Priceless Objects Stolen From Egypt Museum

Looters appear to have made off with some of Egypt's priceless antiquities during the anti-government protests of the past three weeks.

Egyptian museum, Cairo

A full inventory was carried out at the Cairo museum following the protests

The minister in charge of antiquities has reported that eight items are missing from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, including two gilded wooden statues of Tutankhamun.

Full Article here:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Egyptian-Museum-Cairo-18-Antiquities-Are-Missing-Due-To-Break-In-During-Uprising/Article/201102215929659?lpos=World_News_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_3&lid=ARTICLE_15929659_Egyptian_Museum_Cairo:_18_Antiquities_Are_Missing_Due_To_Break-In_During_Uprising

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no real suprise there.. who had actually believed that they just smashed and damaged some items

by Dorothy King:
Zahi Hawass has just admitted that his previous claims that nothing was stolen from the Egyptian Museum were ... optimistic - or bull, depending on where one stands on his pro-Mubarak politics. The timing of the admission, soon after the departure of President Mubarak, a man Dr Hawass took to defending on various international news programmes, is also suspicious ... I'll keep updating this post as more information comes in, and it wouldn't surprise me if another list of missing pieces were released soon.
http://phdiva.blogspot.com/2011/02/cairo-museum-thefts.html

by Paul Barford:
Several people are suggesting this may not close the list of missing items. I fear their pessimism might turn out to be well-founded.

What is clear is that this missing material is not just any old rubbish, but 18 collectables (more than will fit into one knapsack) which will fetch top dollar from some unscrupulous collector who may have ordered their taking and already have them in his ha nds. The scattering of the other objects on the museum floor (by somebody acting as a decoy?) may have been deliberate in order to slow down the process of assessing what was missing, allowing time for the stolen items to disappear into the murky world of the no-questions-asked antiquities market. Hawass announces:

An investigation has begun to search for the people who have taken these objects, and the police and army plan to follow up with the criminals already in custody.

("begun"?). How about also investigating why - according to Hawass - there were only three museum guards in the place, and how it is possible that, according to reports, the thieves had AN HOUR to do what they had come into the museum to do, when the sound of the smashing glass would have been echoing around the Museum loudly enough to hear above the noise of the mob outside. The head of the SCA and Minister of Antiquities had been gleefully telling the world how "ignorant" the thieves had been, even though it must have been obvious that the upper part of the harpooning figure was not among the pieces collected together for conservation more than a week ago, despite the fact that the Akhenaton statue was mentioned as "damaged" in an earlier communique. The varying conflicting messages given out concerning this break-in has given the people who have these priceless antiquities in their hands a full two weeks to get them out of the country, very probably facilitated by the general chaos at the main exit airports. It is clear that there needs to be a wider enquiry into the manner in which this crisis was managed and the precise circumstances surrounding this theft, arguably one of the biggest and most audacious art heists of all time.

Who (that is a plural by the way) is responsible for the criminal lack of security in the museum that night and the subsequent concealment of the information about what was initially suspected as missing?
http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2011/02/cairo-museum-looting-one-looter-was.html

by Lee Rosenbaum:
To be fair to the man, he was placed with no prior notice at the head of a new ministry which he then had to organize (in the logistic sense), was made a full cabinet member at a time when the government was falling, had to deal with foreign press and foreign archaeologists and the general problems of getting about and living a normal life in Cairo. Hawass is not Director of the Museum (that is Dr. Tarek El Awady) and while he obviously visited a number of times and spent some time there trying to work out what had happened (and perhaps indicate what should be done in future), it seems possible that some of the details may have been deliberately hidden from him by the museum staff. (Let's face it, we've seen his rather strong personality expressing itself on TV, would you tell him to his face that you'd failed to carry out your job correctly?). A few days ago he wrote:

Yesterday was the first time, since this crisis began, that I was able to take the time to closely examine each item that was damaged during the museum’s break in on Friday, 28 January, 2011. I also took time to speak to the commanders of the police and army stationed at the museum, and I asked them to update me on their investigations. I have heard so many differing stories about how the break in occurred, so I felt it was necessary to confirm the details with the police and army.

But then of course the police and army do not know the full story either. What is needed is a full investigation, perhaps by an outside body, followed by a proper report, detailing exactly what went wrong and making formal recommendations on how to avoid this sort of situation in the future, both in Egypt and in the case of other museums.
http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2011/02/egypt-lee-rosenbaum-on-credibility-of.html

by Zahi Hawass:
The staff of the database department at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo have given me their report on the inventory of objects at the museum following the break in. Sadly, they have discovered objects are missing from the museum. The objects missing are as follows:
http://www.drhawass.com/blog/sad-news

Here pictures of the stolen items:
http://s13.directupload.net/images/110213/ji7nzix6.jpg

also stolen:
http://s5.directupload.net/file/d/2434/ngg4iwt8_jpg.htm

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2011/February/middleeast_February605.xml§ion=middleeast

CAIRO - Egyptian antiquities authorities have recovered a statue of the renegade Pharaoh Akhenaten that was stolen along with eight other items during protests that brought down President Hosni Mubarak.