Al-Ahram Weekly | Heritage | The museum that never was

It has emerged that valuable items stored in a "safe" antiquities depository in the Cairo suburb of Maadi disappeared years ago -- and their existence, and loss, was known only to antiquities staff. Jill Kamil tells the whole story

The return of 79 ancient artefacts to their homeland made headlines this week. The pre- dynastic items were robbed from a storehouse in Maadi in 2002.

I was not at all surprised to hear this news. Nor was I surprised when several Maadi residents and friends telephoned me to ask: What museum? Where was it? Why had they never heard of a museum in Maadi?

As it happens, the "museum" concerned is located immediately to the east of the Satellite Station on the road that extends from Maadi to the Autostrad. Modern high-rises to the north have been raised on what was once valuable archaeological ground, but here, to the south, in a kharaba (waste land with accumulated rubbish), and with no more than a broken barbed-wire fence to protect it, stands the professed Maadi museum. Over the last half century I have witnessed the disappearance of this major predynastic site to urban development, and almost total lack of interest on the part of the authorities regarding the antiquities housed in what was originally a dig-house.

I first visited the so-called Maadi museum with the late Egyptologist Abdel-Moneim Abu Bakr back in the 1960s, when most of Digla Al-Maadi was desert. An unpaved track led to a delightful, single-storey building approached by a gateway beyond which was a small sandstone pyramid -- the only indication that this was an archaeological site. There to greet us was Ibrahim Rizkana who, between 1930 and 1933, had extensively excavated two nearby predynastic necropolises under the supervision of Mustafa Amer, in cooperation with Cairo University and the German Institute of Archaeology. Rizkana described the Maadi site with enthusiasm.

The site was first excavated in 1918, and the results became public in a report to the International Congress of Geography in 1925. Three years later, following a visit of famed Egyptologist J. Lucas, and his identification of three specific areas of predynastic settlement along the east bank of the Nile, the geography department of Cairo University, in collaboration with the German Institute of Archaeology, decided to initiate a project for their investigation. Maadi was chosen as the trial project.

No fewer than 11 archaeological missions were carried under the directorship of various Egyptian and foreign pre-historians, who concluded that here was a vitally important, indeed unique, predynastic site. It was strategically situated at the apex to the Delta, at a location that was ideal for contacts with Upper and Lower Egypt, and with western Asia through the isthmus of Suez. Excavations revealed the existence of a cluster of Neolithic and predynastic settlements in locations where there was plenty of drinking water and where, situated as it was on a terrace at the fringe of the desert, it was safe from high floods. The Maadians, as Rizkana called them, were well placed for trade. He asserted that excavations showed the community practised agriculture, domesticated animals, and manufactured pottery and stone vases, some of which resembled distinctive Palestinian pottery, which suggested it might have been imported.

When the preliminary reports first appeared they engendered more interest, especially when further excavations proved to be so rewarding. That was when the original dig-house was expanded to lodge the found objects in showcases. What became known as the "main magazine" contained collections of animal bones, organic matter and pottery from the site, as well as lithic artefacts, woven fabrics, and tooth and shell ornaments. Huge storage jars ( pithoi ) were placed in a special basement area.

The Maadi site proved to be more elaborate and complex than other predynastic sites in Lower Egypt, and it was concluded that here was a community of ancient traders who lived about 4000 BC. It was a stratified society, as indicated by the fact that some settlers lived in rectangular houses with subterranean shelters, storage pits and sunken storage jars, while others lived in oval huts. Interestingly, the houses and huts were concentrated in the centre of the settlement, while the storage facilities were around its edge. Three subterranean houses of various shapes were also found, some of which appear to have been domed and covered with matting, and, since such houses were not common in Egypt but have been found at several sites in southern Palestine, this led some scholars to conclude what they had earlier discerned -- that these were actually the houses of foreigners in Maadi.

Full documentation of the site by specialists in the fields of natural sciences, pottery, lithic industries, non-lithic objects, and cemeteries appeared in four volumes published by the German Archaeological Institute. Work came to an abrupt halt during World War II, when the western section of the site was transformed into a military camp and other structures. The work of German missions was halted, and the area was to remain inaccessible to archaeologists through to the 1952 Revolution -- apart from a short season's work by A. Badawi, who discovered a "very ancient stone building".

Meanwhile, the dig-house/museum was protected because Rizkana voluntarily undertook to act as custodian and, with the help of colleagues, compiled an excellent Guide to the On-site Museum at Maadi. This was a serious endeavour with full details of the contents of each object in each cabinet. It was not published (I still have the draft copy in my possession). It had been written in the conviction that the building would be developed and opened to the public. All that was needed, Rizkana said, was to repaint the small but attractive buildings, clean out the showcases, carry out a little landscaping of the grounds, improve the entrance, and provide staff to clean the buildings and maintain the garden. Rizkana made every effort to draw government attention to the site, but to no avail. When I visited him in the 1970s he had become extremely frustrated. "This museum could be developed at so little cost," he said.

In fact, when Egyptians took over the French-run Antiquities Service after the Revolution (as the Department of Antiquities), they had more pressing matters to attend to. Some of their decisions, considered in retrospect, were not always wise. For example, some 19th-century architectural gems and historic buildings and palaces provided an easy solution to the lack of school premises, and so, with no consideration for their historical and architectural worth, royal rest-houses and palaces were transformed into schools. When a law was implemented allowing for the speedy disposal of art collections belonging to the disposed aristocracy, it drew serious criticism from cultured Egyptians who attended auctions and were appalled as they watched priceless collections being broken up, and a unique opportunity to possess treasures of nations, other than their own, lost.

As for predynastic burial grounds -- well, the attitude of Egyptian scholars in the early years of the revolution could be summarised in the words of the charismatic Egyptologist Abdel-Moneim Abu Bakr, who said that there were so many marvellous material remains of the Pharaonic period that the Antiquities Department had more than enough to cope with. His words reflected what had come to be a chronic lack of interest in the predynastic period.

Rizkana waited in vain for attention to be given to the Maadi museum, but it never was. Not even after he passed away and I assumed that something would be done about developing/ and protecting it. An aged and illiterate bawab (doorkeeper) and his family remained on the site and they did what they could to keep out intruders. And when the bawab died, his surviving relatives were told that they could no longer live in the shack on the premises. They were instructed to make their home elsewhere.

Over successive years, I watched the gate fall to pieces. The barbed-wire fence round the site survived only in part. I contacted the Antiquities Department to see what was being done, only to be told that the property belonged to Cairo University, and that it was up to them to protect it. I contacted the university but found it impossible to trace anyone at that worthy institution who knew about the site, let alone showed interest in protecting or developing it.

In the mid-1980s I learnt that the Egyptian Antiquities Organisation (EAO), in cooperation with the University of Cairo, and the German Institute of Archaeology, had resumed a sampling of various predynastic sites on the east bank of the Nile. The stone building excavated by Badawi had been cleared, and the adjacent area excavated with view to clarifying its stratigraphic relationship to the surrounding settlement. No attention was given to the museum. I did note, however, that the gate had been repaired, and was closed. I walked into the grounds through a broken part of the barbed- wire fence and found the building much as it had always been, but in a much deteriorated condition. Its windows and doors were locked.

I telephoned Zahi Hawass soon after he took over the post of director-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) in 2002 to ask him what plans were being made to develop the Maadi museum. And I must say that I was somewhat taken aback by his response -- he said that plans would soon go ahead to demolish the present buildings and construct an "appropriate" state-of-the-art predynastic museum in its place.

Then, not long afterwards, I saw a sign near the non-existent path leading to the gate. It read "Police". I wondered why. Now I know. That was obviously after an inventory of the contents of the museum had been made, and 370 objects found missing. Now that eighty of them have been retrieved, I wonder what plans are being made to house them?