Will there be any antiquities left for
our children and grandchildren to view and enjoy? Just looking at today's headlines about the
turmoil in the Middle East makes one wonder.
Stories are rampant about trading artifacts for cash and weapons to
support this side or that in the violence erupting on daily basis, especially
Egypt. Museums and private collections
are being stripped and sold to fund militants and armies alike, and collectors
world-wide are seeming to turn a deaf ear on the protests that these items will
be removed from public view forever. According
to an article published on April 15, 2013 on the website Albawaba, the Egyptian Council for Culture and Arts stated in its
report last year that "the amount of stolen Egyptian antiquities after the
January revolution reached about 3,000 artifacts, probably now residing outside
Egypt in the hands of private collectors."
Some say, "Can you blame them?" When a small artifact sells for hundreds of
US dollars on sites like eBay, it can help feed and house a whole displaced
family and help them escape the violence in which they find themselves living. So
what if it goes into someone's private collection never to be shown in public
again. There are plenty of others out
there for the viewing. Not only does
this mentality hurt everyone in general, but it also loses critical background
information on the item - its location, its age, the relationship to other
items found near it - its whole backstory gone, and documentation darned near
impossible to corroborate.
But the blame does not land solely on the Egyptians. If there was no demand for such trading,
especially in the West, where it's common to find greedy collectors or even
museums that are willing to accept these items with iffy or no certification at
all, then there would be no looting of these historic treasures. There has been a lot of talk in the media and
on the Internet recently about how some Egyptians wanting to protect their cultural
heritage have created Facebook pages and other social media that show pictures and
descriptions of missing items. One of
the best known is the Facebook page "Stop the Heritage Drain." On the
page it states in part, "Help us save our shared heritage. Over the last two years, Egypt has fallen
into a state of increasing chaos. Theft and looting of the country’s heritage
have been rampant. Adding insult to injury, the ministries of culture and
antiquities, in a (miserable) attempt to pretend that “everything is fine” do
not publicize the thefts in order not to scare off prospective tourists.. They
don’t want the bad PR you see… As
Egyptians, we think it’s a bit too late for that.."
It contains many, many photos of missing and smuggled antiquities
and simply asks that we in the West share this information so that these items
of Egyptian heritage can be returned. We
can only hope that this kind of grassroots movement will help in the return of
so many antiquities back to Egypt so the world can once again enjoy them, along
with their invaluable historic and scientific documentation restored.
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