The blocked sale at Christie's New York auction house of a genuine granite relief smuggled out of Egypt should reinforce the authorities' awareness of the problem of vandalism. Nevine El-Aref reports on the theft Three weeks ago French Egyptologist Christine Favard Meeks, browsing through a forthcoming Christie's auction catalogue, noticed a photograph of a 38.3-cm-high granite relief. Meeks recognised it from when she was writing her doctoral thesis in Gharbiya governorate in the Egyptian Delta. When she last saw the relief it was on a wall in the ruined temple dedicated to the goddess Isis at Behbeit Al-Hagar. It had now been registered with Christie's and presented for sale. Meeks immediately notified the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) which, in turn, alerted the auctioneers. The piece was withdrawn, and steps are now being taken to recover it and return it to Egypt. The incident comes hard on the heels of the conviction of New York antiquities dealer Frederick Schultz of conspiring to steal and smuggle ancient artifacts out of Egypt and pass each piece off with a forged provenance. Most of these pieces have now been recovered, while Schultz received a 33-month sentence earlier this month. The piece scheduled to enter the auction is a well-preserved block of stone showing the face, facing left, of a deity described in Christie's catalogue as having "a golf-ball chin, full cheek, cosmetic stripes outlining the eyes and a plastic brow". It was one of 394 items marked for a coming sale, 52 of which originated in Egypt. Meeks has a passionate interest in Behbeit Al-Hagar and is the author of a doctoral thesis on the temple of Isis. When she saw the photograph she immediately recognised it as a section chipped off a larger scene engraved on an inner wall of the temple of the last Egyptian Pharaoh, Nectanebo II (360-341 BC). "This relief was not the first to be hacked off Behbeit Al-Hagar temple and put on sale," said Meeks, who added that in auction halls in New York and London she had witnessed the sale of three other pieces originating from this temple. "I was not able to do anything about it then because I did not know the exact date of the auctions," Meeks said. The granite relief put up for auction at Christie's in New York "I know the site by heart. I can see all the blocks before my eyes and I will never forget them." Meeks has been carrying out professional documentation of the monument since 1977 and has taken black and white photographs of every block and corner of the temple. Abdel-Karim Abu Shanab, director-general of the newly-organised department of the SCA charged with retrieving stolen artifacts, conceded that for the last 12 years the temple had been subjected to desecration. "Ten other reliefs were stolen and the inspector filed a police report announcing that they were missing," he said. "But that was all that was done." For her part, Meeks said that since 1993 when, to the best of her knowledge, the temple ruins were intact, there had been systematic and serious vandalism and destruction. "Comparing my 1977s documentation and my field visit in 2002, I realised that several reliefs have been removed from the wall scenes," she said. Another stolen relief from the same temple featuring the Nile-god Hapi was recently identified on display at the Virginia Fine Arts Museum. This find supports Meeks's argument. "I demanded the return of this piece from Virginia," SCA director-general Zahi Hawass said, "According to SCA documentation it was stolen; it is not from a private collection. Should the museum refuse, I will notify Interpol and the Egyptian Embassy in Washington and file a court suit in America against it." The smuggling of antiquities is a constant threat to national cultural property, but while the SCA concentrates on the protection of well-known sites in Upper and Lower Egypt and on thefts from museums and storerooms, little is done adequately to protect thousands of archaeological sites where excavations are not in progress. These are often surrounded by flimsy barbed-wire fences and left under the supervision of poorly-paid guards. The fact that places like Behbeit Al-Hagar are marked "off-limits" is meant to deter visitors from climbing over the inscribed blocks of stone -- which they not infrequently do -- but when it comes to standing up to a serious robber the guards are powerless. The question of how to safeguard such sites as the partly excavated ruins of temple of Isis, situated on the fringe of the Nile Valley, as well as others in the distant oases of the Western Desert, is open to discussion. These are numerous and not easy to protect. As to Behbeit Al-Hagar, the SCA is planning to make a computerised reconstruction of the Temple of Isis. The outline calls for determining the basic layout of the temple, then replicating the missing pieces. "Our accompanying excavations in the area should yield exciting new information about the Late and Ptolemaic periods," Hawass said. This, of course, is much like closing the stable door after the horse is bolted.
