7 - 13 March 2002
Issue No.576
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 March 2002 Issue No.576 |
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Dancing with Tomb Robbers
In May 1977 my dear friend the late Gamal Mukhtar, then president of the Egyptian Antiquities Organisation, received a telephone call from the director of antiquities in Luxor to say that a statue of the goddess Sekhmet had disappeared from Karnak.
Everyone thought it was a joke. After all, how could a 16-ton statue be stolen? Yet it was! And, of course, many questions were raised. How did the robbers carry out the crime? Where did they get the strength and courage? How did they transport such an enormous monument? Who orchestrated the deed?
We naturally thought that the thieves must have had the help of the guards, and many others besides. Mukhtar called in one of the smartest police officers, General Auda Ahmed. Ahmed went to Luxor to open an investigation and found traces of the removal of the statue. All the police officers and archaeologists in Luxor were told that finding how and where it had been moved was top priority, and all the traffic stations to the north and south of Luxor were placed under close surveillance.
One afternoon, they were on the alert but, meanwhile, sitting and drinking tea, with Auda calling Mukhtar every five minutes to give him updates and everybody feeling particularly helpless. All we could do was wait. Then, suddenly, our prayers were answered. The traffic station at Qena sent good news: they had stopped a truck and recovered the statue, and were bringing it back to its location at the Temple of Mut in Karnak. It seemed the thieves had loaded it onto the truck in full view of the guards.
There are many stories which reveal our constant dancing with tomb robbers. The one I am going to tell you is one of the most interesting, and occurred in 1977 when I first arrived in Giza to take up the position of inspector of antiquities. Just before I took over my post, tomb robbers broke into the Giza storeroom and took some boxes of beautiful artifacts. One of my responsibilities as inspector included organising a guard system at Giza and conducting night inspections at the sites. My driver and friend Omran, who sadly passed away when I was studying in the States, dedicated his life not only to driving but also to protecting antiquities. He used to go to the site with me well after midnight when I inspected the guards to see if they were awake and doing their job.
One day, a man I trusted came to see me and informed me that some people from the village of Nazlet El- Samman were planning to steal a relief from the tomb of Thari at Giza, about four kilometres south of the Sphinx. I went to the police station to arrange for an officer to join me in keeping guard at the tomb that night. But all the officers were busy with other things, and I had to go alone.
Perhaps this was my most exciting adventure. I could not drive through the sand, so I had to go to the tomb alone while Omran stayed asleep in the car. I walked holding a big stick. I could hear nothing except the rustle of the snakes in the sand and my own heartbeat, and I could see the pyramids in the shadow of the moon. I was afraid that one of the tomb robbers would have a gun and shoot me to get the treasure. I have always refused to carry a gun, so my only protection was the spirit of the Pharaoh.
I sat down on the sand a few feet from the tomb and watched, gazing at the moon in the sky. I smiled at the thought that this was not the work of an archaeologist. However, archaeology is in my heart and I knew I would do anything to protect the monuments.
So I sat and waited ... and waited ... and waited until I fell asleep. I woke to the dawn call to prayer. I was shocked to wake out of my dreams and find myself lying in the sand. I went quickly to the tomb and, thank God, nothing had been taken. I walked back to the car and found Omran still snoring, sound asleep. The night had been uneventful.
Such adventures went on until I was able to take action and set up a control system on the Giza plateau. Today I am pleased to see that Egypt is taking more action to protect the monuments and stop tomb robbing. The international community is not only cooperating in catching thieves and putting them in jail, but museums are returning stolen artifacts that have appeared in their collections.
Take, for example, Mantipollo, the director of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and Dorothea Arnold, the head of the Egyptian Department at this museum; they recently returned to Egypt a relief which was stolen from Saqqara about 30 years ago. The then Egyptian consul in New York, Mahmoud Allam, called me in Los Angeles to say that his assistant would accompany me to the FBI building in New York to see the stolen artifacts. He added that he would take the relief from the Metropolitan for exhibition in Cairo's Egyptian Museum. The reunion of artifacts with their guardians was like a feast ... everyone was so happy.
To be continued ...
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