Egypt to Catalog Neglected Artifacts

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Egypt To Catalog

Artifact Treasures In

Neglected Basement

6-8-4

 

 

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt is about to begin the painstaking five-year

task of cataloguing and restoring some 90,000 pharaonic and other

artifacts which have lain almost forgotten for decades since they

were dug from ancient ruins.

 

Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council for

Antiquities, said Sunday that work started about three weeks ago to

move the artifacts, now in the basement of the country's main

museum, into storage elsewhere.

 

>From there the artifacts will be recorded, photographed and restored

if necessary -- a job that will take about five years.

 

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo boasts a stunning array of antiquities,

including the death mask and other artifacts of the boy king

Tutankhamun. But visitors are also confronted by a vast quantity of

dusty and poorly labeled showcases.

 

Hawass said the more than 100-year-old museum had been the store for

most finds from foreign archaeological digs since it was built, but

poor curatorship meant items were often difficult to find or lost

amidst the piles of boxes.

 

"The basement in Cairo museum is like a maze of corridors... No one

knows anything about it," he told Reuters.

 

A search is currently under way for 36 Roman bracelets, discovered

in 1905, which have apparently disappeared. Hawass said they were

last recorded as part of a exhibition that returned from Japan in

1984.

 

"I sent all papers to the district attorney to find out about the

case, but I believe personally that the bracelets are in the

museum," he said, blaming the disappearance on poor curatorship.

 

While the artifacts are being cataloged, the basement will be

renovated so the items can be properly stored on their return. The

renovation will enable the museum to reduce the size of its

permanent display to improve its design, Hawass added.

 

"We are going to have a basement like the basement of the British

Museum that you can put artifacts, numbered, cataloged, and we are

training the curators for the first time to understand what is the

meaning of a curatorship," he said.

 

Egypt is planning a new Grand Museum near the pyramids at Giza on

the edge of the capital to house pharaonic treasures.

 

2004 Reuters Limited.