Turmoil in Egypt has left many ancient artifacts in ruin

Hello friends! Again, welcome to our blog! I am very happy to say that my first post has nothing to do with Texas, but it is, unfortunately, addressing a somewhat less than happy topic.

If you have been keeping up with the news lately, you will undoubtedly have run across mention of the political turmoil that has arisen in Egypt in the past week. Reflecting the animosity in Tunisia a few weeks ago, dissention towards the governing Mubarak regime has spread among Egyptians calling for a more democratic rule. Over two million citizens are standing together, though in a rather unorganized fashion, to take a stand against the political, and subsequent economic, travesty pervasive in the country.

What does this have to do with art? Riots in the streets of major metropolises left major museums and archaeological sites unguarded from looting and vandalism. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo experienced its first attack on Friday in which looters damaged many artifacts. This raid included the defacement of statues from King Tutankhamen’s tomb and the decapitation of two royal mummies, the results of which can be seen in the first picture. More reports of pillaging have sprung up since then from various sites across the country, from Alexandria to Saqqara. Many Egyptians astoundingly stepped up to stop this problem while they waited for patrols to take over guard. In Cairo, everyday citizens even went so far as linking arms in front of the Egyptian Museum to keep intruders out.



Though explanations for the looting and vandalism are still speculative at this stage, many arguments can be made for why priceless historical artifacts have been damaged and removed from their resting places. Economic strife has become a grave issue for the common Egyptian, some being forced to skip meals or steal to feed their children. With many gilded statues unguarded, the prospect of stealing a gold statue to pay for food may have easily come to mind.
Some have also wondered if the Mubarak regime may have paid looters to cause damage to the museum to make the rioters look bad, though no proof for this claim has surfaced yet. A less sexy, but still highly probable explanation could be that some people just simply wanted to take advantage of an opportunity to be destructive.

Reasons aside, an unknown number of irreplaceable artifacts have been damaged and stolen from the leading sources of Egyptian historical preservation. Only time will tell how much damage has been done to the future of Egyptian archaeology, but as the instability settles, we can only hope that the harm is less than we fear. The following site has and will be tracking the results of these events, and I strongly encourage everyone to keep up with the happenings and results of this tumultuous time.
http://egyptopaedia.com/2011/

Looting is by no means a new problem in the world of art and archaeology. Museums and uncovered archaeological sites have suffered from theft for hundreds of years, and scholars are constantly debating the issue of art ownership in cases such as those of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum (taken from the Greek acropolis in the late 18th century) or the Mona Lisa in the Louvre (stolen in 1911 from the French museum by an Italian who believed it should reside in the homeland of Leonardo da Vinci, its painter). We can’t hope to settle this debate in our lifetime, nor can we assume that destruction of wars, economic downturns cutting funding for the arts, or political upheavals will cease to deter the devastation of historical remains. We can, however, do our part to empathize the importance of these artifacts for our understanding of past cultures and their authority on successive generations of artistry and communicative prowess.

The following video shows some of the damage from the pillaging in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTOf0x-eGU0

Thanks to: Francesca Tronchin, National Geographic, and the Wall Street Journal