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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 February - 3 March 1999 Issue No. 418 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 February - 3 March 1999 Issue No. 418
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Special display for lost and found
By Nevine El-Aref
Valuable historical sites throughout Egypt continue to be plundered and illegal smuggling abroad is on the increase. But fortunately, so too are the efforts of the security police to put a stop to the thefts. "This week an exhibition of the police's own "art work" opens in the Egyptian Museum, displaying 155 retrieved objects. They range from large statues to tiny scarabs and date back to the Old Kingdom, Graeco-Roman, Coptic and Islamic periods," said Gaballa Ali Gaballa, general secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).
Just as remarkable as the pieces which have been recovered are the stories of how some of them were stolen and found in the first place.
Take the former British cavalry officer who smuggled a bronze statue by painting it with plaster so it looked like a replica. Or the camel-riding thieves who dragged the one-ton head of a statue of Ramses II -- which they cut off -- across 120 km of wasteland.
A collection of wooden boats with sailors are among the retrieved objects on display in the Egyptian Museum
Some items were found in the possession of thieves in their homes while others were recovered at the airport.
It is one thing to look at a beautiful object from artistic and historical viewpoints (and this exhibition is a visual feast), but it becomes even more exciting to learn about the story behind them.
One collection stopped at Cairo Airport two years ago included a head of Amenhotep III, numerous models of river craft complete with sailors that date to the Middle Kingdom, marble vessels of the Old Kingdom, some fine examples of Islamic metalwork including lamps, Coptic textiles and Graeco-Roman coins.
Three people were involved in the theft of this priceless trove -- an American plus two Egyptian airport employees. One was a tax official and the other a customs officer. They packed the treasures in huge crates weighing 240 kg and duly stamped them with a forged American Embassy seal.
All might have gone well for the thieves had it not been for alert airport police who noticed that among the many crates bearing the embassy stamp, there was one that seemed unusual. They took the crate and, with the approval of the American Embassy and the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, opened it. It proved to be one of the biggest hordes of antiquities ever retrieved in Egypt. The items are on display in several showcases.
Ex-British cavalry officer, Jonathan Tokeley-Parry, tried to pull the wool over the eyes of customs officials by painting his stolen booty with plaster. The imaginative Briton restored and traded in ancient Egyptian objects from his home in north Devon. Thirty-five artifacts were stolen from the Saqqara necropolis and the tomb of Hetep-Ka, 10 kms south of Giza. The haul included a false door, three heads of Hetep-Ka wearing a wig, a bust of Queen Maryete, a magnificent bronze statue of the god Horus and an unidentifiable royal head in granite. There was also 27 papyri stolen from a storeroom of the British mission excavating in north Saqqara and a collection of precious stones.
How did Tokeley-Parry succeed in his mission? Himself a professional restorer, he used his expertise to disguise the objects beneath a layer of plaster to make them appear as either fake or copies of antiquities produced by the Documentation Centre and sold throughout the country as genuine replicas.
Once back in England, Tokeley-Parry tried to sell the papyri to the British Museum. But a keen-eyed curator immediately recognised that it was part of a collection found in 1966 in the North Saqqara animal necropolis by a British mission under Walter Emery.
The Museum contacted the Egyptian Embassy in London, the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the Tourist Police and Scotland Yard. Investigations were carried out and the clues led to Tokeley-Parry and his mates-in-crime. All the stolen pieces were retrieved, and some have been returned to Egypt where they are on exhibition. The rest will be returned next month. Tokeley-Parry became the first person convicted by the British Supreme Court of smuggling ancient Egyptian antiquities. He is now serving a six-year jail sentence in England.
Perhaps the most remarkable of the objects on show is also the largest - the head of Ramses II which was removed from the body of one of the sphinxes lining the entrance to El-Sebua temple in Nubia. It is exhibited lying on the ground, on its side, at the entrance to the hall on a bed of sand.
The story of the theft reads like a comical detective yarn. Four thieves on three camels made their way in the dead of night to the isolated temple in Nubia built by Ramses II. There stood six statues of the pharaoh in the shape of sphinxes, wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. Using an electric saw with a small generator, a metal bar and a wooden hammer, the thieves set about separating the head from the body.
Complete with the double crown, the block was two metres tall and weighed more than a ton. This was obviously far too heavy to be carried by one camel, so the thieves continued to dismember their spoils. They separated the crown from the head, divided it into two, placed each of the three pieces on a camel, and bore the pitiful remains of Ramses II's head to the nearest paved road, 120 km away. There a lorry piled with fruit and vegetable boxes was awaiting them.
The head was initially hidden on a farm belonging to one thief in Baltim in the Delta where it remained for eight months. It was later moved to the house of another thief in Sanabu, a village near Assiut, and concealed beneath floor-boards that were covered with fruit and vegetable boxes.
Slowly, news circulated that genuine objects of great value were up for sale. A police officer, who went undercover as a potential buyer, made contact with the sellers. Just as the deal was about to be clinched, the police burst in and caught the thieves red-handed. After the exhibition, the head will be taken back to El-Sebua temple and placed in position.
France -- a country with a love of all things Egyptian -- also features in a smuggling saga. A stolen granite bust of Amun-Re, great god of Thebes, was shipped to France, where photographs were distributed among potential buyers. One was an Egyptologist who had worked with the French mission in Egypt and he immediately recognised it as one of the objects excavated. He feigned an interest in buying the piece, said he wanted to inspect it, and then called the French police and the Egyptian Embassy in France. They went to the smuggler's house and caught him with the goods just before the deal was made.
Another statue of Amun-Re was found in the possession of an Egyptian living in Basatin in Greater Cairo. The thief wrapped it in cloth and placed it in a bag, but his manner aroused the curiosity of a policeman on duty. He searched the bag and out dropped the head of the god.
In 1996, there was the much-publicised story of the man who spent the night in the Egyptian Museum with a view to taking out precious items of the Tutankhamun collection when the doors opened next morning. He was stopped before his mission was accomplished. But in 1992 there was a similar case of a man hiding in a coffin who did get away with some treasures. Several items including a small statue of Seti I, which is now on show, were retrieved.
Finally, we have the case of the farmer who was cultivating his land in Zagazig, and came up with more than some sweet potatoes. What he found was a New Kingdom statue of a woman with a child at her breast and two children on her lap. It is uncertain as to whether he tried to sell it and failed, but he handed it over to the authorities and declared that he had found it by chance. It is, in any case, a remarkable piece. Mohamed El-Shimi, general director of the Egyptian Museum said that, all these items on display have been restored before being exhibited.
The exhibition will be officially opened at early next month on the first floor of the museum (Room 44).
