emirates to restore the museum, in collaboration with Egyptian and foreign experts from Italy, Germany and the United States.

wooden Islamic boxes and tables

The UNESCO donated $100,000 for the restoration of the museum’s laboratories, while the Italian government contributed €800,000 to purchase new display cases and provide training courses to the museum’s curators.

The American Research Centre in Cairo, in collaboration with the Swiss government, contributed EGP 1 million to restore the museum’s façade. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, as well as the Metropolitan Museums in New York, Germany and Austria assisted with trainings for the MIA's curators and restorers.

“The inauguration of the MIA embodies Egypt’s victory against terrorism, its capability and willingness to repair what terrorism has damaged, and to stand against terrorist attempts to destroy its heritage,” El-Enany said at the opening ceremony.

On Thursday, the museum will host a musical ceremony to celebrate the opening, and allow media in to photograph the new and restored exhibits. Elham Salah, head of the Museums Department at the Ministry of Antiquities, told Ahram Online that the façade, building and halls of the MIA have been restored with state-of-the-art security and lighting systems installed. Some aspects of the layout have changed, he added.

metal pots and pans

The souvenir hall, previously located in the centre of the museum has been moved to the end of the visitors’ path in the museum garden. A hall displaying Islamic coins and weapons has been added, along with a hall for Islamic manuscripts. One hall showcases the daily life of Egyptians throughout the Islamic age, including instruments and children’s toys.

MIA Director Ahmed El-Shoki said the artifacts which were "damaged in the explosion, and which have been restored, are integrated into the new displays, but distinguished by a golden label placed beside them.”

The blast damaged 179 pieces, 169 of which were completely restored while 10 pieces, all carved in glass, were found to be beyond repair. Among the most important artifacts lost were a rare decorated Ayyubid jar and an Omayyad plate carved in porcelain.

The MIA is home to an exceptional collection of rare woodwork and plaster artifacts, as well as Islamic era metal, ceramic, glass, textile and crystal pieces from all over the world. The museum is housed in a two-story building, with the first floor open to visitors displaying 4,400 artifacts in 25 galleries.

Source: Ahram Online

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