Zaha Hadid Architects has shown the project office and shopping centre “The Stone Towers” which will construct in capital of Egypt, Cairo.
The Stone Towers by Zaha Hadid Architects
The architect was inspired by samples and structures of ancient Egyptian stone constructions. Lines of northern and southern facades of each tower will be with breakages and ledges that underlines effect of light and a shade on a surface.
Towers will be constructed around Stone Park in Cairo. A total area of 525,000 sq. m.; here business hotel, office and trading spaces, restaurants and cafe will be located.
In collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Egypt's embassy in London, the Ministry of Antiquities succeeded to recover a piece of a column that was stolen and illegally smuggled out of the country many years ago.The recovered piece [Credit: Ahram Online]
Ali Ahmed, head of the Antiquities Repatriation Department, told Ahram Online that the returned piece is carved of sandstone and engraved with a scene depicting the god Amun Re. It was a part of a column found at Tuthmosis hall at Karnak Temple on Luxor's east bank.
The piece was in the gallery of Karnak that was subjected to looting in the aftermath of January 2011 revolution.
The piece is registered in the Ministry of Antiquities official documents and dates back to the 18th dynasty. It is 36cm wide and 29cm tall.
Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty explained that the piece was in the possession in a British citizen who bought it from the market without knowing that it was a stolen piece. Upon his knowledge, the British citizen agreed to return the piece back to Egypt.
The piece is to be sent to the restoration lab of the Egyptian museum for inspection and restoration before returning it to its original position in Karnak.
The Ministry of Antiquities approved the development of the Mons Claudianus archaeological site into an open air museum to exhibit the quarrying process used in Egypt during the Roman era.The Mons Claudianus archaeological site that stretches from the Red Sea to Qena province is to be restored with the view of developing it into an open air museum of Roman era quarrying in Egypt [Credit: Wikimapia]
Mons Claudianus is an area for granite quarries and houses a garrison, a quarrying site, a complete workers settlement with a horse stable and a granite water container.
Fragments of granite items have also been found, along with broken columns and a number of engraved ostraca (broken pottery).
Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty told Ahram Online that during the Roman era, the area was called Granodiorite and it was used as a mine to collect construction materials.
For more than a decade, he was the self-styled Indiana Jones of Egypt, presiding over its antiquities and striding through temples and tombs as the star of TV documentaries that made him an international celebrity.In this June 18, 2015 photo, Zahi Hawass, Egypt's former head of antiquities, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in his office in Cairo. For more than a decade, he was the self-styled Indiana Jones of Egypt, presiding over its antiquities and striding through temples and tombs as the star of TV documentaries that made him an international celebrity. But four years after the 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and nearly ended his own career, Hawass can be found in a cramped office, lamenting the state of the antiquities bureaucracy he once ruled like a pharaoh and dreaming of a new museum whose fate lies in limbo [Credit: AP/Hassan Ammar]
But four years after the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and nearly ended his own career, Zahi Hawass can be found in a cramped Cairo office, lamenting the state of the antiquities bureaucracy he once ruled like a pharaoh and dreaming of a new museum whose fate lies in limbo.
His trademark wide-brimmed hat and safari vest may be hung up for now, but he is brimming with ideas on how to revive Egypt's antiquities and bring back tourists after years of unrest.
A long-planned new facility out by the pyramids, called the Grand Egyptian Museum, was intended to open this year, but the government says it is short the one billion dollars needed to complete the project.
"Government routine cannot work for museums," Hawass said in an interview in his office, asserting that state bureaucracy is one of the main reasons the current Egyptian Museum has fallen into disrepair. For the new museum, "the directorship, the curatorship, it can be from America, from Germany, from England, from any place in the world. You need this museum to be international."
He also says private, international sponsorship is needed.
"If you pay $10,000, I put your name, written on the wall of the museum. If you pay $100,000, I put your name on the facade of the museum. If you build a whole gallery, I will name (the gallery after you)," he said, adding that the government should announce that Egyptian monuments belong to the entire world, not just Egyptians.
As to the challenge of moving artifacts from the current museum in downtown Cairo over bumpy roads to the site of the new facility on the city's outskirts, Hawass says "any TV channel" would pick up the tab in return for exclusive rights to document the artifacts' restoration and transport. "They will run in competition to do this," he said.
Hawass knows TV. He was once a staple on the Discovery Channel and had his own reality show on the History Channel called "Chasing Mummies," the promo for which introduced him by saying "100,000 years of history belong to one man... Only he holds the key to the world's greatest ruins."
The productions earned him droves of fans abroad but led to accusations of grandstanding in Egypt, where he was seen by many as a self-promoter who mistreated subordinates and abused his position for personal gain. He lost his job as head of antiquities after the 2011 uprising and faced corruption charges, of which he was later cleared.
But his swashbuckling antics gave a boost to Egyptian archaeology, with fundraising efforts and international tours of King Tut artifacts generating tens of millions of dollars.
His name is still associated with many of Egypt's most famous digs, including grand discoveries such as the Valley of the Golden Mummies in Bahariya Oasis in 1999 and the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut almost a decade later. He has long campaigned to bring home ancient artifacts spirited out of Egypt during colonial times, and once said he had managed to recover 5,000 pieces.
Zahi was an outspoken supporter of his longtime patron Mubarak, and has praised President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who led the military overthrow of an Islamist president in 2013 and was elected last year. But that support has not translated into an official role other than promotional work for tourism in Egypt.
When asked about the state of antiquities today, Hawass says things have improved over the last year, carefully avoiding direct criticism of anyone in particular. But he points out that there is still theft, mismanagement and corruption - noting two incidents in recent months in which artifacts were found to have been replaced with replicas.
"This did not happen before," he said, adding that in order to prevent such abuses, "we need to restore the people before we restore antiquities," by boosting employees' salaries and providing them with health insurance.
Hawass insisted during the interview that he is focused on writing and has no desire to return to his previous position as head of the country's antiquities. "People come here every day and ask me to come back... I think I did my duty, and it's time for me now to publish all that I discovered."
But at the glitzy launch of his latest book earlier this month at a ceremony at a five-star hotel attended by hundreds of Cairo's elite, he was less guarded about possible ambitions to return.
"Maybe," he said, as a torrent of fans pressed to take photos next to him.
Author: Brian Rohan | Source: The Associated Press [June 30, 2015]
Following diplomatic negotiations, Egypt has succeeded to stop the sale of a unique ancient Egyptian statue at auction hall in Germany.The ivory statue dates from the Late New Kingdom to Early Late Period [Credit: Aton Gallery]
Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty announced that legal procedures and investigations are now taking place in Germany in order to return the statue to its homeland.
Eldamaty told Ahram Online that the statue was discovered in 2008 in Aswan by a Swiss archaeological mission and was stored since in the Elephantine archaeological galleries.
In 2013, the Elephantine galleries were subject to looting and the statue was stolen among other objects.
At the time, the Ministry of Antiquities created a list of the stolen objects and put it on the red list of Interpol, in order to guarantee its return if it appeared in any auction hall or on the antiquities trading market.
Ahmed Ali, head of the repatriation of stolen antiquities section, said that the statue is carved in ivory and depicts a figure holding a gazelle on its shoulders.
Militants tried to attack the ancient temple of Karnak in southern Egypt on Wednesday, with a suicide bomber blowing himself up and two gunmen battling police. No sightseers were hurt in the thwarted assault, but it suggested that Islamic extremists are shifting targets from security forces to the country's vital tourism industry.A suicide bomber blew himself up on Wednesday just steps away from the ancient Egyptian temple in Luxor, a southern city visited by millions of tourists every year, security and health officials said. No tourists were killed or hurt in the late morning attack [Credit: AP]
The violence left the bomber and one gunman dead, the other wounded and arrested, and four other people wounded. The temple was not damaged.
The attackers carried guns in backpacks, and one wore a belt of explosives. They rode in a taxi through a police checkpoint to a parking lot and sat at a cafe and ordered lemonades, witnesses told The Associated Press. The taxi driver, suspicious after they refused his offer to help with the packs, alerted police.
When a policeman approached, the bomber tried to hug him, but the policeman wrestled away. Seconds later, he detonated the explosives, and the others pulled automatic weapons from their bags and opened fire wildly, sending a small group of European tourists running for cover, the witnesses said.
The attack followed one this month outside the famed Giza Pyramids in which gunmen killed two policemen. The violence points to a change in tactics by Islamic militants against the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. For two years, attacks have been centered in the Sinai Peninsula, mostly by a group that has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group and largely focused on retaliation against police and soldiers.
A campaign against tourism, one of the main sources of foreign revenue, could deal a blow to el-Sissi's promises to repair Egypt's economy.
Tourism has just started to show signs of recovery after plunging in the turmoil since the 2011 uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The first five months of this year saw tourism revenues up 9 percent from the same period last year, Tourism Minister Khaled Ramy said.
Ramy said he expects the slow recovery to continue despite the attack, and he underscored how police had thwarted it.
"Security forces were there. It's a very important message to everyone," he told the AP on a flight from Cairo to Luxor.
Mohammed Sayed Badr, the governor of Luxor province, said the attack was "an attempt to break into the temple of Karnak."
"They didn't make it in," he said.
But witnesses noted it was civilian bystanders who alerted police to the threat.
A crowd looks on at the site of a suicide bombing, near Karnak Temple in Luxor, Egypt, Wednesday, June 10, 2015 [Credit: AP]
Karnak, one of Egypt's biggest attractions, is a giant complex of temples, statues, obelisks and columns built by pharaonic dynasties alongside the Nile. The oldest sections date back nearly 4,000 years.
Access to the site is through a gate and a roadblock, leading to a parking lot and visitors' center hundreds of yards from the ancient structure, which is reachable only on foot.
The waiter who served the men said only one spoke to him and had an accent from northern Egypt, while the others stopped talking when he approached. When they paid their bill, he said he refused to take their tip.
"They looked scary. ... One of them had really bad eyes," said the waiter, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Ikrami, for fear of problems with police for talking to the media.
Another cafe employee, Abdel-Nasser Mohammed, said the taxi driver reported his suspicions about the men to police. As the three walked away, a policeman approached them, leading to the tussle between the officer and the bomber, Mohammed said.
The bomber triggered the blast near a public restroom, and the other two opened fire. One ran toward the visitors' center, and a policeman shot him in the head, Mohammed said.
Tourist shop owner Sheik Ahmed Abdel-Mawgoud said he been standing near the restroom only seconds before the blast.
"When the explosion happened, I ran for cover and told my friend, a tour guide, to run with the tourists with him. I screamed at him, 'Terrorism!'" he told the AP. h The exchange of fire with police lasted several minutes, witnesses said, and two policemen were among the wounded.
Only a handful of tourists and Egyptians were in the temple at the time, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
AP video of the scene showed what was believed to be the remains of the bomber covered with a black sheet with pools of blood nearby.
The monument "is safe and unaffected and visitors continue to arrive," temple director Mohammed Abdel-Aziz told the AP. Four groups of foreigners visited after the attack.
There was no claim of responsibility, but the attack bore the hallmarks of Islamic militants who have operating in the Sinai Peninsula.
Egyptian security officials stand guard as tourists visit the ruins of the Karnak Temple in Luxor, Egypt, Wednesday, June 10, 2015 [Credit: Hassan Ammar/AP]
Last year, the main Sinai-based insurgent group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, which has destroyed archaeological landmarks in Syria and Iraq, viewing them as idolatrous.
The violence in Sinai accelerated and spread to other parts of Egypt following the 2013 military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. The militants say the attacks are in retaliation for a massive crackdown on Islamists in Egypt.
A senior security official said investigators are looking to see whether the Luxor attackers are Egyptians and whether it marks an expansion of the violence to southern Egypt, which was a breeding ground for the militants of the 1990s and 2000.
In the 1990s, Islamic militants targeted tourism to try to undermine the economy. The deadliest attack was in Luxor in November 1997, 58 people were killed at the 3,400-year-old Hatshepsut Temple.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters, said the new breed of militants were unknown to the authorities. But he said the latest attack was a qualitative shift in the militants' target.
The attack coincided with a major regional economic summit, hosted by el-Sissi at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Luxor is home to some of Egypt's most famous ancient temples and pharaonic tombs, including that of King Tutankhamun. The city has been one the sites hit hardest by the sharp downturn in foreign visitors since the 2011 uprising.
Before the turmoil, tourism accounted for as much as 20 percent of Egypt's foreign currency revenues, with as a high of 14.7 million visitors in 2010.
After the uprising, those numbers plunged to 9.6 million, and then fell lower in 2013 after Morsi's ouster. Tourists have been coming back slowly, with revenues jumping to $4 billion so far this year, compared with $1.9 billion in the same period in 2014.
Beach resorts in southern Sinai and along the Red Sea coast have drawn most of the visitors, with cultural sites like Luxor seeing only a trickle. Most tourists in the searing heat of the summer months come to Luxor only for a one-day trip from the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.
Wednesday's attack is likely to result in cancellations in bookings for Luxor, although the blow is cushioned by the fact that it is low season and most tourists stay away until October.
Three major German operators, TUI Deutschland, the Germany branch of Thomas Cook and L'TUR, said they are temporarily canceling excursions to Luxor, but stressed that most of their customers are at Red Sea resorts or on Nile cruises.
"We have no reason to advise against traveling to Egypt at the present time, since the German Foreign Ministry hasn't changed its security guidance," said L'TUR spokesman Thomas Pluennecke. "But, as a precaution, we have stopped all excursions to Luxor. Of course we take the situation seriously."
Authors: Sarah el Deeb & Haggag Salama | Source: The Associated Press [June 10, 2015]
Police have arrested two curators of a new Cairo museum for allegedly stealing ancient artefacts and replacing them with replicas, the antiquities ministry said on Wednesday.An Egyptian soldier walks between replica of pharaonic statues placed at the site of Egypt's new Museum [Credit: AFP]
Looting of the country's cultural heritage has increased since the popular uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and during the years of political turmoil that followed.
The huge National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation was created in collaboration with UNESCO and has yet to open to the public.
"Two curators were arrested while replacing a pharaonic statue of (fourth dynasty) King Menkaure, discovered in Luxor's Karnak temple, and an ancient Islamic lantern with fake ones," Antiquities Minister Mamdouh al-Damati said in a statement.
The arrests came following a police investigation into ancient Islamic artefacts being stolen from the museum's storage area and later being put up for auction in London.
A ministry committee will make an inventory of the "priceless" collection that includes artefacts from prehistoric times to the present day, the statement added.
Switzerland has returned 32 cultural treasures dating from the Pharaonic and Roman periods to the Egyptian Embassy in Bern, the Federal Office of Culture announced on Monday. The objects had been involved in a cantonal criminal procedure.A selection of the 32 ancient artefacts recently returned to the Egyptian Embassy in Bern [Credit: Swiss Federal Office of Culture]
Four of the pieces are of exceptional rarity, cultural significance and aesthetic quality. These include a bust of a pharaoh wearing a crown, a fragmented stone slab (known as a stele) depicting the patron goddess of Thebes from the era of the New Kingdom (circa 1500−1000 BC), and two architectural fragments with cult scenes from the Roman period (circa 753 BC to 476 AD).
The objects were returned to Egypt in conjunction with the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Federal Act on the International Transfer of Cultural Property. The federal act marked the implementation of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the illegal transfer of cultural goods.
On Tuesday, an international meeting will take place in Bern under the title “The UNESCO Convention of 1970: 10 years of implementation in Switzerland − The preservation of cultural heritage and the duty to care for cultural goods”.
The event will include discussion of the practical enforcement of the act both nationally and internationally, and the effect it has had on museums, archaeologists, art dealers, collectors and government authorities in its first ten years.
A wall relief fragment was hacked out from the 3,850 year-old tomb of Djehutyhotep, according to a Tuesday Facebook statement by the Catholic Leuven University archaeology mission.Close-up view showing scratches made by tomb robbers [Credit: KU Leuven - Egyptologie]
The fragment in question measures 30 by 50 centimeters (12 by 20 inches.) The archaeology mission, currently carrying out excavations where the tomb is located, has posted photos of the wall and the fragment before and after the looting.
“We have since been trying to get reliable information on this matter from the antiquities authorities. The reports we now have are consistent in confirming the grave news that the tomb has been entered and that a relief has been stolen,” said the statement.
Co-founder of Egypt’s Heritage Task Force archaeologist Monica Hanna told The Cairo Post that she first reported the shocking looting and extensive destruction of the tomb on May 11.
The tomb is located in Deir el-Bersha, an archaeological site from the east bank of the Nile to the south of Egypt’s Delta governorate of Minya, according to Hanna.
“A small scene to the east of the entrance has been hacked out. It was damaged already in Newberry’s day (1891-1892), but it still showed the well preserved top part of a man carrying a chest towards Djehutihotep. It was also one of the few reliefs where the head of a figure was still in good condition,” said the statement.
Scene at the tomb showing Djehutyhotep standing and being purified. To the right is a mark showing the fragment reportedly hacked out [Credit: KU Leuven – Egyptologie]
We have no photos at our disposal that confirm what the other walls of the tomb look like, according to the statement.
Deir el-Bersha was the necropolis for the governors of ancient Upper Egypt’s 15th province during the First Intermediate Period (2160B.C.-2040B.C.) and the Middle Kingdom Period (2040B.C-1750B.C.), according to Hanna.
Head of Upper Egypt Antiquities Department Aly el-Asfar has confirmed to the Cairo Post an attempt to loot the tomb but said the attempt was foiled by security forces, saying that the tomb is “sound and safe.”
“The tomb of Djehutyhotep was penetrated earlier this month but the assailants did not take anything from the tomb,” Asfar said, adding that the police forces have arrested the assailants.
Djehutyhotep was most likely a nomarch (province governor) during the reign of the 12th Dynasty Pharaoh Amenemhat II (1922B.C-1878B.C.) all the tombs in the area are badly preserved except for Djehutyhotep’s tomb, which is renowned for the great quality of its decorations.
Author: Rany Mostafa | Source: The Cairo Post [May 26, 2015]
The Tourism and Antiquities Police on Tuesday arrested several men, accusing them of last year having stolen an ancient Egyptian statue from the warehouses of the Memphis archaeological site, near the town of Mit Rahina 20 km outside Cairo, Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty has said.The recovered statue [Credit: Egyptian Ministry of Culture]
The suspects included an archaeological inspector from the site, who stands accused of having stolen the statue from the warehouse, before replacing it with a replica, and illegally smuggling it to Brussels, the minister added.
The ministry managed to retrieve the statue and bring it back to Egypt a few months ago, the minister said.
The suspects are being held in custody pending investigations.
Carved in limestone, the statue depicts a sitting priest and dates back to the Middle Kingdom, between about 2000 and 1700 BC.
In a cultural event held by Alexandrina Bibliotheca on Monday, Ibrahim said the project will be a culturally entertaining one that will completely change tourism in Egypt.
“After the Mediterranean Sea submerged ancient Alexandria as result of an earthquake, excavation works have helped to recover thousands of relics that date back to different historic eras like the pharaonic, Ptolemaic, Romanian and Islamic.”
“Doubles of these relics are still underwater, which led us to think about the first underwater museum in Egypt. According to our designs, it will be a glass one,” he added.
Among the obstacles that face the project, Ibrahim included “the wide areas of submerged antiquities underwater, the necessity of having a large number of archaeological divers to carry out periodic maintenance. Also, ships and sailing boats will be banned from navigating above the museum area.”
Mona Mokhtar, a tour guide who holds a master's degree on maritime museums said, “My master's thesis came down to the fact that 65 percent of tourists in the world look for entertainment, while 10 percent search for culture and 25 percent for other reasons, including treatment.”
“Constructing the first underwater museum in Egypt will be a mix between entertainment and cultural tourism, as it will offer diving and historic information on the story of Egypt's submerged antiquities and the eras they belong to,” Ibrahim said.
Zaha Hadid Architects has shown the project office and shopping centre “The Stone Towers” which will construct in capital of Egypt, Cairo.
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