Thursday 15 August 2013

More Details on Damage to Egypt's Mallawi National Museum


Mallawi Museum and its garden on Google Earth (north is at the bottom)
 [27°44'8.10"N  30°50'40.37"E]
Mallawi National Museum in the Upper Egyptian governate of Minya was damaged and looted by rioters during deadly clashes across Egypt reports Nevine El-Aref , ('Egypt's Malawi National Museum damaged, looted', Al;-Ahram Thursday 15 Aug 2013).
During Wednesday’s clashes, pro-Morsi protesters allegedly broke into the museum property, adjacent to the town police station and the Mallawi council building, and announced their sit-in in the museum’s garden, said the antiquities ministry in a statement issued on Thursday. Security guards were beaten and injured by some protesters who were attempting to break into the museum building, a security guard who preferred to remain anonymous told Ahram Online. The pro-Morsi protesters tore down the museum’s internal gate and broke into its halls, damaging and stealing some of its treasured artefacts. The looters also br[oke] down the museum surveillance cameras and robbed some of the station[e]ry of the museum administrative department, according to the statement. No police were reportedly present at the museum, said the same anonymous source.
An archaeological committee is inspecting the losses and identifying the number of stolen artefacts to provide a list of the missing objects. The Malawi National Museum internal gate has now been restored to its original position. It would seem that this is less a case of looting the museum specifically to profit from the sale of the antiquities as the museum being unprotected in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Meanwhile:
"Despite such incident, antiquities minister Mohamed Ibrahim decided to open all museums and archaeological sites as normal but will close two hours earlier than usual, except for the Malawi National Museum, which will remain closed".
UPDATE 15th August 2013:
The usually well-informed "Luxor Times" blog has the following information:
1040 objects were stolen out of 1089 objects on display on Mallawi museum in Minia which was looted yesterday. Most if the rest if the big size statues were damaged as looters couldn't transfer them. Another sad day for the Egyptian heritage.
Last night it was reported that some wooden sarcophagi remained in the building too, but the museum building itself was on fire, but this has not yet been confirmed.

FURTHER UPDATE 15th August 2013:
Sadly the confirmation was not long coming, see  here:
Unfortunately, all objects which were not stolen were completely burnt last night mounting for around 49 objects including a mummy. Currently, the number of looted objects are 1050. The Ministry of Antiquities (MSA) is announcing a campaign to retrieve the objects and offering compensation for those who will return the objects and no police follow-up.
Partnership with the looters, like the Portable Antiquities Scheme?

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