Egypt antiquities chief faces jail time

Zahi Hawass sentenced over land dispute, while former prime minister set to stand trial on corruption charges.

Zahi Hawass, Egypt's ebullient minister for antiquities, has been sentenced to a year in jail after he refused to implement a court decision in a land dispute.

The court on Sunday also fined him 10,000 Egyptian pounds (more than $1,600) in damages.

Hawass, who has reached international acclaim as an Egyptologist, said he would appeal the ruling and told journalists had the court's decision had not targeted him "personally".

The sentence will be suspended until the appeal ruling.

Hawass was named antiquities minister last month, but had held the position as head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities under Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's ousted former president.

Sunday's court ruling concerned a complaint brought against Hawass when he was Egypt's antiquities chief under Mubarak. Hawass was ordered to return the land to the plaintiff, but had allegedly refused to do so.

The ruling comes as other ministers who served under Mubarak found themselves the target of separate investigations.

Read the rest here

UPDATE!  The Zahi Hawass saga continues!  It turns out our favorite controversial figure also produces "a line of rugged khakis, denim shirts and carefully worn leather jackets that are meant, according to the catalog copy, to hark 'back to Egypt’s golden age of discovery in the early 20th century.'”

Read about the whole thing here (via NYTimes)

Egyptian Museum of Cairo

Museum Syndicate is a independently owned and operated website that showcases over 75 museum's collections from around the world.  You can search the Brooklyn Museum to the National Portrait Gallery in London.  Naturally, I checked out the Cairo Museum.

There are 122 objects images from the Cairo Museum on Museum Sybdicate. They are photographed and thumb-nailed in a simple but clear catalog format.  While this catalog is nowhere near a definitive collection of the thousands of objects in the Cairo Museum, it can give a person a taste of what is housed inside.  

Here is a sample:

	Funerary Mask of Yuya		Unknown Artist
	Geese		Unknown Artist
	Giant Statue of Akhenaten	1350 BC	Unknown Artist
	Gold Cobra		Unknown Artist
	Gold Funerary Mask of Tutankhamun		Unknown Artist

If you are particularly interested in the "Giant Statue of Akhenaten" , for example, click on the name of the object, and  it brings you to a page with that looks like this:

TITLE:	Giant Statue of Akhenaten
OWNER:	Egyptian Museum of Cairo
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:	Egypt
DATE OF CREATION:	1350 BC
TAGGED WITH:	Ancient Egypt Sculptures and Carvings
JIGSAW PUZZLE	Click Here to Play

Happy hunting!

The Big Picture: A harrowing, historic week in Egypt

The Boston Globe's Big Picture series is amazing. 

In February of this year the Big Picture a ran a piece on the Egyptian Protests titled, A harrowing, historic week in Egypt .  The pictures are all high resolution and each has a clear caption describing what we are viewing. 

As a collection the pictures can give a person a taste of what it was like "on the ground" in Tahrir square and throughout Egypt.

Here is a sample:

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

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Once again here is the link to the Big Picture web page.  Enjoy!

"Black-Market Trinkets From Space"

The New York Times ran an interesting article today regarding the illegal sale of meteorite fragments on the black market.  Apparently, The Gebel Kamil Crater in Southern Egypt is popular site for plundering these meteor fragments.

A 6-gram fragment of meteroite found in the Gebel Kamil Crater

“'It’s a black market,' said Ralph P. Harvey, a geologist at Case Western Reserve University who directs the federal search for meteorites in Antarctica. 'It’s as organized as any drug trade and just as illegal.'

The discovery of a rich and historically significant meteorite crater in southern Egypt, just north of the Sudanese border, has shown the voracious appetite for new fragments. Just as scientists appeared to be on the cusp of decrypting the evidence to solve an ancient puzzle, looters plundered the desolate site, and the political chaos in Egypt seems to ensure that the scientists will not be going back anytime soon"

It seems that anything that can be moved, dug up, pryed off, or chipped away, has a price on the black market.

Read the entire article here.

The Muslim Brotherhood in a Post-Mubarak Egypt

"The Muslim Brotherhood (known in Arabic as al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen) is Egypt's oldest and largest Islamist organization. Founded in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, it is widely considered the world's most influential Islamist organization, with numerous branches and affiliates". -Jayshree Bajoria, Senior Staff Writer for The Council of Foreign Relations


Now that Mubarak is out of power, what does the future hold for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt?  How will this affect Egypt's relationship with the United States and Europe?  Now that democratic elections are underway in Egypt, how will the relatively moderate Muslim Organization fair?

Below is a video of Ed Husain, senior fellow at The Council on Foreign Relations, discussing the Muslim Brotherhood's role in the "new Egypt".

Here is a link to The Council on Foreign Relations' website providing a comprehensive overview of the history of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In addition here is an informative piece on the Brotherhood's role in the revolution from PBS Frontline

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Dr Zahi Hawass

Dr. Zahi Hawass is the current Secretary General of The Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt.  He stepped down from this position because of his close ties to the Mubarak regime; however, he returned to the position less than a month later.

As a larger than life personality, he is never far from controversy.

Here he is in 2009 discussing his role in managing the tourist crowds, his relationship to the pyramids, and copy-righting the pyramids.



In 2007 he appeared on Al Jazeera to discuss Egypt's policy on stolen artifacts.


More recently, he was interviewed by CNN on the telephone describing what was looted and destroyed in the Cairo Museum during the protests.


As it turns out, Dr. Hawass now admits that looting and thievery is more widespread and more of a serious problem than he originally stated.

Dr. Hawass has posted on his blog a list of sites and antiquities that are in danger of being damaged.

NYT Videos

Mark Lynch Interview on NPR

Fresh Air with Terry Gross at NPR.org has an interesting interview with George Washington University political scientist Marc Lynch online.

The topic, Why Libya matters to the future of the Middle East's future, focuses on recent events in Libya, but he also sheds light on the upheavals in North Africa and Egypt. Fascinating stuff!

Here is an excerpt:

Gross: Now in Egypt everybody was calling it like the Twitter/Facebook revolution. How has the role of Al-Jazeera been changing in terms of its importance in covering these revolutions and uprisings?

Prof. Mark LYNCH: I think you have to look at them altogether because what's happened is that the overall information environment has completely changed. So you have the social media, Facebook, Twitter, all the new media, and those have been really important for building connections among activists, for allowing the uploading onto YouTube, of user-generated videos and all that sort of thing.

Al-Jazeera itself very enthusiastically and aggressively moved into the new media space. And so when they were unable to cover events from the ground in Tunisia or Iraq or, you know, all kinds of places where they were banned by authoritarian regimes, they were able to discover people they could interview, they could find videos and all kinds of content that they could use and bring online.

Listen to the entire interview here or read the transcript here.

Wings over the Pyramids: Will Egypt's Treasures Survive? On view April 4—May 4, 2011

San Francisco, CA--The University Museum at San Francisco State University proudly presents the exhibition: Wings over the Pyramids, from April 4—May 4, 2011.

Wings over the Pyramids features modern and historic photography documenting the effects of pollution and urbanization on Egypt’s cultural monuments. The works on display range from 1930's aerial photographs of the Giza Pyramids to modern satellite images taken over Egypt. West of the River Nile, the Giza Plateau is the site of some of the most important and astonishing monuments of the ancient world. 

Through photographs, this exhibition will explore issues such as dam construction, Cairo's rapid urbanization, uncontrolled pollution, and population growth and how these conditions have had a cumulative and deleterious effect on Egypt's pyramids and monuments. Also explored is the impact of the 2011 Revolution on Egypt’s museums and archaeological sites. 

In addition, artifacts from the University's Egyptian collection will be on view in the gallery. Issues of museum conservation and provenance will be examined through selected objects relating to the religious and every-day lives of the ancient Egyptians. In addition, visitors can view the mummified remains of priest Nes-Per-N-Nub and a rare, triple-nested sarcophagus from the University Museum's Sutro Egyptian Collection.
The exhibition is open to the public 11:00 to 4:00, Monday through Friday, April 4-May 4. Note: SFSU Admission is free. 

The museum is located in the Humanities Building 510
corner of Font and Tapia on the San Francisco State University campus.

Museum Studies Program
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94132
museumst@sfsu.edu
www.sfsu.edu/~museumst

This is reposted from the California Historical Society's blog  

(Thanks Rachel www.californiahistoricalsociety.org)

The Nile

It may be easy to think about Egypt's politcal change occuring in a vacum.  However, let's not forget that Egypt is a global nation, with close ties to Europe, the United States and the rest of Afirca.  One tangible connection between Egypt and the rest of Africa to the south is the Nile River.  The Nile is such a strong symbol of Egypt, that it is easy to forget that it flows through eight other countries, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia. Zaire, Kenya, Tanzanian, Rwanda, and Burundi.

With this in mind, Egypt's political change will not doubt have an impact on water use issues.  In a region where water is scarse, who controls the nile will no doubt be a conplicated topic.

In July 2010, Reuters blogger, Barry Malone, asked if the water issues in this region could lead to violence?

His post was written pre-revolution, but it brings up some interesting issues.  It is definetly worth the read. 

First Election since Mubarak has stepped down

"Elated that for the first time in their lives every ballot mattered, Egyptians flocked to the polls in record numbers on Saturday to vote in a referendum on a package of constitutional amendments that will shape the country’s political future after Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow". 
-NEIL MacFARQUHAR and MICHAEL SLACKMAN

Published: March 19, 2011

Read the rest of the article at Euphoric, Egyptians Vote on Future

and

Click here for and amazing slide show of the days historic events also from the New York Times

18 Days in 2011

Follow the link below for a comprehensive and interactive graphic timeline of the major events that occurred during the Egyptian uprising.  For 18 days, beginning January 25th, 2011, the Egyptian people told their government and the world that they were fed up with Mubarak's reign of power.    

Timeline of Egyptian Protests via CNN.com

Tourist sites are once again open for business, Tahrir square a big draw

"Many tourist sites in and around Cairo are open again — from the pyramids to the Khan el-Khalili souk to the Egyptian Antiquities Museum. But these days the most sought-after photo is not one of Tutankhamen’s mask but of Tahrir (Liberation) Square, a mammoth traffic circle the world had stared at for three weeks on television. Named after Egypt’s 1919 liberation from the British, Tahrir Square is a top destination for many of the Western tourists who have begun trickling into Egypt in recent days". 


~New York Times travel writer, Jennifer Conlin From here article titled "Tahrir Square, Egypt's Newest Tourist Draw" published Febuary 25th 2011.  

Tahrir Square, Egypt's Newest Tourist Draw (Click for link to article).