Zahi Hawass fires back at criticism of colossus' salvation

 M By Sara Ahmed

Since the discovery of the colossal statue of Ramses II in Mataria by a German mission on Thursday, photos circulating online and on social media raised controversy regarding the using of a backhoe loader to extract the artefacts from the earth.

Some reactions have went as far as accusing the means of transportation to cause damage to the statue and others have accused the mission as well as the Ministry of Antiquities of neglect.

Zahi Hawass Fires Back at Criticism of Ramses II Statue ‘Crane’ Neglect

Accordingly, archaeologist and former Minister of Antiquities, Dr. Zahi Hawass issued the statement about the discovery and its transportation process. The statement reads:

‘‘Souq Al- Khamis is a very important archaeological site where I personally begun excavation work and in which we found the remains of the temples of King Akhenaten and King Thutmose III and Ramses II.

The Mataria area suffers from ​​a very big problem which is that all the houses and modern buildings are built over the remains of temples and ancient tombs. Additionally, most of the artefacts there, whether statues or temples, are found below the ground water ranging from two to four meters deep. It is difficult to transfer the artefacts from below the groundwater to the ground surface. In the past, I had discovered two tombs, one of which was located below the ground water as well.

I would like to confirm that out of all the artefacts and statues that were found in Mataria, none has ever been found complete. These statuses were destroyed and broken during the Coptic era; this was a time where the Copts considered them as pagan buildings and temples. In accordance to that, they had them closed off, destroyed all of the statues and temples as well as re-used the blocks in buildings churches, houses and private buildings. Accordingly, there has never been the discovery of a complete statue in Mataria.

I have also contacted the German archeologist Dietrich Raue, director of the German excavation in Mataria in order to the extent of the discovery. He sent me a video-statement which showed the excavation work and he sent me photographs of all the taken steps during the transportation of the artifacts.

I would also like to clarify that the process of transporting any statue of a large size, such as the discovered statue in Mataria, was assisted by heads of workers from the city of Qeft. They are trained to the highest level for transporting heavy statues such as through the example having done this work in Saqqara with the El Kereti family. The workers transported various statues and sarcophagi, some of which weighing 20 tons. As to what occurred during the Coptic Era, the discovered statue in Mataria was broken to various pieces. 

In regards to the immensity of the statue, I confirm that it belonged to Ramses II and not to any other king seeing as the temple belonging to this king was found at the same location.

The mission found two pieces of the statue: the first piece is a part of the crown and the second piece is a large part of the body of the statue, which weighs 7 tons. It became clear that the crown represents a large part of the head and it is largely comprised of the crown, a wonderful and complete right ear and part of the right eye. The mission used a hoeback loader to extract it from the earth and this was a 100% rightful act since the hoeback loader is used in all archeological areas.

The head of mission, Dietrich Raue, assured me that the process of lifting the part of the head had done in extreme professionalism and the statue didn’t suffer from a single scratch but that the damage done to the face had occurred in the Coptic era. And so, this small piece was moved easily but the rest of the statue, which represents a part of the statue, is located at the site now. It will be transferred next Monday also using a crane because there is no substitute since it is below the ground water. The piece will be supported by a wooden panel as had been done with part of the head.

If it isn’t transported in this way, then it will never be transported. This is the method used in all countries of the world in order to move any archeological artefacts of this size, located two meters deep below the underground water. Therefore, I assure that what was done by the mission was an integrated scientific work in saving the discovered statue and that is no any other way for the mission but to use these machines that preserved the statue.

I am very happy with the transportation of this statue and its discovery because it has generated great publicity before the whole world.

Dr. Zahi Hawass’’

Egypt has had the good fortune of having witnessed two major Egyptological discoveries in this last week alone, one of which was done by Dr. Hourig Sourouzian in Luxor and the other being of this colossal albeit fragmented statue of king Ramses II near the ruins of Ramses II’s temple in the ancient city of Heliopolis with Seti II statue which not many media outlets even mentioned.

#Egypt #Cairo #Archaeology #Egyptology #Mataria

The Egyptian Museum displays the restored artefacts

The Ministry of State for Antiquities is organising an exhibition of the Egyptian Museum artifacts that were restored after January 2011.

The exhibition is hosted in Room 44 at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir for two weeks. It was supposed to start on the 15th of September but it was postponed till today.

Below, some of the objects those were returned to the Museum and restored by Egyptian conservators.

From Vault to Vault, 200 artefacts was given to SCA by National Bank of Egypt

 The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) received 200 artefacts from National Bank of Egypt (Al-Ahly) yesterday and has stored them in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo for restoration and documentation. Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, made the announcement.

Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, said that the recovered collection was stored in the treasury of the bank since the early 20^th century and that it included objects from the ancient Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Coptic and Islamic eras. Among the objects are limestone statuary heads of ancient Egyptian and Greco-Roman deities such as Horus, Hathor and Ptah, as well as Roman terracotta statues and twenty coins from the Islamic and Modern period. Hawass added that two archaeological and legal committees inspected the collection and confirmed the objects’ authenticity.

Chairman of the Bank, Dr. Tarek Amer, stated that these objects were in the possession of foreigners who lived in Egypt during the late 19^th and early 20^th century. The foreigners were obviously antiquities collectors and had stored their collection inside two treasuries of the bank. Since the early 20^th century nobody had asked about the objects and they remained under the banks care until the executive board of the bank decided to offer the pieces to the SCA.

Dr. Hussein Abdel Bassir, head of the committee who inspected the objects, said that all of the objects, which were stored in three boxes in the bank’s vaults, are totally genuine and most of them are very well preserved.

The objects had been moved from the bank vaults to the Egyptian Museum basement in 3 boxes to be stored there.

The latest discovery in Luxor: 12 Sphinx statues and New road in the Sphinx Avenue

Mr. Farouk Hosny, Minister of Culture, announces that the expedition of the Supreme Council of Antiquities at the Avenue of the Sphinxes found today twelve new sphinx statues from the reign of Nectanebo I (380-362 BC). These sphinx statues were found in the last sector of the Avenue of the Sphinxes.

Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, said the discovery is not located within the known road of the Avenue of the Sphinxes between Karnak and Luxor Temples, but instead at the end of the newly discovered road of Nectanebo I. The Avenue runs from Luxor to Karnak, where it connects to the temple of the goddess Mut.

Mansour Boraik, Supervisor of Luxor Antiquities, indicated that this is the first time a new road that runs from east to west, toward the Nile, has been found. The most interesting part of this new discovery is that the 20 meters thus excavated is built from sandstone from the quarries at Gebel Silsila, north of Aswan. The total length of this road to the Nile is about 600 meters. Dr. Hawass mentioned, too, that along this way the sacred boat of Amun, king of the gods, traveled on the god’s annual trip to visit his wife, Mut, at Luxor temple, and the king used it as well for religious processions. This discovery marks the first time that archaeology has revealed this route, which is mentioned in many ancient texts. Besides the sphinx statues, which are inscribed with the name of Nectanebo I, the excavation team also recovered Roman period objects, including an oil press and pottery. Excavations remain ongoing.