BIA XXIX Éditorial Cette vingt-neuvième livraison du Bulletin d’Information Archéologique confirme l’évolution du regard que portent les médias sur les Antiquités égyptiennes. La presse n’a, en effet, consacré qu’à peu près un quart de son activité aux recherches et aux découvertes, pourtant toujours aussi nombreuses, pour se consacrer à des sujets plus polémiques ou politiques. La médiatisation de plus en plus grande des thèmes liés à l’archéologie et à la conservation du patrimoine, confirme - si besoin en était encore ! - le détournement symbolique et politique d’un champ, jadis tout entier consacré à la recherche et aux études, devenu désormais exutoire à toutes les passions et frustrations. Cette tendance n’est toutefois pas uniquement due aux médias. Les autorités qui régissent les monuments historiques semblent entretenir, elles aussi, un climat tendu, que ne connaissait pas jusqu’ici la communauté scientifique - interdictions de missions étrangères, relations conflictuelles avec divers organismes de recherche ou grands musées -, en même temps qu’une politique systématique de rentabilisation des sites archéologiques - hausses spectaculaires des droits d’entrée, « location » de monuments, multiplication de musées locaux. Le tout sur fonds de restauration et de préservation des monuments, réalisées au prix d’une implication de plus en plus grande de la communauté archéologique, tant nationale qu’étrangère. Autre grand thème, abondamment développé, celui des vols et des « restitutions ». Thème récurrent, qui rejoint à la fois un courant xénophobe toujours très vivace et la délicate question de la corruption. La lourde condamnation de Târiq al-Suwaysî et de 27 de ses complices - au nombre desquels un haut responsable du CSA -, au terme d’une instruction et d’un procès qui ont défrayé la chronique, a frappé les esprits, tout comme les longues polémiques qui entourent la disparition de pièces du Musée égyptien... Tout cela donne l’impression que les débats scientifiques ont cédé le pas au sensationnel ou tout au moins qu’ils se retrouvent dans d’autres enceintes. Ces six derniers mois, enfin, ont vu la disparition de certains acteurs de la scène archéologique, certains plus en vue que d’autres. Je voudrais conclure ce bref éditorial en évoquant la figure d’une collègue égyptienne trop tôt disparue, et qui était pour beaucoup d’entre nous une amie chère. Sâmya al-Mallâh nous a quittés, à l’aube d’une carrière que tous espéraient longue et riche. Sa grande gentillesse et la chaleur de son amitié nous manquent, et nous partageons la douleur des siens. Nicolas Grimal Salimah EBRAHIM, "A new director for a new museum", Cairo Times du 8 avril 2004. "Today I was thinking, not of the museum exactly but Midan Tahrir," Wafaa Al Saddik, the new director general of the Egyptian Museum, remarks passing through its sun-lit front entrance. "Did you know that nearly one million cars pass through the midan every day ? Can you imagine the pollution ? It is my dream that we will reduce - hold on, will you excuse me for a minute ?" She has spotted a fly trapped in one of the glass encased displays and has become involved in a rather determined discussion with a member of the museum staff. All the while her eyes continue to scan the museum’s main hall, which by 10 : 30am is already overcrowded with visitors. Moments later, she excuses herself from the insect situation and bolts over to where she has spotted a visitor using a banned "laser flash." The tourist shrugs, embarrassed and a little shell-shocked at having the museum’s director giving him a lecture on acceptable camera use. Overwhelmed, but smiling, he relinquishes the device into her hands. After thanking the man for his cooperation, Al Saddik makes one final note to the museum staff before returning to the conversation without missing a beat. "Where were we... oh yes, the pollution these days is horrible. Something must be done. Don’t you agree ?" Yes Ma’am. Despite housing a selection of some of the world’s greatest ancient treasures, the museum itself has never been celebrated for its organisational prowess. Egyptologist Kent WEEKS once described the museum’s atmosphere as being like "Harrod’s on sale day." As its first female Egyptian director - and the first woman since founding French archaeologist August MARIETTE - to take charge of the institution, there is no doubt that challenges are ahead for Al Saddik, who took up her position two months ago. Not only is she assuming responsibility for the preservation, care and guardianship of the over 160,000 artifacts currently on display but, as she points out, there are unique challenges that come with being a woman. "Many people got used to the idea of a man as the director. If you think of the field of archaeology, there are many women, but how many are active because of the children and family ? You have to show that you are capable. A man will be immediately accepted, while with a woman, people will be looking for her to make her first mistake. You have to make more of an effort than a man to show people that a woman can do it. I see it as a double responsibility." As a mother of two teenage boys, Al Saddik understands the challenge of balancing the worlds of motherhood and career. "The other day I was at a conference in Alexandria and my youngest son had a math exam. It was the first time that I wasn’t there with him on such a day. I remember my cell phone rang and his voice on the other end said, ’Mom, I need you to come now.’ It was difficult. I wouldn’t repeat it again. I have to commit myself only to the museum and my family ; I don’t have time for anything else. These days, it is difficult to even find time to sleep." Al Saddik explains that, born in a small village in the Nile Delta between the towns of Faraskur and Kafr Al Arab, she comes from a hardworking line. "My grandfather was the mayor of Kafr Al Arab and my father was an engineer and responsible for supplying all the neighboring villages in the area with water and electricity," she says. This, coupled with a childhood defined by the revolutionary mood of the 1950s led Al Saddik to dream as a child of adventure and of seeing the world as a journalist. "My family left after the Suez Canal war because my father got a contract in Cairo. I was a child, but I remember well. We were very near Port Said, and every day I could see the aircraft and the bombing and see the people leaving. It affected me. I read a lot, wrote in school magazines and wanted to be a journalist. I thought that through journalism I would visit the whole world." It is ironic, then, that Al Saddik, who dreamed of traveling outside of Egypt, would eventually choose to devote herself to a profession that is so heavily focused on purely Egyptian material. "I was captured by ancient Egypt," Al Saddik begins. Wearing a peach colored suit jacket over a black turtleneck and pants with a cream scarf emblazoned with pharaonic symbols draped across her neck, her presence is soft and warm, yet dignified. I imagine spending time with Al Saddik is like taking tea with a favorite aunt-one who just happens to be first lady. Before continuing she smiles, and raises her hands to put her carefully coiffed hair behind her ears. "When I was 18 years old I visited the Karnak temple and when I visited the Hypostyle hall, I just felt a shiver. Right there I changed my choice. I enrolled at Cairo University. My parents were very angry. They wanted me to be a diplomat or lawyer or English teacher. They didn’t want me to be a journalist and certainly not an Egyptologist... I mean there were not many women in this field and they didn’t know anything about archaeology and women working in the desert." She laughs when she describes the look on her mother’s face when day after day she returned home after working on excavations at Giza and Helwan, covered in sand and dust. "My mother would look at me and just shake her head. I was constantly working on excavations and was always ill because the dust was always triggering my allergies." Of the eight women in Al Saddik’s graduating class who joined her at Cairo University’s Faculty of Egyptology, she is the only one still actively working in the field. "It funny because when we began, we outnumbered the men in our class. Now, I am the only one working at the SCA [Supreme Council of Antiquities]," she says, standing up to receive an unexpected group of visitors that has just entered her office. Easing between German, English and Arabic, Al Saddik moves easily through the company, which includes an official from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, a security officer and the Hungarian cultural counselor. Just then the phone rings, and in the middle of all this she has to switch into Arabic to speak with her caller. Al Saddik first met her current boss, Zahi Hawass, head of the SCA, back in 1974 when she spent five years working with him on the excavation site at Giza before leaving for Austria to pursue a doctorate at Vienna University on the 600 BC, 26th Dynasty Necropolis. During that time, and later when she returned in 1983 to head the SCA’s Scientific Department, the two became friends and it was he, who, two years ago, first approached her about taking on her current role. "The first time he mentioned it was while he was on a tour in Germany where I was living. He said, ’I want you to come back and be the director of the Egyptian Museum.’ I just laughed. I couldn’t conceive of taking on such a responsibility at the time. It is a 24-hour a day job. He was persistent though, and he asked me several times after that." Al Saddik, after marrying a German-Egyptian pharmacist in 1987, returned to Europe, where she lived with her family in Cologne until seven months ago. During her time in Germany, Al Saddik kept busy. She studied children’s museum education, coordinated projects around the world including in Belgium and Venezuela, gave lectures and seminars on ancient Egypt, wrote a book entitled Children’s Museums for Egypt and established the International Union of Children. Al Saddik brings a unique perspective to the museum, spotlighting issues that for decades have been left unattended. In particular, she is concerned about the lack of curatorial training in the country and the current state of ancient Egyptian education in the country’s schools - a problem that she feels leaves children with a diluted sense of their own history. "My aim is to re-educate people, to protect our heritage and share it. To expand children’s activities and programs here in Egypt. The problem is that it [Egyptian history] is being taught in a very boring way. You only have numbers and names." She takes this concept one step further. "I would love to see people living history in Egypt, not just looking at masterpieces without understanding them. It’s our job to help them. Currently, right at the entrance we don’t have a chronological system. People enter and are faced with objects from the Archaic Period, then suddenly they see the two boats from the Middle Kingdom and behind the Middle Kingdom boats you see a picture from the Greco-Roman Period. It is so confusing. We have a very hard task ahead." Adding to her ambitious objectives, which include creating a periodical guide and an archaeological dictionary, will be the task of expanding the museum to include a visitors’ center and library on its west side, complete with workshops and interactive multi-media presentations. "Perhaps even a monthly magazine," she adds, hinting at her early journalistic inspirations. Al Saddik takes over at a time of transition for the venerable Downtown institution. With the new $350 million Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza due to open in 2007, the current museum is going to experience a significant draw-down not only on visitors, but on its pool of artifacts as well. Traditionally the country’s number one storehouse for historical items, as well as the most prestigious venue for displaying both old and new discoveries, the Egyptian Museum may be on the brink of having to redefine itself. Al Saddik, not unexpectedly, seems to take it all in her stride. "Sure it will affect the museum, but it will help the other museums. They will take Tutankhamun, but the majority of masterpieces will stay here. I think people will come back to this museum for its history, and it will always have an important place. We must, however, re-arrange our way of displaying the objects, carefully, not so crowded, pay attention to lighting to keep people coming." As part of the process, Al Saddik wants to increase cooperation with the museum’s counter-parts around the world by strengthening curatorial partnerships that would train young Egyptians, and by also bringing in temporary thematic exhibitions from around the world - something that has never been done before. "It is my dream to have the gold of the Maya on exhibition, along with shows from Asia, America and Europe," she says. However, while the museum houses an unparalleled collection of antiquities, there is still tremendous work to be done before it can stand alongside its counterparts in New York and London. "This is the goal, we haven’t reached that level yet in terms of organization. We should be there," she acknowledges, "but it is important to remember that we are a different type of museum-unique. Yes, museums should be for world culture, but unlike the Met or British Museum, our main priority is ancient Egypt." Before Al Saddik can continue, the door of her office opens again, and another group of visitors pours in. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes for a second. It’s already one o’clock and her day has barely begun. "You know," she says, by way of bringing the interview to a close, "more than trying to mold ourselves on the examples of others we must work to recapture the museum’s traditional eminence as an educational and historical institution. That is our objective.". * * * Richard WOFFENDEN, "Uncovering tourist destinations", Cairo Times du 1er avril 2004. If you visited Aswan five years ago and went to see the unfinished obelisk, you may not even remember it. It would hardly have been the high point of your trip. Most people’s response was "Mmm, OK. What next ?" On the other hand, you could hardly sue the tourist authorities for misrepresentation. It was exactly as advertised in the name : an incomplete obelisk in a rather uninspiring setting. Everything has now changed beyond recognition, however. The site has a 250-meter long walkway that takes visitors through the quarry, which has been reclaimed from the dust and garbage that once filled it. "The Historical Granite Quarry," as the chief architect of the project, Tarek Wali, hopes it will be called, now gives visitors the chance to see the unfinished obelisk in situ. In the past the whole area of the site covered 21,000 square meters at most, but now it has spread out to encompass 47,000 square meters, including the monumental 20 meter high quarry face itself. To open up the quarry, workers had to remove 160,000 cubic meters of rubble, but the result is that visitors now have a much clearer vision of exactly how work was carried out in the original site. Sculptor Adam Henein, who makes his own monumental works of stone in his Giza studios and whose symposium still uses granite from Aswan, is impressed with the project and commends the precision and skill of the original stonecutters, who used rounded pieces of stone that fit in the hand to carve out huge obelisks for the Pharaonic monuments. The team working on the quarry has found inscriptions that seem to suggest that they have found the exact location from which the famous 32-meter long obelisk for Thutmose III, which now stands in Rome, was cut. Currently, the unfinished obelisk lies at the center of the quarry where it was left thousands of years ago. To it, visitors walk past the visible outlines of places from which other-finished-obelisks were removed. It is still possible to see how they were carved out at an angle to make moving them easier, and at the main obelisk it is possible to see how workmen actually worked from beneath the obelisk to carve it out of the rock. In this area, the team has also discovered graffiti of ostriches and fish that, though as yet undated, are possibly Coptic. Wali’s team has fenced off the site from below the road and built new ticket booths and a visitors’ center, which will eventually include a small exhibit and film about the reclamation of the quarry. Shops are also being built to house the stallholders who have set up camp across the road from the quarry. This small bazaar will surround a green area that may well be an open-air exhibit. Lighting for the site is something that Wali has been thinking a lot about. He has called in lighting expert Salah Marei to look at ways to light the place without being intrusive or damaging the site itself. Tourists are currently able to access most of the site, but the whole project won’t be open for a couple of months. The project, which has involved relocating several families, cost LE12 million. Supreme Council of Antiquities chief Zahi Hawas and Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni have visited the site and have given a provisional go ahead for a one-and-a-half-year extension to the project. More of the quarry will be uncovered, pushing back southwest. "According to the geographical maps I have been looking at, this is the natural extension of the mountain, going back 2 kilometers to where the unfinished statue of Ramsis II is," says Wali. After the proposed extension work, the quarry will cover 56,000 square meters. About 50 to 60 families will have to be rehoused in the course of this second phase of the project. The quarry is attracting an increasing number of tourists-currently around 3,000 a day. At LE10 per person, it will not be long before the improvements will have paid for themselves. * * * Rachel Aspden, "Library finds ?", Cairo Times du 27 mai 2004. In the middle of May, the international press ran excited reports that the Royal Library of Alexandria, lost for 16 centuries, had been discovered beneath the concrete and asphalt of Egypt’s second city. An Egyptian-Polish archaeological team unearthed a complex of 13 lecture halls, capable of holding 5,000 students, in the ancient palace quarter of the city. The similar-sized rooms were arranged around a U-shaped lecture theatre with a raised central area. Announcing the find to a conference at the University of California, Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the discovery was unique. "It is the first time ever that such a complex of lecture halls has been uncovered on any Greco-Roman site in the whole Mediterranean area," he told archaeologists and reporters. Despite Hawass’ enthusiasm, it proved difficult to disentangle fact from legend. Historians agree that the library was founded around 300BC by Pharaoh Ptolemy II, son of Alexander the Great’s general. Within 50 years it held over 400,000 papyrus scrolls. The collection, rumored to be based around Aristotle’s own library, grew so rapidly a second "daughter" library was established. Scrolls on science, mathematics, astronomy and medicine were kept in a complex centered on the "Museum" or temple of the Muses. It was the ancient world’s most important seat of learning, where ARCHIMEDES worked on hydraulics and EUCLID invented geometry. The libraries’ destruction is the subject of contradictory accounts and legends. Some blame Julius Caesar, who invaded Alexandria in 48BC, setting fire to an enemy fleet in the harbor and allegedly burning the libraries to the ground. Others point to the Christian Patriarch Theophilus. Following religious purges in the Roman Empire, in 391AD Theophilus ordered pagan temples and statues in Alexandria to be smashed and pagan libraries destroyed. According to this version of history, the last librarian, an independent-minded female scholar called Hypatia, was dragged from her chariot and flayed by an angry mob. The truth, scholars think, is likely to be less dramatic. The libraries suffered a gradual decline over several destructive events, capped by the 391AD persecutions. Archaeological experts are equally skeptical about the recent discovery in Alexandria. Raymond STOCK, Arabic scholar and historian, said that "if they’re Greek at all, the finds are more likely to be part of the Museum than of the library itself." Jean-Yves EMPEREUR, director of the Centre d’Études Alexandrines (CEA), is Alexandria’s best-known archaeologist. The CEA is responsible for much of the underground and underwater exploration in the city, turning up spectacular Greek and Roman artifacts. EMPEREUR was unexcited by news of the Polish team’s find. "I don’t know anything about these discoveries, but lots of them turn out to be late Roman," he told the Cairo Times. If true, this would date the lecture halls to between 400 and 500AD, some 700 years later than the Royal Library. Merzat Seif Al Din, general director of the Greco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, confirmed on 24 May that the press furor had been misplaced. "I spoke to the Polish archaeologists yesterday and they said the lecture halls were definitely late Roman, not Greek," she told the Cairo Times. "When these things pass from one person to another they get confused," she added diplomatically. * * * Hassan SAADALLAH, "Akhenaten Museum project moving ahead", The Egyptian Gazette du 1er janvier 2004. An Egyptian-German team is putting the finishing touches to the blueprint for the new Akhenaten Museum in Minia. Construction of the museum, which is part of a plan by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) to spread regional museums across the country, will shortly be offered for tender. The SCA’s plan is to raise the standard of people’s awareness of their history and to allow more room to display the thousands of artefacts currently languishing in museum stores. The joint team has approved the architectural drawings submitted by a company in Heldesheim under a 9.6 million German marks grant. The museum’s site which covers an area of 25 feddans was selected according to several criteria. Easy access, especially via the Nile was one consideration, said Zahi Hawas, Secretary-General of the SCA. Soil conditions were tested so that the results could be utilised by the German architects in designing the building. The museums general plan is to highlight the religious group of the Aten introduced by Akhenaten in Tel El Amarna. Akhenaten, when he became king, relinquished the worship of the diversity of gods and called for the worship of one god only, the Aten, which took the shape of the sun disc. The museum is being designed using intersecting shapes to represent the reflection of the sun in all directions and at all hours of the day. The age of El Amarna was a rich period during the late 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom with respect to art and religion. Ahmed Ashraf, supervisor of the project committee, said that local materials such as marble and brown and red sandstone are to be used in the buildings to harmonise with the nature of the place. He added that the museum will include five levels of galleries each covering an area of 1,600 square metres, in addition to a multi-purpose convention hail, administrative offices, a restoration department, an institute for archaeological studies, a library, a storehouse and a photographic development laboratory. Annexed to the museum will be the services buildings : a cafeteria and a souvenir and publications’ outlet. The museum will include a display garden where larger artefacts are to be exhibited. To guarantee easy circulation for the public, especially the elderly and the handicapped, the different levels of the galleries will connected with ramps. The upper storey will give visitors a panoramic view of the city and the marvellous site of the Beni Hassan tombs on the eastern bank of the Nile. The items to be put on display in the museum will come principally from the reign of Akhenaten. Among the pieces is a small alabaster statue of a princess, a stone relief showing the cutting and carving of stone and a small piece that dates back to the age of Amenhotep III (Akhenaten’s father), giving details of the area and symbols of Egyptian provinces at the time. Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep IV, was the son of King Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. Akhenaten ascended to the throne at a period when the power of the priests of Amon was ever increasing. Akhenaten established the first temple dedicated to the Aten at Karnak in Luxor, which was the beginning of a big conflict with the priests of Amon. In the fourth year of his rule Akhenaten decided to abandon the capital Thebes where his forefathers had worshipped Amon and established a new city. He called the new city Akhet Aten (the horizon of the Aten) and moved there with his mother Queen Tiye, his beautiful wife Nefertiti and his daughters, in the sixth year of his rule. He also changed his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten (one who serves the Aten) and ordered the eradication of the name of Amon from all temples and tombs. Many houses, palaces, temples and tombs were built in Tel El Amarna for Akhenaten and his court on the east bank of the Nile with the tombs on the west side of the city. The tombs were ornamented with wonderful painted reliefs representing religious occasions attended by royalty but the tombs were void of funerary scenes and excerpts from the Book of the Dead. The palaces and houses were built of sun-dried bricks while quarried stone was used for the bases of columns and door lintels. Two large palaces were built in the city ; the major one was allocated to Queen Nefertiti and afterwards to her eldest daughter Meret Aten. The walls were ornamented with painted reliefs depicting wildlife and nature. The city was divided into two sections : the northern section, which contained the royal palaces and temples, was protected by a high wall with a large gate. As for the temples, they were unlike any others in that they did not include any statues of the cult figure, because Akhenaten believed that sacrifices should be offered directly to the god. His temples were no longer dark places but an open court where the sun god filled the space with his rays. * * * Sammar A. EZZAT, "Egyptian-French team successfully restores funerary vessels", The Egyptian Gazette du 1er janvier 2004. An Egyptian-French team of restorers has reassembled some funerary items which were found in sherds at Deir Al Madina in Luxor. The team was actually searching for any signs of the place of manufacture and methods for making these items. The team collated the collections of pottery found while arranging some of the antiquities warehouses. In order to restore the pieces the team had to survey about 2.5 cubic metres of sherds bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions. Pottery played an important role in the life of the ancient Egyptians. The ancients knew two kinds of pottery, the best, however, was a glazed type made from sand. The other kind which was more commonly in use was made from Nile clay, especially that from Qena. Pottery was one of the most advanced industries in Upper Egypt from pre-historic times until the end of the historic era. Artistically speaking, there were two kinds of pottery-making ascribed to a place of origin, the pottery of Badari in Sohag and Naqada in Qena. Pottery vessels of all types and sizes were used for storing grains, cooking and as funerary containers to store food and grain in the tomb for the deceased to use in the afterlife. * * * Hassan SAADALLAH, "21st Dynasty priests’ houses uncovered at Karnak", The Egyptian Gazette du 15 janvier 2004. The Egyptian-French team working on the site east of the Sacred Lake at Karnak temple in Luxor has reported uncovering three houses where temple priests lived. The houses, dating back to the 21st Dynasty (1070-945 BC) were constructed of sun-dried bricks. The team found many artefacts in the dwellings, the most important of which is a statue of a hippo and a number of earthenware pots, some of which bear hieroglyphic inscriptions and drawings. The team had previously found seven houses dating back to the Late and the Graeco-Roman periods. The pieces found in these houses included a stele of Ramses III, a head of Amenhotep II, storage jars and some pots belonging to the Third Intermediate Period - 21st Dynasty up to the 26th Dynasty (656-525 BC). Remains of a small furnace covered with soot were among other items found. The different ages to which all these items appertain reveal that the houses were abandoned and reused several times. The team found in the area between the rooms of Hatshepsut and the temple’s sanctuary an oil press, some stone blocks and a faience cartouche bearing the name of Tuthmosis III. The joint team has reconstructed the columns in the outdoor museum at the Karnak temple. A few years ago blocks from columns belonging to king Tuthmosis IV were found in an open courtyard. The blocks were collected and reassembled near the northern wall of the temple. In all, some 36 columns were restored and the missing capitals of about twenty were replaced with new sandstone blocks. The team had also restored the Red Chapel of Queen Hatshepsut whose stones were found near the third pylon. The blocks were gathered together opposite the open museum and restorers using advanced methods, reconstructed the chapel and replaced missing pieces with blocks from the quarry at Selsela Mountain in Aswan. The open museum includes the chapels of King Senwosret I, Tuthmosis IV, Hatshepsut, Amenhotep I and Tuthmosis I, in addition to diorite statues of the goddess Sekhmet belonging to the temple of Mut, and a part of a door belonging to the temple of Amenhotep IV. The Karnak temples are among the major attractions of Luxor. They were built during the

bia xxix editorial cette vingt-neuvieme livraison du bulletin d'information archeologique confirme l'evolution du regard que portent les medias sur les antiquites egyptiennes. la presse n'a, en effet, consacre qu'a peu pres un quart de son activite aux recherches et aux decouvertes, pourtant toujours aussi nombreuses, pour se consacrer a des sujets plus polemiques ou politiques. la mediatisation de plus en plus grande des themes lies a l'archeologie et a la conservation du patrimoine, confirme - si besoin en etait encore! - le detournement symbolique et politique d'un champ, jadis tout entier consacre a la recherche et aux etudes, devenu desormais exutoire a toutes les passions et frustrations. cette tendance n'est toutefois pas uniquement due aux medias. les autorites qui regissent les monuments historiques semblent entretenir, elles aussi, un climat tendu, que ne connaissait pas jusqu'ici la communaute scientifique - interdictions de missions etrangeres, relations conflictuelles avec divers organismes de recherche ou grands musees -, en meme temps qu'une politique systematique de rentabilisation des sites archeologiques - hausses spectaculaires des droits d'entree, "location" de monuments, multiplication de musees locaux. le tout sur fonds de restauration et de preservation des monuments, realisees au prix d'une implication de plus en plus grande de la communaute archeologique, tant nationale qu'etrangere. autre grand theme, abondamment developpe, celui des vols et des "restitutions". theme recurrent, qui rejoint a la fois un courant xenophobe toujours tres vivace et la delicate question de la corruption. la lourde condamnation de tariq al-suwaysi et de 27 de ses complices - au nombre desquels un haut responsable du csa -, au terme d'une instruction et d'un proces qui ont defraye la chronique, a frappe les esprits, tout comme les longues polemiques qui entourent la disparition de pieces du musee egyptien... tout cela donne l'impression que les debats scientifiques ont cede le pas au sensationnel ou tout au moins qu'ils se retrouvent dans d'autres enceintes. ces six derniers mois, enfin, ont vu la disparition de certains acteurs de la scene archeologique, certains plus en vue que d'autres. je voudrais conclure ce bref editorial en evoquant la figure d'une collegue egyptienne trop tot disparue, et qui etait pour beaucoup d'entre nous une amie chere. samya al-mallah nous a quittes, a l'aube d'une carriere que tous esperaient longue et riche. sa grande gentillesse et la chaleur de son amitie nous manquent, et nous partageons la douleur des siens. nicolas grimal salimah ebrahim, "a new director for a new museum", cairo times du 8 avril 2004. "today i was thinking, not of the museum exactly but midan tahrir," wafaa al saddik, the new director general of the egyptian museum, remarks passing through its sun-lit front entrance. "did you know that nearly one million cars pass through the midan every day? can you imagine the pollution? it is my dream that we will reduce - hold on, will you excuse me for a minute?" she has spotted a fly trapped in one of the glass encased displays and has become involved in a rather determined discussion with a member of the museum staff. all the while her eyes continue to scan the museum's main hall, which by 10: 30am is already overcrowded with visitors. moments later, she excuses herself from the insect situation and bolts over to where she has spotted a visitor using a banned "laser flash." the tourist shrugs, embarrassed and a little shell-shocked at having the museum's director giving him a lecture on acceptable camera use. overwhelmed, but smiling, he relinquishes the device into her hands. after thanking the man for his cooperation, al saddik makes one final note to the museum staff before returning to the conversation without missing a beat. "where were we... oh yes, the pollution these days is horrible. something must be done. don't you agree?" yes ma'am. despite housing a selection of some of the world's greatest ancient treasures, the museum itself has never been celebrated for its organisational prowess. egyptologist kent weeks once described the museum's atmosphere as being like "harrod's on sale day." as its first female egyptian director - and the first woman since founding french archaeologist august mariette - to take charge of the institution, there is no doubt that challenges are ahead for al saddik, who took up her position two months ago. not only is she assuming responsibility for the preservation, care and guardianship of the over 160,000 artifacts currently on display but, as she points out, there are unique challenges that come with being a woman. "many people got used to the idea of a man as the director. if you think of the field of archaeology, there are many women, but how many are active because of the children and family? you have to show that you are capable. a man will be immediately accepted, while with a woman, people will be looking for her to make her first mistake. you have to make more of an effort than a man to show people that a woman can do it. i see it as a double responsibility." as a mother of two teenage boys, al saddik understands the challenge of balancing the worlds of motherhood and career. "the other day i was at a conference in alexandria and my youngest son had a math exam. it was the first time that i wasn't there with him on such a day. i remember my cell phone rang and his voice on the other end said, 'mom, i need you to come now.' it was difficult. i wouldn't repeat it again. i have to commit myself only to the museum and my family; i don't have time for anything else. these days, it is difficult to even find time to sleep." al saddik explains that, born in a small village in the nile delta between the towns of faraskur and kafr al arab, she comes from a hardworking line. "my grandfather was the mayor of kafr al arab and my father was an engineer and responsible for supplying all the neighboring villages in the area with water and electricity," she says. this, coupled with a childhood defined by the revolutionary mood of the 1950s led al saddik to dream as a child of adventure and of seeing the world as a journalist. "my family left after the suez canal war because my father got a contract in cairo. i was a child, but i remember well. we were very near port said, and every day i could see the aircraft and the bombing and see the people leaving. it affected me. i read a lot, wrote in school magazines and wanted to be a journalist. i thought that through journalism i would visit the whole world." it is ironic, then, that al saddik, who dreamed of traveling outside of egypt, would eventually choose to devote herself to a profession that is so heavily focused on purely egyptian material. "i was captured by ancient egypt," al saddik begins. wearing a peach colored suit jacket over a black turtleneck and pants with a cream scarf emblazoned with pharaonic symbols draped across her neck, her presence is soft and warm, yet dignified. i imagine spending time with al saddik is like taking tea with a favorite aunt-one who just happens to be first lady. before continuing she smiles, and raises her hands to put her carefully coiffed hair behind her ears. "when i was 18 years old i visited the karnak temple and when i visited the hypostyle hall, i just felt a shiver. right there i changed my choice. i enrolled at cairo university. my parents were very angry. they wanted me to be a diplomat or lawyer or english teacher. they didn't want me to be a journalist and certainly not an egyptologist... i mean there were not many women in this field and they didn't know anything about archaeology and women working in the desert." she laughs when she describes the look on her mother's face when day after day she returned home after working on excavations at giza and helwan, covered in sand and dust. "my mother would look at me and just shake her head. i was constantly working on excavations and was always ill because the dust was always triggering my allergies." of the eight women in al saddik's graduating class who joined her at cairo university's faculty of egyptology, she is the only one still actively working in the field. "it funny because when we began, we outnumbered the men in our class. now, i am the only one working at the sca [supreme council of antiquities]," she says, standing up to receive an unexpected group of visitors that has just entered her office. easing between german, english and arabic, al saddik moves easily through the company, which includes an official from new york's metropolitan museum of art, a security officer and the hungarian cultural counselor. just then the phone rings, and in the middle of all this she has to switch into arabic to speak with her caller. al saddik first met her current boss, zahi hawass, head of the sca, back in 1974 when she spent five years working with him on the excavation site at giza before leaving for austria to pursue a doctorate at vienna university on the 600 bc, 26th dynasty necropolis. during that time, and later when she returned in 1983 to head the sca's scientific department, the two became friends and it was he, who, two years ago, first approached her about taking on her current role. "the first time he mentioned it was while he was on a tour in germany where i was living. he said, 'i want you to come back and be the director of the egyptian museum.' i just laughed. i couldn't conceive of taking on such a responsibility at the time. it is a 24-hour a day job. he was persistent though, and he asked me several times after that." al saddik, after marrying a german-egyptian pharmacist in 1987, returned to europe, where she lived with her family in cologne until seven months ago. during her time in germany, al saddik kept busy. she studied children's museum education, coordinated projects around the world including in belgium and venezuela, gave lectures and seminars on ancient egypt, wrote a book entitled children's museums for egypt and established the international union of children. al saddik brings a unique perspective to the museum, spotlighting issues that for decades have been left unattended. in particular, she is concerned about the lack of curatorial training in the country and the current state of ancient egyptian education in the country's schools - a problem that she feels leaves children with a diluted sense of their own history. "my aim is to re-educate people, to protect our heritage and share it. to expand children's activities and programs here in egypt. the problem is that it [egyptian history] is being taught in a very boring way. you only have numbers and names." she takes this concept one step further. "i would love to see people living history in egypt, not just looking at masterpieces without understanding them. it's our job to help them. currently, right at the entrance we don't have a chronological system. people enter and are faced with objects from the archaic period, then suddenly they see the two boats from the middle kingdom and behind the middle kingdom boats you see a picture from the greco-roman period. it is so confusing. we have a very hard task ahead." adding to her ambitious objectives, which include creating a periodical guide and an archaeological dictionary, will be the task of expanding the museum to include a visitors' center and library on its west side, complete with workshops and interactive multi-media presentations. "perhaps even a monthly magazine," she adds, hinting at her early journalistic inspirations. al saddik takes over at a time of transition for the venerable downtown institution. with the new $350 million grand egyptian museum in giza due to open in 2007, the current museum is going to experience a significant draw-down not only on visitors, but on its pool of artifacts as well. traditionally the country's number one storehouse for historical items, as well as the most prestigious venue for displaying both old and new discoveries, the egyptian museum may be on the brink of having to redefine itself. al saddik, not unexpectedly, seems to take it all in her stride. "sure it will affect the museum, but it will help the other museums. they will take tutankhamun, but the majority of masterpieces will stay here. i think people will come back to this museum for its history, and it will always have an important place. we must, however, re-arrange our way of displaying the objects, carefully, not so crowded, pay attention to lighting to keep people coming." as part of the process, al saddik wants to increase cooperation with the museum's counter-parts around the world by strengthening curatorial partnerships that would train young egyptians, and by also bringing in temporary thematic exhibitions from around the world - something that has never been done before. "it is my dream to have the gold of the maya on exhibition, along with shows from asia, america and europe," she says. however, while the museum houses an unparalleled collection of antiquities, there is still tremendous work to be done before it can stand alongside its counterparts in new york and london. "this is the goal, we haven't reached that level yet in terms of organization. we should be there," she acknowledges, "but it is important to remember that we are a different type of museum-unique. yes, museums should be for world culture, but unlike the met or british museum, our main priority is ancient egypt." before al saddik can continue, the door of her office opens again, and another group of visitors pours in. she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes for a second. it's already one o'clock and her day has barely begun. "you know," she says, by way of bringing the interview to a close, "more than trying to mold ourselves on the examples of others we must work to recapture the museum's traditional eminence as an educational and historical institution. that is our objective.". * * * richard woffenden, "uncovering tourist destinations", cairo times du 1er avril 2004. if you visited aswan five years ago and went to see the unfinished obelisk, you may not even remember it. it would hardly have been the high point of your trip. most people's response was "mmm, ok. what next?" on the other hand, you could hardly sue the tourist authorities for misrepresentation. it was exactly as advertised in the name: an incomplete obelisk in a rather uninspiring setting. everything has now changed beyond recognition, however. the site has a 250-meter long walkway that takes visitors through the quarry, which has been reclaimed from the dust and garbage that once filled it. "the historical granite quarry," as the chief architect of the project, tarek wali, hopes it will be called, now gives visitors the chance to see the unfinished obelisk in situ. in the past the whole area of the site covered 21,000 square meters at most, but now it has spread out to encompass 47,000 square meters, including the monumental 20 meter high quarry face itself. to open up the quarry, workers had to remove 160,000 cubic meters of rubble, but the result is that visitors now have a much clearer vision of exactly how work was carried out in the original site. sculptor adam henein, who makes his own monumental works of stone in his giza studios and whose symposium still uses granite from aswan, is impressed with the project and commends the precision and skill of the original stonecutters, who used rounded pieces of stone that fit in the hand to carve out huge obelisks for the pharaonic monuments. the team working on the quarry has found inscriptions that seem to suggest that they have found the exact location from which the famous 32-meter long obelisk for thutmose iii, which now stands in rome, was cut. currently, the unfinished obelisk lies at the center of the quarry where it was left thousands of years ago. to it, visitors walk past the visible outlines of places from which other-finished-obelisks were removed. it is still possible to see how they were carved out at an angle to make moving them easier, and at the main obelisk it is possible to see how workmen actually worked from beneath the obelisk to carve it out of the rock. in this area, the team has also discovered graffiti of ostriches and fish that, though as yet undated, are possibly coptic. wali's team has fenced off the site from below the road and built new ticket booths and a visitors' center, which will eventually include a small exhibit and film about the reclamation of the quarry. shops are also being built to house the stallholders who have set up camp across the road from the quarry. this small bazaar will surround a green area that may well be an open-air exhibit. lighting for the site is something that wali has been thinking a lot about. he has called in lighting expert salah marei to look at ways to light the place without being intrusive or damaging the site itself. tourists are currently able to access most of the site, but the whole project won't be open for a couple of months. the project, which has involved relocating several families, cost le12 million. supreme council of antiquities chief zahi hawas and minister of culture farouk hosni have visited the site and have given a provisional go ahead for a one-and-a-half-year extension to the project. more of the quarry will be uncovered, pushing back southwest. "according to the geographical maps i have been looking at, this is the natural extension of the mountain, going back 2 kilometers to where the unfinished statue of ramsis ii is," says wali. after the proposed extension work, the quarry will cover 56,000 square meters. about 50 to 60 families will have to be rehoused in the course of this second phase of the project. the quarry is attracting an increasing number of tourists-currently around 3,000 a day. at le10 per person, it will not be long before the improvements will have paid for themselves. * * * rachel aspden, "library finds?", cairo times du 27 mai 2004. in the middle of may, the international press ran excited reports that the royal library of alexandria, lost for 16 centuries, had been discovered beneath the concrete and asphalt of egypt's second city. an egyptian-polish archaeological team unearthed a complex of 13 lecture halls, capable of holding 5,000 students, in the ancient palace quarter of the city. the similar-sized rooms were arranged around a u-shaped lecture theatre with a raised central area. announcing the find to a conference at the university of california, zahi hawass, head of the supreme council of antiquities, said the discovery was unique. "it is the first time ever that such a complex of lecture halls has been uncovered on any greco-roman site in the whole mediterranean area," he told archaeologists and reporters. despite hawass' enthusiasm, it proved difficult to disentangle fact from legend. historians agree that the library was founded around 300bc by pharaoh ptolemy ii, son of alexander the great's general. within 50 years it held over 400,000 papyrus scrolls. the collection, rumored to be based around aristotle's own library, grew so rapidly a second "daughter" library was established. scrolls on science, mathematics, astronomy and medicine were kept in a complex centered on the "museum" or temple of the muses. it was the ancient world's most important seat of learning, where archimedes worked on hydraulics and euclid invented geometry. the libraries' destruction is the subject of contradictory accounts and legends. some blame julius caesar, who invaded alexandria in 48bc, setting fire to an enemy fleet in the harbor and allegedly burning the libraries to the ground. others point to the christian patriarch theophilus. following religious purges in the roman empire, in 391ad theophilus ordered pagan temples and statues in alexandria to be smashed and pagan libraries destroyed. according to this version of history, the last librarian, an independent-minded female scholar called hypatia, was dragged from her chariot and flayed by an angry mob. the truth, scholars think, is likely to be less dramatic. the libraries suffered a gradual decline over several destructive events, capped by the 391ad persecutions. archaeological experts are equally skeptical about the recent discovery in alexandria. raymond stock, arabic scholar and historian, said that "if they're greek at all, the finds are more likely to be part of the museum than of the library itself." jean-yves empereur, director of the centre d'etudes alexandrines (cea), is alexandria's best-known archaeologist. the cea is responsible for much of the underground and underwater exploration in the city, turning up spectacular greek and roman artifacts. empereur was unexcited by news of the polish team's find. "i don't know anything about these discoveries, but lots of them turn out to be late roman," he told the cairo times. if true, this would date the lecture halls to between 400 and 500ad, some 700 years later than the royal library. merzat seif al din, general director of the greco-roman museum in alexandria, confirmed on 24 may that the press furor had been misplaced. "i spoke to the polish archaeologists yesterday and they said the lecture halls were definitely late roman, not greek," she told the cairo times. "when these things pass from one person to another they get confused," she added diplomatically. * * * hassan saadallah, "akhenaten museum project moving ahead", the egyptian gazette du 1er janvier 2004. an egyptian-german team is putting the finishing touches to the blueprint for the new akhenaten museum in minia. construction of the museum, which is part of a plan by the supreme council of antiquities (sca) to spread regional museums across the country, will shortly be offered for tender. the sca's plan is to raise the standard of people's awareness of their history and to allow more room to display the thousands of artefacts currently languishing in museum stores. the joint team has approved the architectural drawings submitted by a company in heldesheim under a 9.6 million german marks grant. the museum's site which covers an area of 25 feddans was selected according to several criteria. easy access, especially via the nile was one consideration, said zahi hawas, secretary-general of the sca. soil conditions were tested so that the results could be utilised by the german architects in designing the building. the museums general plan is to highlight the religious group of the aten introduced by akhenaten in tel el amarna. akhenaten, when he became king, relinquished the worship of the diversity of gods and called for the worship of one god only, the aten, which took the shape of the sun disc. the museum is being designed using intersecting shapes to represent the reflection of the sun in all directions and at all hours of the day. the age of el amarna was a rich period during the late 18th dynasty of the new kingdom with respect to art and religion. ahmed ashraf, supervisor of the project committee, said that local materials such as marble and brown and red sandstone are to be used in the buildings to harmonise with the nature of the place. he added that the museum will include five levels of galleries each covering an area of 1,600 square metres, in addition to a multi-purpose convention hail, administrative offices, a restoration department, an institute for archaeological studies, a library, a storehouse and a photographic development laboratory. annexed to the museum will be the services buildings: a cafeteria and a souvenir and publications' outlet. the museum will include a display garden where larger artefacts are to be exhibited. to guarantee easy circulation for the public, especially the elderly and the handicapped, the different levels of the galleries will connected with ramps. the upper storey will give visitors a panoramic view of the city and the marvellous site of the beni hassan tombs on the eastern bank of the nile. the items to be put on display in the museum will come principally from the reign of akhenaten. among the pieces is a small alabaster statue of a princess, a stone relief showing the cutting and carving of stone and a small piece that dates back to the age of amenhotep iii (akhenaten's father), giving details of the area and symbols of egyptian provinces at the time. akhenaten, also known as amenhotep iv, was the son of king amenhotep iii and queen tiye. akhenaten ascended to the throne at a period when the power of the priests of amon was ever increasing. akhenaten established the first temple dedicated to the aten at karnak in luxor, which was the beginning of a big conflict with the priests of amon. in the fourth year of his rule akhenaten decided to abandon the capital thebes where his forefathers had worshipped amon and established a new city. he called the new city akhet aten (the horizon of the aten) and moved there with his mother queen tiye, his beautiful wife nefertiti and his daughters, in the sixth year of his rule. he also changed his name from amenhotep iv to akhenaten (one who serves the aten) and ordered the eradication of the name of amon from all temples and tombs. many houses, palaces, temples and tombs were built in tel el amarna for akhenaten and his court on the east bank of the nile with the tombs on the west side of the city. the tombs were ornamented with wonderful painted reliefs representing religious occasions attended by royalty but the tombs were void of funerary scenes and excerpts from the book of the dead. the palaces and houses were built of sun-dried bricks while quarried stone was used for the bases of columns and door lintels. two large palaces were built in the city; the major one was allocated to queen nefertiti and afterwards to her eldest daughter meret aten. the walls were ornamented with painted reliefs depicting wildlife and nature. the city was divided into two sections: the northern section, which contained the royal palaces and temples, was protected by a high wall with a large gate. as for the temples, they were unlike any others in that they did not include any statues of the cult figure, because akhenaten believed that sacrifices should be offered directly to the god. his temples were no longer dark places but an open court where the sun god filled the space with his rays. * * * sammar a. ezzat, "egyptian-french team successfully restores funerary vessels", the egyptian gazette du 1er janvier 2004. an egyptian-french team of restorers has reassembled some funerary items which were found in sherds at deir al madina in luxor. the team was actually searching for any signs of the place of manufacture and methods for making these items. the team collated the collections of pottery found while arranging some of the antiquities warehouses. in order to restore the pieces the team had to survey about 2.5 cubic metres of sherds bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions. pottery played an important role in the life of the ancient egyptians. the ancients knew two kinds of pottery, the best, however, was a glazed type made from sand. the other kind which was more commonly in use was made from nile clay, especially that from qena. pottery was one of the most advanced industries in upper egypt from pre-historic times until the end of the historic era. artistically speaking, there were two kinds of pottery-making ascribed to a place of origin, the pottery of badari in sohag and naqada in qena. pottery vessels of all types and sizes were used for storing grains, cooking and as funerary containers to store food and grain in the tomb for the deceased to use in the afterlife. * * * hassan saadallah, "21st dynasty priests' houses uncovered at karnak", the egyptian gazette du 15 janvier 2004. the egyptian-french team working on the site east of the sacred lake at karnak temple in luxor has reported uncovering three houses where temple priests lived. the houses, dating back to the 21st dynasty (1070-945 bc) were constructed of sun-dried bricks. the team found many artefacts in the dwellings, the most important of which is a statue of a hippo and a number of earthenware pots, some of which bear hieroglyphic inscriptions and drawings. the team had previously found seven houses dating back to the late and the graeco-roman periods. the pieces found in these houses included a stele of ramses iii, a head of amenhotep ii, storage jars and some pots belonging to the third intermediate period - 21st dynasty up to the 26th dynasty (656-525 bc). remains of a small furnace covered with soot were among other items found. the different ages to which all these items appertain reveal that the houses were abandoned and reused several times. the team found in the area between the rooms of hatshepsut and the temple's sanctuary an oil press, some stone blocks and a faience cartouche bearing the name of tuthmosis iii. the joint team has reconstructed the columns in the outdoor museum at the karnak temple. a few years ago blocks from columns belonging to king tuthmosis iv were found in an open courtyard. the blocks were collected and reassembled near the northern wall of the temple. in all, some 36 columns were restored and the missing capitals of about twenty were replaced with new sandstone blocks. the team had also restored the red chapel of queen hatshepsut whose stones were found near the third pylon. the blocks were gathered together opposite the open museum and restorers using advanced methods, reconstructed the chapel and replaced missing pieces with blocks from the quarry at selsela mountain in aswan. the open museum includes the chapels of king senwosret i, tuthmosis iv, hatshepsut, amenhotep i and tuthmosis i, in addition to diorite statues of the goddess sekhmet belonging to the temple of mut, and a part of a door belonging to the temple of amenhotep iv. the karnak temples are among the major attractions of luxor. they were built during the