Islamists Burn Mummies and Worse

This is so sad.  It is horrible to see that a cultural heritage as old as Egypt's is being destroyed by barbarians, and that a once great people have descended to this state of barbarianism.

From The International Business News
Egyptian Mummies Set on Fire in Morsi Ousting Riot               
September 15, 2013 2:00 PM GMT
Fiona Keating

Ancient Egyptian mummies were torched, antiquities destroyed and a 3,500 year-old limestone statue stolen in five-day rampage.

More than 1,000 objects were looted and destroyed from the Malawi Antiquities Museum, 200 miles south of Cairo.

The museum was a testament to the Amarna Period, named after its location in southern Egypt that was once the royal residence of Nefertiti.

"It was pure mayhem; the result of pure thuggery," said Monica Hanna, a leading Egyptian archaeologist, who witnessed the destruction.
Hanna was in the museum with Safaa Saleh, a local journalist. "They went around smashing objects," she said. "It was really mad."

The teenagers in the building told her they were destroying relics and vandalising the museum in revenge for the interim government's clampdown on the Muslim brotherhood.  "The burning of the mummies was a political act - to get back at the state," she told the Sunday Times.

"Sadly people in Egypt regard antiquities as the property of the state, rather than their own heritage."
The break-in during a demonstration on 14 August, is thought to be the work of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, angry at the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi, a brotherhood leader.

The walls of the museum were covered with pro-Morsi slogans. "Yes to Islam, yes to the Muslim Brotherhood," read one slogan.

Armed gangs descended on the museum and set fire to parts of the building. Items too heavy to plunder were torched.  One of the museum's greatest treasures, a 3,500 year-old stature of the daughter of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled during the 18^th dynasty was stolen.

Unique and irreplaceable jewellery, papyri, pottery, gold Greco-Roman coins, along with sculptures dedicated to the god Thoth, ironically the arbitrator of disputes, were also taken.

Warned in advance of possible looting, employees closed the museum and barricaded themselves inside with a dozen policemen, but they failed to stop the damage.  Magdy Tahami, assistant director of the museum told Middle East Online that the scene was like a "battlefield," with automatic fire echoing from all sides so that "we did not know where they were coming from or who was firing".
A ticket collector was shot dead as he tried to gain access to the building and museum staff were forced to retreat from the building by the mob.

UNESCO said the attack had caused "irreversible damage to the history and identity of the Egyptian people"

After several hours, nearly all of the 1,089 museum pieces had been stolen or destroyed, says Tahami.  Over 500 items have been returned to the museum after the police offered an amnesty to the looters.  As the items are registered and therefore identifiable, many of the thieves have struggled to sell them on to dealers.

Treasure Seekers Destroy Archaeological Site

I would like to be posting more, but today Blogger has been particularly uncooperative - constantly freezing up!  Those 3 posts I did earlier today took HOURS to do.  Darlings, I just don't have the time to screw around with Blogger's fits and starts!  I'm still deconstructing the Christmas Tree! 

Gold diggers ravage archeological site

Two Bedouins from Dimona destroy 2,000-year-old well in search for tall tale buried treasure

Omri Efraim

Published: 01.09.12, 22:36 / Israel News

Two antiquity thieves were apprehended at a Beit Shemesh-adjacent archeological dig where they managed to destroy ancient artifacts in their search for gold.

The robbers, both Bedouin residents of Dimona, brought digging equipment to the Be'er Limon site late last week, and proceeded to operate there for several nights. On Thursday, in the pouring rain, the pair smashed the walls of a 2,000-year-old well located under a structure from the Crusader Period. They dug deep holes in the ground, causing what the Israel Antiquities Authority deemed as "irreversible damage."

The suspects said during questioning that they were searching for a treasure. They claimed that a legend, passed on from generation to generation, asserted one of their forefathers buried gold in the old stones.

"Baseless fairytales about buried treasures make people crazy," said Amir Ganor, who heads the Antiquities Authority's theft prevention unit. "No one can restore a 2,000-year-old stone wall that has been smashed to smithereens at the hands of the robbers."

The authority suspects that another thief operated with the pair, but managed to escape. The thieves were released but are expected to be indicted in the coming days.