Good luck awaited the Malawi Museum in the Upper Egyptian city of Minya this week, after the building was looted and burned during clashes between supporters of deposed former president Mohamed Morsi and the security forces after the latter broke up the sit-ins at Rabaa Al-Adaweya and the Nahda Square in Cairo three weeks ago. Curators at the museum announced that they had recovered 216 of the 1,049 artefacts reported missing as a result of the violence, these including a collection of faience beads, statuettes of the ancient Egyptian god Osiris, clay pots, a limestone statue of the god Thot in the shape of a baboon, a rectangular relief of an Ibis bird and the palm of the goddess Maat, as well as a collection of papyri written in demotic script and various Graeco-Roman marble and limestone reliefs. A collection of 25 Roman coins was also among the retrieved artefacts. Artefacts that were too heavy for the vandals to carry out of the museum, but were damaged in situ, have been removed for restoration. Workers moved into the Museum this week to clean the building and to remove the remains of the devastation. The litter of shattered showcases that was spread around the Museum following the looting has been cleared, these originally housing the museum's treasured collection of antiquities dating from the ancient Egyptian to the Islamic period. “I would like to thank all the residents of Malawi who have played such a major role in helping us to recover these objects,” Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim told Al-Ahram Weekly, adding that local people had shown themselves to be eager to protect the nation's heritage and to resist any attempts at damaging it. Ahmed Sharaf, head of the museums section at the ministry, said that the recovered objects had been handed over by Malawi residents or left at the museum's gates. The objects were returned after an amnesty had been declared on the return of any looted artefacts. Sharaf said that the returned objects were being kept in the Al-Ashmunein antiquities magazines in Minya for restoration pending the complete rehabilitation of the Museum building. The objects would be put back on display in their original locations when the Museum was reopened after renovation. Ibrahim told the Weekly that the ministry was negotiating with UNESCO, the UN cultural agency, for support for the restoration and renovation work at the museum through the launching of an international fund-raising campaign. According to Mohamed Sameh, Egypt's ambassador to UNESCO, the organisation will be sending a team of experts to help Egypt restore buildings having heritage value and damaged mosques and churches. The delegation will also work in cooperation with experts from the Ministry of Antiquities to assess damage done to mosques, churches, monasteries and buildings of heritage value in Egypt during the recent disturbances. It will help to evaluate any damage done to antiquities at the Malawi Museum, and a workshop will be held at the organisation's headquarters in Paris during the coming weeks in order to discuss ways to protect and restore Egypt's cultural heritage, he added. Early last week, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova condemned the damage that had been done to cultural heritage sites in Egypt as a result of the violence, also expressing her concern for Egypt's heritage after the looting of the Malawi Museum. Bokova urged the Egyptian authorities to ensure the protection and integrity of museums, archaeological sites, and historic and religious buildings in the country, as well as to make every effort to prevent the trafficking of cultural objects stolen from the Malawi Museum. She reiterated her agency's readiness to provide technical support and to mobilise partner organisations in the 1970 Convention against the Illicit Traffic of Cultural Heritage, including INTERPOL, the international police organisation, and the World Customs Organisation. UNESCO has posted a list of objects stolen from the Malawi Museum on its website in Arabic and English, while Egyptian cultural heritage professionals are using social-media sites like Facebook and Twitter to raise public awareness of the damage that has occurred during the recent period of turmoil. Good luck also extended to the Mit Rahina archaeological site 24km south of Cairo this week, when routine inspection by the Tourism and Antiquities Police revealed a plastic bag buried at the site containing ancient Egyptian artefacts. The bag was found in the botanical area behind the Hathor Temple. It contained seven objects in total, three of which were reported missing from the Mit Rahina archaeological magazine during the violence that erupted in the aftermath of the 25 January Revolution. The other four objects resulted from illegal excavation at the site. Adel Hussein, head of the ministry's ancient Egyptian antiquities section, said that the three missing objects included a partly damaged clay plate, a red clay pot and a cylindrical alabaster pot with a round base. The other four objects were clay pots of different sizes. Something similar took place at the Dahshour royal necropolis 40km south of Cairo. Here, ministry guards in cooperation with the Tourism and Antiquities Police succeeded in foiling an attempt at encroachment on the Dahshour site. Four individuals took advantage of the unrest in the country and tried to build a graveyard at the site for family members. However, they were halted by police, who arrested one of the individuals concerned.
