Thursday, February 10, 2011

Egyptian Professionals Demonstrate: Where are the Archaeologists?

The news carried pictures of Egyptian professionals, including Doctors and Lawyers demonstrating. No news about archaeologists, though.

Meanwhile, the pride of one old man has guaranteed more unrest. Hopefully, the army will ultimately stand with the people and not with the old order though the upper echelons have certainly benefited from the status quo.

More unrest, unfortunately, means the potential for more damage to Egypt's unparallelled cultural patrimony. If so, blame should be placed where it belongs on the Mubarak regime, and not on Western collectors as some in the archaeological community will inevitably claim.
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2 comments:

  1. Paul BarfordFebruary 10, 2011 at 10:28 PM

    I am not sure what your point is, there are some here,

    http://plixi.com/p/75903616

    http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/02/10/world/10egypt-cnd-span1.html

    I am sure someone like you will also be especially interested in the open letter to Dr. Hawass from Dr. Hany Hanna being widely publicised yesterday.

    I suspect you have not had much of a chance to talk personally with SCA inspectors and other staff about their views about the system?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cultural Property ObserverFebruary 11, 2011 at 5:47 AM

    Thank you for drawing Dr. Hanna's brave letter to my attention. Will Western archaeologists offer support? How about SAFE?

    ReplyDelete

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