Cairo, March 12: The Union of Arab Archaeologists has called on the Egyptian caretaker government to save the African country’s historical monuments and artifacts.
Head of the Union Ali Radwan announced on Saturday that several artifact storehouses and museums had been recently robbed and the ancient civilization’s cultural heritage is facing a serious threat.
More than 3,000 Arab archaeologists serve as members of the union attended an urgent board meeting to discuss the possible ways to protect Egyptian monuments, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported.
According to the statement, the union will fully cooperate with the Egyptian government to prevent the cultural heritage loss.
Egyptian Television has also cited the former head of the country’s Supreme Council of Antiquities Abdel Halim Nour as saying that historical and cultural sites face unprecedented organized thefts.
Nour also claimed that the robbery in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum had been pre-planned because people who broke in during the January 25 uprising headed directly to the Tutankhamen relics in spite of the darkness inside the building.
Looters attacked some ancient sites and museums while Egypt was rocked by unprecedented demonstrations against President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year-rule.
Some 70 objects including two mummified skulls from the Late Period were destroyed when protesters set the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), near Cairo’s Egyptian Museum, on fire.
Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities Zahi Hawass also announced that 18 objects were stolen from the museum including 11 wooden Shabti statuettes from Yuya.
The most important missing piece from the Egyptian Museum might be a limestone statue of Akhenaton holding an offering table.
The two-storey Egyptian Museum houses tens of thousands of historical objects in its galleries and storerooms, including most of the King Tutankhamen collection.
—–Agencies