ICOM's annual meeting in Alexandria last week was less successful than hoped for. Nevine El-Aref attended The International Council of Museums (ICOM), the international non-profit organisation for museums and museum professionals, has held its AGM in Alexandria, and it went off without any of the glitches which had been expected to dog the meeting. ICOM is committed to the conservation, continuation and communication to society of the world's natural and cultural heritage, present and future, tangible and intangible. Since its creation in 1946, ICOM has maintained formal relations with UNESCO and has a consultative status with the United Nations' Economic and Social Council. It also arranges and organises activities for its 21,000 members, including workshops, publications, and training programmes, and the promotion of museums through International Museum Day. ICOM also organises an annual meeting in one of its 140 participant countries where more than 300 museologists and archaeologists gather to discuss the latest museological ethics, exchange knowledge, propose further achievements of the various disciplines of museology and introduce new development theories. This year the ICOM meeting was held in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina overlooking the Alexandrian shoreline. Its quadrilateral halls and corridors were buzzing with almost 200 Egyptologists, historians, restorers, curators and museologists from around the world, who were there to exchange recent museological theories, studies and private experience in developing and upgrading displays. The packed schedule included a variety of issues. Attendance at the simple opening ceremony was low, since it coincided with another conference on the dialogue of civilisations. In his speech Ismail Serageldin, director of the Bibliotheca, said museums had unique potential for addressing and fostering cultural understanding in interdisciplinary ways and reaching a wide cross- section of the world's population. He called on all museum curators to play a role in building bridges of cooperation to achieve their goals and create a channel for civilisation and cultural dialogue. He also said that since its inauguration the library had organised almost 500 events and had been visited by 30 million people. Serageldin promised that over the forthcoming five years the library would complete all the issues placed on hold in an attempt to revive Egypt's past. In his speech, delivered by Sabri Abdel-Aziz, head of the Ancient Egyptian section at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), SCA Secretary-General Zahi Hawass revealed the council's new philosophy to convert Egyptian museums from large showcases for genuine artefacts to huge cultural and educational institutes. He also pointed out that in addition to recent developments in museums such as the Coptic, Islamic and Egyptian museums, 13 others were on their way in Al-Arish, Sharm El-Sheikh, Alexandria and other cities and towns of Egypt. They fall into six categories according to their theme and display scenarios; some are national museums, topical museums, or site museums. Believing that involving the public in the work will raise their cultural and archaeological awareness, the SCA has established archaeological schools for adults and young people as well as creating Friends NGOs for the three main museums in Cairo, the Egyptian, Coptic and Islamic museums, which help in financing activities and following up efforts at improvement. For his part, Sabri said that in an attempt to protect the artefacts, the second batch of 15 museological storehouses was under construction according to state-of-the-art technology. The first batch of 33 storehouses was built earlier this year. Regine Schulz, chairperson of the International Committee of Egyptology (CIPEG) at ICOM, called on all museologists to extend a hand in sprucing up the dialogue and communication with each other and widening the scale of cooperation worldwide in research and publication. "With a dialogue between all colleagues we can create an innovative and good project for the benefit of the protection of the heritage, and also as we are museums for all audiences [we] serve from school kids up to scholars," Schulz told Al-Ahram Weekly. Since Nubia is very important to scholarly research, and since part of it is in Egypt -- the rest is in Sudan -- Schulz urged the ICOM to approve the addition of Nubia under the official umbrella of CIPEG. She told the Weekly that most of the scholars researching Nubia were working in Egypt. At present the national committee of Sudan is not in effect in operation, and cooperation with Egypt is for the benefit of scholars. Discussions are currently underway that will make clear to ICOM that CIPEG might change its name or focus on Nubia, as well as on Egypt. "We don't plan to change anything in our direction. We are always interested in Nubia but we think it is important to make this clear in the name, and I hope that within the next couple of years we can come up with a conclusion and put Egypt and Nubia in our name," Schulz added. Despite the fact that the conference was very well organised and the lectures ran on schedule, average attendance was modest. Each participant presented a 20-minute paper on a wide range of museum topics, but without allowing time for discussion. Furthermore, some lecturers failed to enrich their speeches with illustrations, which many delegates found boring. It was even noticeable that some were dozing off during some of the sessions. Nonetheless, some sessions were vivid and interesting and many Egyptian junior and senior museologists contributed to the speeches at the three-day-long conference. As the disappearance of three ancient Egyptian items from the Egyptian Museum basement made local headlines, the lecture by the museum's director, Wafaa El-Sediq attracted a full audience. In her speech, El-Sediq outlined all works being achieved to restore and clean the basement in an attempt to make an inventory of what lies inside, as well as transform it into a museum storehouse such as the ones in the Louvre or the British Museum. "We are now exploring the basement, which is a maze of corridors overwhelmed with genuine artefacts and wooden boxes full with ancient Egyptian and prehistoric stuff," El-Sediq said, describing the task as "mission impossible". She continued that they had to deal not only with sand and dust covering the whole basement, but also with insects living on the organic remains that had been analysed through time. The exploration mission in the basement uncovered a number of painted sarcophagi, huge statues of kings and deities, mummies and human remains. Abdel-Halim Nureddin, dean of the faculty of archaeology at Fayoum University, angrily attacked the methods of some foreign archaeologists in translating ancient Egyptian terms inserted in the ICOM's official publications. He criticised certain foreigners for wanting to use the Greek language in translating ancient Egyptian terms instead of leaving them as they were. "This is totally against all international traditions," Nureddin commented, adding that such actions would lead to the wrong pronunciation of ancient Egyptian terminologies which in turn would rewrite ancient Egyptian history, as well as the distinction of the language. He gave as examples Tuna Al-Gabal in Minya governorate which had become Tuna Al-Gebel, and King Khufu, the owner of the Great Pyramid, who became Cheops. He also called for a tightening of security measures in museums in order to prevent any further thefts. Mervat Seifeddin, director of the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, announced that the museum would close for two years as it is a subject of a development project for comprehensive restoration of the building, which was constructed in 1895. Showcases will also be renewed, and display methods developed to bring it in line with the latest museological standards. Seifeddin told the Weekly that the development project would also rearrange the museum garden with a view to developing it into an open air museum as well as installing new lighting and ventilation systems. To facilitate the visitor's path, a number of information billboards would be provided along the museum corridors. The museum's library, which includes an overwhelming number of Arabic, English and French volumes written by travellers who visited Egypt from the 11th century to modern times, will be also restored, and all its rare books will be documented on CD to make them available for students, researchers and whoever is interested in such topics. According to the new scenario, the museum's collection will be displayed chronologically starting with the Greek era before Alexander the Great, the reign of Alexander the Great, the Ptolemaic era from the reign of Ptolemy I to Queen Cleopatra, and then the Roman age. Some halls will be devoted to special collection such as the one devoted to Graeco-Roman coinage, which comprises a number of gold, silver, bronze and copper coins. Another hall will be given over to Graeco- Roman deities. Children will have their own section which will provide simple exhibitions for them in an attempt to raise their awareness of the Graeco-Roman civilisation. Seifeddin said that for the past two years the museum staff had exerted a major effort to pave the way for the planned development project. Artefacts which had not yet been listed among the museum's documents had been registered, and an inventory of the museum's basement had been carried out. The Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, like the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, has a basement stuffed with objects. Some of them belong to various excavation sites in Alexandria and Marsa-Matrouh, while others are objects confiscated by the police. About a third are objects belonging to the museum. Hence, after documentation and restoration, such objects that belong to archaeological sites have been moved to the huge Marsa-Matrouh storehouse, while confiscated items have been packed and are waiting to be exhibited in the museum after the completion of the development project or in any of the other museums still under construction. Christian Ziegler, chief curator of the Egyptian department at the Louvre, shows the new discoveries by her mission in Saqqara. While cleaning the area north of the Unas pyramid, the mission found a vast funerary complex of the ancient Empire centered around the mastaba (bench) tomb of Akhthetep, the owner of a chapel exhibited in the Louvre. Ziegler said that successive excavations had unearthed vestiges of monuments built of mud brick and stones that dated from the Coptic period, with the material inscribed and found in situ indicating that these buildings belonged very close to the monastery of Saint Jeremiah. The lower levels reveal the existence of a necropolis of the first millennium with a large number of polychrome sarcophagi. The tombs found are intact and filled with remarkable funerary collections and several mummies. "Up to now we do not know the exact date of this necropolis, but it could be dated to the 26th Dynasty," Ziegler said. She promised that during the coming archaeological season further studies would reveal more secrets from this necropolis. Gabriele Pieke from Bonn University spoke of her institution's experience in developing its permanent museum of ancient Egyptian artefacts, while Selima Ikram of the American University in Cairo gave a talk on the project in the animal mummy room and the pre-dynastic project in the Egyptian Museum. Ayman Abdel-Moneim, director of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation, presented his own experiences in bringing the museum to light after four years of planning. On the fringe of the conference a special exhibition displaying 50 black and white photographs made by 19th-century travellers has been held at the National Museum of Alexandria. Injy Fayed, head of the cultural development section at the SCA, said the exhibition, which features ancient Egyptian sites in the early 19th century, would last for three months in order to provide an opportunity for all Alexandrians to visit it.
