From 1907 to 2007 is a long story to tell. Nevine El-Aref digs into history and explores the German devotion to preserving Egypt's cultural heritage While it celebrates the German-Egyptian Year of Science and Technology, the German Archaeological Institute (GAI) celebrates 100 years of excavation and restoration in Egypt. At one of the most luxurious hotels on Cairo's Nile Corniche, GAI celebrated a century of excavation and restoration in Egypt. An hour before the start of the press conference, most of the journalists assembled at the hotel feared that tension would overshadow the mood of the conference since the German authorities concerned had not yet responded to Egypt's request to bring the famous bust of Nefertiti from the Berlin Archaeological Museum to be placed on a six-month loan for the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in 2012. Despite the journalists' predictions, Zahi Hawass, secretary- general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), announced at the conference that Egypt and Germany had agreed to assign a German- Egyptian archaeological committee to inspect the preservation condition of the exquisitely-painted bust of Nefertiti and decide on the safety of its journey back to Egypt. The Louvre in Paris, Hawass said, had also offered to lend Egypt any other ancient Egyptian artefacts in its collection except for the Zodiac of Dendara, as dismantling this unique piece from its current position would lead to its deterioration. The Zodiac is attached to a wooden plaque glued on the Louvre Museum's ceiling, and any attempt to remove it would inevitably damage it. A similar suggestion to replace it with another was made by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which owns the statue of Ankhaf, the engineer who built Khafre's Pyramid. Meanwhile the Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany, which owns the statue of Hemiunnu, the architect of Khufu's Great Pyramid, has accepted Egypt's request and agreed to send the statue to Egypt to be exhibited for six months at the GEM. "This is how the Germans are," Hawass told reporters. He added that in the field of Egyptology, the names of German scholars have been among the best known and most respected. Beginning with the great Prussian Egyptologist Karl Lepsius, whose massive Denkmöler aus êgypten und êthiopien is one of the classic works of Egyptology, German Egyptologists have continually contributed to this field. Linguists such as Kurt Sethe and archaeologists such as Ludwig Borchardt and Hermann Junker laid the foundations and the GAI has continued their legacy. "I feel a personal link to Borchardt, who excavated the pyramid complex of Sahure and uncovered many relief blocks," Hawass said. He explained that several years ago, several decorative blocks that had once graced Sahure's causeway had been unearthed unexpectedly while the mounds of debris that Borchardt had left behind was being cleared as part of the SCA's site management project at the Abusir archaeological site. "These have added important information to our knowledge about a number of issues; including the celebrations held at the completion of a pyramid and our understanding of the pyramidion that topped the pyramid," Hawass said. Hawass said that celebrating the GAI's 100th anniversary was a chance to pay homage to the great Werner Kaiser, who strengthened the relationship between German and Egyptian Egyptologists. He also paid tribute to the work of Rainer Stadelmann in Dahshur and elsewhere, and especially to the restoration he carried out on the statue of Senefru and the training programme Stadelmann offered to young archaeologists. In recent years, Hawass continued, the GAI sponsored many important projects including Gunter Dreyer's excavations at Abydos, where he found the earliest royal tombs in Egypt. He also praised Daniel Polz's work on the royal and private cemeteries of the Second Intermediate Period and early New Kingdom at Dra' Abu Al-Naga on Luxor's west bank, the excavation of Uli Hrtung at Buto, and the ongoing work in Elephantine. "I am very happy to see, as we look back on a century of progress in Egyptology, that there are many Egyptians among the coming generation of young scholars who will built on the firm foundations laid by institutions like the FAI over the last hundred years," Hawass said. Gunter Dryer, director of the GAI in Cairo, described the celebration as not only marking 100 years of working in Egypt but 100 years of hospitality in Egypt. "Founding a permanent representation of German archaeology in Cairo is closely connected with the history of Egyptology," said Hermann Parzinger, president of the GAI. Parzinger said that in the second half of the 19th century, shortly after research began into the culture and language of ancient Egypt, came the emergence of an established science. This soon necessitated a research centre in Egypt that could inform the professional world of excavations and ongoing projects as well as providing support for German expeditions in the country. When the position of scientific attaché at the German consulate was created in 1899, its first chosen incumbent was Borchardt, a civil engineer who had lived and worked in Egypt since 1895. Borchardt played a key role in the history of the foundation of the GAI in Cairo, and in 1904, in the course of his assignment to support research in Egypt he built the German House on Luxor's west bank. The first major German project began in 1898 with the excavation of the sun temple of the Fifth- Dynasty Pharaoh Niuserre at Abu Ghurob. This was followed by excavations at Abusir in 1902. Owing to the positive development of German archaeology in Egypt, the decision was soon made to unite all Egyptology offices and institutions in Egypt under one roof. Thus in 1907 the core of what was to become the GAI in Cairo was formed, with Borchardt as director. Over seven successful years Borchardt built up the institute, which supported several archaeological projects in Egypt. In 1914 the institute's work was interrupted by World War I but resumed in 1923. At the beginning of 1929 Borchardt retired from the institute and founded the Ludwig Borchardt Institute, today the Swiss Institute for Architectural and Archaeological research in Egypt. In the same year the institute in Cairo was made part of the GAI in Berlin, which had been founded in 1829 and already had branches in Rome, Athens and Istanbul. Several excavations were carried out at that time, and in 1930 the first volume of Mitteilungen was published. This annual scientific journal today still publishes current results of the institute's own and international Egyptological research on the various cultural periods of Egypt. On the outbreak of World War II, the GAI in Cairo was closed for 18 years until the 1950s when a new one was established. The early years of the new institute were fruitful, with a great number of scientific and archaeological researches and excavations taking place in several regions of the country. During the 1960s the GAI played a major role in the Nubian salvage operation led by UNESCO to rescue the Nubia monuments threatened by the construction of the Aswan High Dam and the floodwaters of Lake Nasser. The GAI relocated and reconstructed the Kalabsha Temple at its new site. Since the mid-1960s the institute faced a political situation that culminated in 1967. In 1969, in collaboration with the Swiss Institute for Architectural and Archaeological Research, the GAI started excavation on Elephantine Island, considered one of the most important projects of the GAI in Egypt, and still ongoing. On Elephantine the Swiss-German team has examined the history of the city, its sacred structures, the rock inscriptions and the island necropolis. The goal of the project is to follow the development of the city from its beginning in the late fourth millennium BC up to the Islamic mediaeval period. The relatively small size of the settlement, only 200 by 200 metres, made it possible to come very close to achieving this goal in -- thus far -- 36 excavation, documentation and restoration campaigns. One of the most significant results of the excavations is the sequence of temples dedicated to the goddess Satet. This veneration cult always occurs in conjunction with the flooding of the Nile, which is necessary for survival. This work was followed by the expansion of the Theban tombs project, and in 1988 work at Dahshur began. Ten years later the GAI began to focus more on the predynastic period and started a massive excavation at Um Al-Qaab predynastic site at Abydos, and Saqqara, where research has been undertaken on the early royal tombs. Members of the excavation project in Maadi studied settlement structures of the fourth millennium BC, and in Buto work is concentrated on clarifying the layers of the earliest occupation. MEETING THE PAST: At the Egyptian Museum another celebration marking the century-long German archaeological involvement in Egyptian excavations took place through the "Meeting the Past" exhibition, which was opened by Culture Minister Farouk Hosni. The exhibition displays a selection of 130 artefacts unearthed at various archaeological sites excavated by the GAI. Ute Rummel, the Egyptologist responsible for the exhibition, said the great majority of these objects had never been shown before and were being made available to the public for the first time. The exhibition focuses not only on the results of the institute's current research, but also on a number of completed projects. All are introduced through the presentation of objects from these sites, such as the excavations in Assassif, the temple of Seti I in western Thebes, and Merimda Beni Salama in the Delta. The objects on display represent a cross section through ancient Egypt derived from necropolises, settlements and temples that run the spectrum of cultural history from the Neolithic Age up to the early Christian period. It also represents a selection of the range of finds from the respective sites that, in addition to aspects of technology, art or religious history, also reflect the development of a place through the various periods of time. And yet, the artefacts discovered must be understood as one aspect of the totality of archaeological results that are obtained from an excavation site. "It is not the objects alone that shade more light on the archaeological sites where the Germans are digging in it but also shows the context in which they were found," Rummel said. This is implemented through the display of a number of coloured panels showing the archaeological sites where the collection was found. For example, at the section of the exhibition where items from the Dra' Abu Al-Naga necropolis on Luxor's west bank are exhibited, a huge panel featuring an overview of the site is provided along with other photographs showing excavators and workmen at work. A map of the necropolis and what can be seen there is also on show. Among the distinguished objects are some found on Elephantine Island including Old and Middle-Kingdom copper fishhooks and a net float, and an Old-Kingdom flint knife, blades, drills and stone vessels. Naqada III ivory, bone and remnants of small, black inventory labels with information on amounts and origins from the Um Al-Qaab tomb are among the objects on display, along with a shard with lion-shaped engraving, a double-sided burnt clay bread stamp, and a statuette featuring a pregnant woman found at the site of Abu Mina. "The 'Meeting the Past' exhibition paraphrases the essence of archaeology, whose task is to secure, interpret and preserve the traces of the past," Rummel said, adding that the title might however be viewed as an initiation to visitors to the exhibition to take a look back in time and encounter a distant culture, thereby discovering something new, fascinating and perhaps familiar. "When we deal with the past -- research it, reflect on it, or marvel at it -- it is not lost but becomes an art of the present," Rummel commented. Wafaa El-Sediq, director-general of the Egyptian Museum, said the exhibition illustrated the German-Egyptian cooperation in archaeology which ensured the strong cultural ties between both countries. "[This is] one hundred years of intensive, reputable work at various archaeological sites from Alexandria to Nubia and beyond to the oases," she said. "This anniversary exhibition with its 130 objects is an invitation to explore the history of Egyptology and its archaeological finds." El-Sediq added that behind every find there was a great name and a special story.
