Egypt: Archaeology vs. Politics?

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In August, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s first appearance in court was televised. The world was shocked to see the long-time ruler of Egypt lying on a stretcher in the cage in which defendants in Egyptian courts are held while on trial. A judge has since banned TV cameras from the courtroom and Egypt has held its first democratic elections, with a strong showing for the Muslim Brotherhood. Mubarak’s trial continues this week with his lawyers seeking to prove that he is “neither a tyrant or a bloodthirsty man” but a “clean man” who did not give orders to shoot protesters. Mubarak, they say, did not intervene to stop the killings because he was “unaware” they were occurring. To contradict such claims, prosecutors have offered evidence in the form of autopsy reports with details of protesters who died from bullet wounds.

Meanwhile, the country’s economy is struggling. Tourism revenue in Egypt was $8.8 billion last year, a marked decline from $12.5 billion in 2010. Those who wish to travel to Egypt, where political unrest has been ongoing since the uprising a year ago, had best be “resilient,” says the Financial Times. The top visitors to Egypt in 2011 were Russians who are “far less daunted than others by the upheavals in the country” and have been filling beach resorts. British and German tourists have also still been traveling to Egypt. Tourism in the capital of Cairo and the Upper Egyptian towns of Luxor and Aswan has, though, been “a pathetic 10-15 per cent.”

Burned Books and Protesters Shot By Security Forces

With many still protesting against the interim military government, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) — and with riot police cracking down with beatings and live ammunition — tourists have shied away from Egypt. In late December, 16 Egyptians died and hundreds were injured in clashes, and the historical archive of the Egyptian Scientific Institute was destroyed when the building caught fire. Twelve out of twenty volumes of the original Description d’Egypte — a multi-volumed, encyclopedic work with maps and illustrations assembled over 20 years by scholars accompanying Napoleon Bonaparte during his Egyptian campaign — have been lost. Abdel Wahed El Nabawy, chairman of the National Archives, estimates that it could take ten years and $7 million to restore the charred remains of the collection.

But even as an international outcry arose over the burning of the books, activists pointed out that, in some cases, more attention was cast on the loss of the Scientific Institute than those killed, injured and arrested. This conflict between preserving Egypt’s past (the country is home to about a third of the world’s antiquities) and focusing on the very pressing needs for education and work for its 80 million inhabitants can be seen as one of archaeology and politics.

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Photo of the Tomb of Panehsy in Amarna by kairoinfo4u

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Lee H.

5:37PM PST on Jan 22, 2012

Why is anyone surprised by this. The Egyptians overwhelmingly voted for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis, who lied to the liberals and freedom-minded. This is going all over the Arab-Spring-world - a huge slide backwards into the scum of history. Surprise...

By the way, the Copts ARE the REAL Egyptians. Their language and racial make-up is most closely related to the ancient Egyptians. The Arabs were INVADERS of Egypt. Arab Muslims are the OCCUPIERS of Egypt, and it is so very, very sad that their retrograde, backwards majority has been like Islam has been all over the world - a cancer that takes over the host's apparatus, metasticizes and kills the host.

Islam kills... creativity, civilizations, hundreds of millions of people, music, freedom, and more.

send a green star

Hannah L.

8:23PM PST on Jan 21, 2012

Hmm

Gillian M.

12:14PM PST on Jan 20, 2012

Oh yes, I should add that Jews have no access to their own lands or history as the modern Muslims have killed and forced them out and they have become refugees. In fact, their history is being destroyed in Muslim dominated lands as they turn religious sites into fake mosques and that now includes Gaza. The same is now happening to Christians in these same lands, their churches, monasteries and historical sites are being taken over and turned into Muslim "historical" sites.

This does not give the current Egyptians the right to take all history and call it theirs, it only gives them the right to a share and, most definitely, no right to any other religion's sites.

12:04PM PST on Jan 20, 2012

Marilyn, how could all of the past belong solely to the current Egyptians? The previous people who lived there included Jews and Christians and they also have a right to a share of their own history.

In fact, ancient Egyptians were predominantly black, Numibians, then people from the Mediterranean, Romans, Libyans, Assyrians, the Persians etc and well as Arabs. In other words ancient peoples are also Egyptian as are many modern ones. I suggest that these artifacts actually belong to more than one country and they need to be spread around to ensure that all people can see them and that not all treasures remain in one basket. After all, how long before another faction decides that they should be destroyed rather than let infidels see them or that they have nothing to do with Islam, maybe even remove evidence of the Old Testament.

Vlasta M.

10:08AM PST on Jan 20, 2012

Most Muslim countries are basket cases when it comes to feeding and housing their people. It is Islamic ideology of hate of non-Muslims and enlightenment The imams and mullahs keep the illiterate masses in darkness and whipping up their delusional Jew-and Christian hatred which had made most Muslim countries Juden-frei and now Christians are leaving in droves since their lives are not safe in the Muslim world any more.

There are too many stupid young men who had bought into the islamic supremacist ideology of hate of non-Muslims and take as a role model an illiterate pedophile polygamist and murderer. This kind of role model is not great for development of a civilized society based on justice and Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Islam promotes DEATH, and mocks Jews for respecting human life on Earth. That is why those terrorists are able to persuade young horny men to blow themselves up, because they promise them Paradise with 72 virgins, which those young guys think is great, considering their grim prospects on Earth in their dysfunctional societies. Poor Egyptians!

9:57AM PST on Jan 20, 2012

Rule of Mubarak was a sunshine in comparison what is coming to Egypt under Islamists of Muslim Brotherhood. The Arab spring young men and women will regret their revolution, just as many Iranians did after Shah was replaced by much worse tyrants, such as Ayatola Khuomeni and Ahmedinijade.

They introduced Medieval evil sharia laws of beheading, stoning, hanging gays, misogyny, all based on Qu'ranic and Hadith writings that promote supremacist ideology of hate of non-Muslims, apartheid (Dhimmitude), misogyny,pedophilia, polygamy and murder for Allahu Akbar.

Political correctness has no place in a civilized society that needs to defend the US Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from Islamic sharia, which is incompatible with those important safeguards of our freedom.

Read Qu'ran and Hadith to see for yourself that Islam is not compatible with US Constitution and it is supremacist ideology of hate of non-Muslims, apartheid (dhimmitude), misogyny, pedophilia, polygamy and murder for Allahu Akbar.

After all, the terrorists of 9/11 did not shout Hail Mary, Our Father, Shema Israel or OM when plunging planes into WTO, but Allahu Akbar, which had become a war cry of Islamists when commuting their dastardly acts of terror, including American born and educated Muslims such as Fort Hood Muslim army psychiatrist who shouted Allahu Akbar while murdering 13 of his colleagues.

It is Islam itself that is the ROOT CAUSE OF TERRORISM around the world,

Carola M.

9:05AM PST on Jan 20, 2012

David E, where do you get those figures? Even by those standards Mohammed remains the biggest mass murderer tyrant of all time as it is estimated that his ideology of hate & punishment has been responsible for @ 270million people murdered in the conquest of now Islamic occupied countries & all the many people who have died under Sharia law - many of them Muslims. Will Durant, an eminent historian, says the Muslim conquest of India alone resulted in the bloodiest in human history with an estimated 80million non-Muslims slaughtered.

I just read today, relating to this article, that one of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders elected to power now has stated that tourism should be stopped. He wants no more dirty infidels to defile Muslim occupied Egypt (& he wants all non-Muslims, including the Copts who are the original Egyptians before the Arab Muslim conquest, to be expelled). Whether he & his fellow Sharia Law advocates will follow the Taliban in destroying 'pagan' sites remains to be seen, but nothing these primitives can do should surprise anyone.

Marie W.

12:35AM PST on Jan 20, 2012

Egypt is not very interest in science or Democracy- only bakshessh.

Rosie L.

2:42PM PST on Jan 19, 2012

iii q.

2:40PM PST on Jan 19, 2012

hmm...