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Major archaeological discovery in Egypt. . .in museum basement
Egyptian archaeologists have been taking a break from the sun lately to excavate the hidden depths of the national museum in Cairo, reports Archaeology News. They're refurbishing The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities before opening a bigger museum near the pyramids at Giza. Part of the project is to go through all the poorly recorded artifacts that have been languishing in the basement since they were excavated decades ago.
They've recently found nine artifacts that don't appear in museum records, including stones with hieroglyphs and a sacred table to make offerings to the gods.
This isn't the first time new old stuff has turned up in the museum. Random bits that have come the museum's way over the years that archaeologists have considered possible fakes have traditionally been buried in the museum's garden. These are now being dug up again and examined.
While the whole thing sounds ridiculous (and is) this former archaeologist is cautiously optimistic that a new day is dawning for the Egyptian Museum. When I was there in 1991, a little baksheesh (tip/bribe) to a guard got me a tour of the back rooms. Rows of dusty wooden crates stuffed with artifacts stood unstudied on shelves. Their labels were yellowed and faded, and many had drifted to the floor to crunch like autumn leaves underfoot, leaving the crates and the artifacts they contain cut off from any record of where they had been found.
Archaeology in Egypt is getting more serious than it was in those dark days. Dedicated professionals like Dr. Zahi Hawass are fighting bureaucracy, corruption, and poor funding to give Egypt's past the respect it deserves. Here's hoping they succeed.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Todd K Meadows Jul 26th 2009 3:21PM
Happy to hear about the museum's find, but this is not unusual for museums with vast collections. Many things get lost just as they would in one's over-packed garage, or items are not cataloged properly.
In one instance, my former father-in-law helped a well known natural history museum find a valuable piece that was improperly listed in the collection. Although he was not overly educated, he had a keen interest and knowledge of archery and cross bows. While interested in seeing a Ming-dynasty cross-bow trigger, he had to look through the museum's photo records only to find the item listed as jewelry.
After explaining the function of the object, and its provenance -- the object was moved from storage to the Chinese exhibit.
It's similar to Antiques Road Show when these things happen.
Sean McLachlan Jul 26th 2009 3:26PM
One of the reasons the Pitt Rivers took so long to reopen
http://www.gadling.com/2009/05/21/museum-junkie-england-s-most-unique-museum-reopens/
is that as they were refurbishing they discovered that not everything was cataloged, and so they had to go through the entire collection to make sure everything was recorded correctly.
Cool anecdote about the crossbow. It wasn't one of the famous repeating ("automatic") crossbows, was it?
Todd K Meadows Jul 27th 2009 7:04AM
Not a repeating cross bow in this case. However, he did perfect one with clip on magazines, and a pump action. The only fault in that was, you really needed to stay away from the trigger while reloading with pump action.
Sean McLachlan Jul 26th 2009 4:00PM
Because the trigger would ratchet back, I suppose? Or because you could accidentally shoot the quarrel into the mechanism? The Tower of London has a Chinese repeating crossbow in its collection. I'd love to see one in action (from the right end, of course).
jk Jul 26th 2009 7:31PM
I remember being there (1992, I recall) and seeing how the mummies were basically on top of each other. If you looked closely, you could see through some of the wrappings too... we thought that was cool but not very respectful. We didn't get into any back rooms, however...
KJ Morris Jul 27th 2009 5:14AM
One of the worst cases I've come across was in a major museum institution in Wash. D.C. After 6 - 7 mos of trying to get permission to photograph artifacts that had been removed from a country I was then working for I arrive at the museum to find no one available to give me physical access to the collections. It went down hill from there. When I finally got to the artifacts I found that after 30 years the only thing that had been done with them was to put them in a drawers (they had been removed in 1950s). Some weren't even accessioned, assigned catalog numbers, photographed or described. In addition to the artifacts the museum 'archaeologists' had cut a huge section out of the middle of the shipwreck that the artifacts had come from & shipped the whole thing back to the States where it was promptly lost in the museum. Since the artifacts like the section of ship had come from a marine environment most were in bad shape because no conservation had been done. The 'excavation' was even covered by Nat. Geo. About 2 years after my visit to the museum I heard from the new curator (a personal friend) that the ship section had been found still crated up in a storage facility. And this is in a country with lots of $$? Remember the end of the 1st Indiana Jones movie? It's no joke. I left the field 'bout 10 yrs ago. I hope things are getting better.
Grant Martin Jul 27th 2009 9:19AM
I'm not surprised, The Cairo Museum is such a crap bag. Looking forward to the new museum opening up in Giza, what they've currently got is completely unacceptable.