Egypt Expells US Archeologists from Important Site

Somebody needs a warning.... that we
will not stand idle by while we are humiliated

The Luxor Times is reporting "Mummy Curse Strikes Again: MSA Stops BYU Mission" that the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities has just stopped a US archeological mission from continuing its research at the site of Fag El Gamous in Fayoum. This site was being excavated by Brigham Young University under the direction of Egyptologist Dr. Kerry Muhlestein.

The cemetery is largely a Roman period cemetery, located in the Fayoum area of Egypt. The burials are not in tombs, but rather in a field of sand. The people in the cemetery represent the common man. They are the average people who are usually hard to learn about because they are not very visible in written sources. They were poor, yet they put a tremendous amount of their resources into providing beautiful burials.

The reason for the stopping of the mission, which has been going for 30 years, seems to be because they had made public the results of their research directly to the press, instead of going through the Egyptian ministry in the usual way demanded by Egypt's military dictatorship.

Khalifa

Today (Thursday), the ministry of antiquaries denied the “discovery of a million mummies cemetery” and made an official statement describing the published news as “rumors” and decided to stop any cooperation with the mission after the press statement were published in the Daily Mail. [...] Dr. Youssef Khalifa, head of Ancient Egypt department, said to Luxor Times on phone “What was published in the newspaper is not true. There are no million mummies [...] The mission violated the rules and regulations of the agreement with the Ministry of Antiquities concerning making press statements and that’s why the committee of the ancient Egypt department took the decision to stop their permission to work at the site after 28 years of working at the site and the last season finished last March.”[...] Dr. Youssef said “What was published was clearly stating wrong information and I think the Permanent Committee will also approve our department’s decision to stop the mission”.

This is just a scandal, after all the money and technical help this country has supplied Egypt over the years, this is how they turn round and treat us? Maybe the US State Department should make it clear that we will not be treated in this manner and threaten to cut off all aid to Egypt unless Egypt does not allow the US team back.