Egypt's Military Dictatorship Overreach

Talk about overreach! The Luxor Times is reporting "An attempt to smuggle 3 antique coins was foiled at Cairo airport". What happened was that a traveller on his way to Dubai was stopped by the customs and the Antiquities Unit at Cairo airport, and was accused of trying to "smuggle 3 antique coins". But the photos of these "priceless antiquities, treasured cultural property of the Egyptian people" are pretty shocking

Two of the coins dated back to 1937 (2 Piasters) and 1939 (5 Piasters).(1 pound = 100 Piasters) Both coins hold the picture of King Farouk I. The third coin is 1 American dollar dated to 1789. The coin shows on one side President George Washington and the other side the Statue of Liberty. The coins were confiscated for the Ministry of Antiquities and procedures are being taken to hand the American coin to the United States embassy in Cairo as soon as possible based on the UNESCO convention.

Yes, I am sure the American people will be eternally grateful to the arabs for stopping this heinous crime and returning to the USA such valuable cultural item. Washington Dollars were the first coins to be released in the Presidential Dollar program in February 2007 - it is not stated whether the seized "precious coin" has the edge lettering or not.  Idiots.

Phil Collins donates his private collection of Alamo artifacts

 

Phil Collins donates his private collection of Alamo artifacts 

According to Reuters, the pop-rock-prog legend has donated a significant chunk of his famed Alamo artifact collection to a new museum planned for the historic tourist attraction in San Antonio, Texas. The $100 million "Phil Collins Alamo Collection" will house a number of rare items – including a rifle (one of four remaining in existence) owned by soldier-frontiersman Davy Crockett, a fringed leather pouch carried by Crockett and an original Bowie knife which Jim Bowie had in his possession during the 1836 battle between Texas settlers and the Mexican Army. "When I got older and became successful, I decided to spend my money on original items from the Alamo rather than on Ferraris," Collins joked during a news conference hosted across the street from the Alamo, in front of a temporary storage building for the items. "This completes the journey for me. . . These artifacts are coming home." Collins' collection is believed to be the largest of its kind, with over 200 total items.  

This illustrates the good that private collectors do when they preserve and display historical items in their homes. 

The former Genesis frontman isn't donating his entire collection – he plans to keep a number of items at his Switzerland home, partly because his nine-year-old son has also become interested in the Alamo. At the earlier press conference, he emphasized his plans to continue collecting, adding, "Once I've lived with whatever I buy for a month, I'll ship it over here." Collins' Alamo fascination runs so deep, he even authored the 2012 book The Alamo and Beyond: A Collector's Journey.  [....] I've bought pretty much every book ever written about the Alamo, and I talk to my friends that I've made over the past 15, 20 years. It's just a constant learning and fascinating thing for me."

Read more: Rolling Stone

Academic Fanatics at Large

The press nowadays is full of a veritable sandstorm of pronouncements claiming controversially that the sale of antiquities looted by ISIS is a multi-billion dollar enterprise, second only to their revenues from looted oil. The archaeological lobby has mounted a concerted press campaign to hype such claims in an effort to stampede the UN and national governments into establishing a world-wide ban on the international sale of antiquities.The whole campaign of the cultural property crusaders "reminds one of the yellow journalism of years gone by and appears now as a very thinly veiled attempt to criminalize the collecting of ancient coins and portable antiquities.  Those responsible for this sort of baseless vilification are really little better than the looters they decry.  Their agenda-driven ideological fervor is as irrational as it is fanatical". We must put a stop to this as it threatens  the rule of democratic law and our fundamental freedoms.

England's Portable Antiquities Scheme Reaches a Million

England's Portable antiquities Scheme has saved more than a million objects for the nation, all found by metal detectorists. A model for other nations to follow.

Understanding IS

ISIS' real target must be the Hijaz -- the seizure of Mecca and Medina -- and the legitimacy that this will confer on ISIS as the new Emirs of Arabia. (Alastair Crooke, 'Middle East Time Bomb: The Real Aim of ISIS Is to Replace the Saud Family as the New Emirs of Arabia' Huffington Post 09/02/2014).

Egyptian Military Dictatorship Botches Pyramid Restoration Work

The Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara was built by the famous builder Imhotep and dates back to the 27th century BC and is 100 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza. In 2011, a British team was working to restore the structure and reportedly prevented a cave in with a huge inflatable balloon. Here is an account of the amazing project. Then funding was cut. Now (Katie Spicer, 'Ancient Egypt: World's Oldest Pyramid 'Ruined' by Restorers' International Business News, September 4, 2014), Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities, Mamdouh Eldamaty, is under fire after rehiring a company named Shurbagy for restoration of the pyramid after the firm caused damage and major deterioration to the very same structure in an earlier botched job. Shurbagy is accused by critics of causing serious damage and the collapse of a section of the Step Pyramid. Critics add that the company had no experience in restoring archaeological sites and that all six prior contracts for archaeological projects are under investigation. However, Eldamaty just gave it a new and major contract. See Peter Tompa, 'Egyptian Military Dictatorship Botches Pyramid Restoration Work' for comment. Our hero asks:

Is the Egyptian state and its supporters in the archaeological lobby really interested in conservation or control?

But surely this is about lack of control, just like there appears to be little accountability in our own government for gross negligence, as shown by the response to the debacle over the rollout of the Obamacare website and billions wasted or lost in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Close Turkey's Border with Syria

As the nature and extent of reported looting by or under the protection ISIS/ISIL terrorists in Syria is being widely debated, excepting our man Peter Tompa, no one seems to have suggested an obvious solution to any problem:  Turkey should close its border with Syria ! Turkey's Islamist government is already facing criticism for allowing jihadists free passage to and from Syria from Turkish soil.  Turkey should deploy its army to the border to both cut off the flow of people across the line (jihadists on their way to the war zone) and confiscate any artifacts illicitly removed from Syria and arrest the smugglers. Obvious.