[CPProt.net] Egypt: Can the new antiquities law put an end to the antiquities trafficking business?

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

New law on the way
Can the new antiquities law put an end to the antiquities trafficking
business? Nevine El-Aref looks at the issues 

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/766/he1.htm
A coloured anthropoid sarcophagus recovered from Switzerland 
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Grave robbing has thrived in Egypt from the days of the ancients. The tombs
of royals and the elite were most at risk, since they contained great riches
in the form of valuable funerary objects including gold jewellery and
domestic objects inlaid with precious stones, alabaster and faience. Even
the graves of the poor, however, were prey to robbery for the sake of the
meagre offerings and adornments entombed with the deceased.

Despite the curse-invoking texts engraved on tomb walls, certain
architectural steps taken to prevent theft, severe punishments and warnings
that robbers would be judged by the gods in the afterlife, grave robbers
continued to plunder tombs.

Robberies reached a peak in Roman times. Many ancient Egyptian monuments and
other objects were smuggled from their original location to Europe,
especially to Rome. Rome currently houses 15 ancient Egyptian obelisks. In
the Middle Ages illicit trade in art and cultural artefacts flourished,
partly because the Crusaders believed ancient Egyptian objects could cure
disease. During the Renaissance, when the world witnessed a massive boom in
art, the demand for antiquities increased to fill palaces all over Europe. 

The Mamluke and Ottoman khedives did not recognise the priceless value of
Egypt's heritage, and readily sent some splendid monuments abroad in
response to the interest shown by Europeans. To mention just a few, the
first collection in the Vienna Museum was granted by Khedive Abbas I and
Said Pasha to the Austrian prince Archidum Maximium, while the obelisk in
the Place de la Concorde in Paris was given to the French King Louis
Philippe by Mohamed Ali Pasha in return for the clock in the Citadel. The
situation went from bad to worse, with the offering of Egyptian antiquities
to foreign governments becoming a diplomatic trend. 

Foreign excavation missions working in Egypt during that time were acting as
antiquities traders. They succeeded in transporting many Egyptian artefacts
to their own countries, creating a great ancient Egyptian collection in the
Louvre, the British Museum and the Berlin Museum, among others. In addition,
applying the division policy on newly- discovered artefacts was another
legal opportunity for foreigners to obtain more ancient artefacts. National
and international laws at that time approved the trading of antiquities, and
one of the Egyptian Museum's galleries was an auction hall where a monthly
antiquities auction was held. After the completion of the Nubia temples
salvage operation, the Egyptian government offered a large number of
monuments to foreign countries in compensation of their efforts. The Dabur
Temple, for example, was given to the Spanish government who reconstructed
it on a hill in the Madrid Museum, while in 1974 the small Dendara Temple
was given to the American president Richard Nixon. The Egyptian government
continued to offer items of its heritage or sold them on the international
market until Law 117/1983 was issued, prohibiting all such activities.
According to this law, all antiquities in Egypt are the property of the
state and their unlawful removal from the country subsequent to that date is
theft.

It was different in the case of foreign countries which allowed the trade of
antiquities. Hence the demand on ancient Egyptian antiquities has increased,
and once again the illicit trade in art and cultural artefacts has increased
dramatically, including the pillaging of archaeological sites and the
illegal export of objects protected by international law by passing them off
as replicas from the Khan Al-Khalili bazaar. Antiquities robbers succeeded
in smuggling many ancient pieces in this way, but over the last decade
Egypt's efforts through diplomatic channels and in cooperation with museums
around the world -- which in some cases were offered as objects for sale, in
others were approached for authentication -- have resulted in the successful
retrieval of several stolen antiquities.

The doors began to creak open for the antiquities flow back home almost 10
years ago, when a British high court convicted a British subject, Jonathan
Tokeley-Parry, of smuggling Egyptian antiquities. The objects in question
were returned to Egypt in two consignments. The first, which arrived two
years ago, comprised 27 papyrus texts in the demotic script dating from 300
BC; 12 Coptic textiles; a sixth-dynasty limestone relief of a seated woman
named Se-Chess-Hat; a terracotta statue of an unknown person; Graeco-Roman
mummy masks; a magnificent bronze statue of the god Horus; an unidentifiable
royal head in granite; coloured reliefs from ancient Egyptian tombs, and
objects from the tomb of Hetep-Ka at Saqqara. The latter included two false
doors, three heads of the nobleman wearing a wig, and a limestone relief
showing a butcher at work. The objects are now on display in Cairo's
Egyptian Museum. 

The second batch of retrieved objects arrived in Egypt in mid-2001, and
included six papyri (one written in Latin and the other five in Greek), and
a limestone head of Queen Nefertari, the beloved wife of Pharaoh Ramses II.
What has also paved the way and gave support for Egypt's continuous efforts
to retrieve works of arts has been the recognition of Egypt's antiquities
law in American courts, after antiquities dealer Frederick Schultz was
indicted on charges of breaking the Egyptian law. He was convicted in a
federal district court in Lower Manhattan for conspiring to smuggle and
possess looted Egyptian artefacts. The judge gave Schultz 33 months, the low
end of the 33 to 41 months he was facing, and said he would request that
Schultz be held at the federal facility in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, where
white-collar criminals often do their time. Schultz was also fined $50,000
-- a fraction of the $575,000 pre-sentencing recommendation -- with the
judge noting that for white collar crimes the real deterrence resided in
jail time. Schultz, who has been ordered to return a relief to Egypt, will
be on probation for two years following his release. Since the Schultz case,
Egypt's smuggled and stolen artefacts have continued to make their way back
home.

When Zahi Hawass became secretary-general of the Supreme Council of
Antiquities (SCA) in 2002, he put the introduction of new security measures
to combat the theft and smuggling of Egyptian antiquities high on his
agenda. He updated security measures and started to catalogue all the
artefacts stored in antiquities depots scattered across Egypt. He also built
33 high-tech storage units in the country, as well as constructing new
national museums. He has provided further training for the staff who guard
Egypt's priceless artefacts. To this end, Hawass has formed the Department
of Retrieving Stolen Artefacts, which comb the websites of international
auction halls in an attempt to identify stolen pieces and demand their
return. This later department has been effective over the last three years
in having stolen artefacts returned to Egypt, such as statues from Karnak
and other temples, two Roman masks and a beautiful relief of King Amenhotep
III. At last, courts around the world are beginning to recognise the
ownership claims of Egypt on their cultural property. Museums and customs
officials all over the world are now repatriating artefacts to their
rightful home. The Michael C Carlos Museum (MCCM) has offered Egypt the
mummy of Pharaoh Ramses I, the grandfather of Egypt's most famous pharaoh,
Ramses II. The mummy is believed to have been looted from the Valley of the
Kings in 1871 and sold to an antiquities dealer. The mummy of Ramses I is
thought to have left Egypt in the hands of a Canadian antiquities collector,
and at the beginning of the 20th century it turned up in Canada's Niagara
Falls Museum. The MCCM later purchased the entire Egyptian collection of the
Niagara Falls Museum, including the mummy.

The recovery of a cache of 300 stolen objects from Switzerland was the
result of a massive antiquities smuggling bust involving the former head of
the National Democratic Party's Giza office, Tarek El-Sweissi, along with 30
other people. The artefacts, which span the spectrum from the prehistoric to
the Pharaonic, Hellenic and Graeco- Roman eras, included two mummies,
several sarcophagi, as well as statues, mummy masks and other items. 

Seven 2,500 year old artefacts at the centre of an alleged smuggling racket
have also been handed over to Egypt by the Australian government. The
artefacts were discovered in Melbourne after the Australian government
agreed to a request from the Egyptian government to help in the global
search for the items. The Egyptian government is currently prosecuting the
alleged perpetrators, and the artefacts will be used as material evidence in
the case. The seven objects include ushabtis (small funerary statuettes), a
bronze axe head, a ceramic bowl and amulets. 

Police have also succeeded in breaking up two major antiquities gangs. Other
security measures have also been taken to tighten antiquities trafficking. A
number of archaeological checking points have been established in every
Egyptian port, and high-tech security systems have been installed in most
archaeological sites. Nevertheless, Egypt's heritage remains a fatal
attraction for antiquity smugglers. Over the last couple of months the
Egyptian Museum basement has been subjected to a theft case, which has
forced the antiquities authorities responsible to make tougher new rules to
combat the smuggling of antiquities.

A draft of a new antiquities law replacing the current one, Law 117/1983, is
now awaiting the approval of the People's Assembly after the coming
legislative elections. According to Hawass: "The old law is no longer
suitable because the penalties it imposes for the crimes of antiquity
trafficking are not strong enough. We need more severe penalties in order to
stop further trafficking."

Ashraf Ashmawi, legal consultant in the SCA, told Al-Ahram Weekly that
changes in the 1983 law focussed on five articles. The first was properly
and legally to identify three main terms -- the SCA's permanent committee,
the inviolable area around every monument, and the land found next door to
the archaeological site -- in an attempt to provide all necessary security
measures and a healthy environmental atmosphere.

The second article to be repealed is the section of the law allowing
possession of antiquities. A year after the approval of the law all owners
of Egyptian antiquities must hand over all objects to the SCA, which in its
turn will install them in their archaeological storehouses. Ashmawi
continued that Article 7 of the old law stipulating that the police were the
only department authorised to remove any encroachments on archaeological
sites or monuments had been changed. Such responsibility is to be given to
the SCA's secretary-general, or to someone he entrusts, while the police
agencies will only be a safeguarding agency while executing the
secretary-general's decision. Article 30 has been added to the law
stipulating that the SCA is the only authority competent to carry out
restoration and preservation work for all Egyptian monuments, archaeological
sites and historical edifices. The minister of culture will have the
authority to assign any scientific authority or mission to execute any such
work, but under complete supervision of the SCA's secretary-general. 

As for penalties, according to Ashmawi all these have been doubled or
tripled. A smuggler who was sentenced to 15 years and fined LE50,000 would
now be sentenced to life imprisonment and fined from LE100,000 to 500,000.
Anyone who steals, hides, or collects authentic artefacts, or owns them
without permission, will be imprisoned for 25 years and fined from LE50,000
to 250,000 instead of three years hard labour and a LE100 fine. According to
the new law, stealing or helping in robbing a part of a genuine piece or
intent deliberately to disfigure it will land a sentence of 15 years and a
fine of from LE50,000 to 100,000.

"The new law does not omit penalties for those who write their names or fix
advertising billboards on monument walls," Ashmawi said. He said such
actions would be considered a violation of Egyptian heritage, and the
penalty would range from six to 12 months or a fine of LE150,000.

The new law allows clemency for anyone who confesses to or divulges
information about an antiquities crime in condition that his or her
confession leads to the arrest of partners in the theft or smuggling. The
SCA will assign experts to check the authenticity of any confiscated objects
in an attempt to guarantee an honest and accurate decision.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/