Chap 3 - Egypt's Heritage in times of Conflict

Chapter 3 Egypt’s Heritage in Times of Conflict and Crisis G. J. Tassie, A. De Trafford and J. van Wetering ABSTRACT The Egyptian revolution of 25th January 2011 brought the authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak to an end and gave hope of greater social, political and economic freedom to millions of people. However, the lack of administrative continuity, government funding, disappearance of the police and enforceable laws and regulations in the field of cultural heritage management over subsequent years left Egypt's cultural heritage highly vulnerable. Museums and magazines were attacked and robbed, and hundreds of sites looted, often by well organised criminal gangs wielding automatic weapons. Terrorist attacks and sectarian violence have resulted in the destruction of museums, churches and other historic buildings, as well as illicit and illegal encroachments onto both protected and unprotected archaeological land, often as a ruse to conceal looting activity. The population of Egypt is booming; however, reclaimed desert has been neglected as a venue for construction, with developers favouring convenient archaeological sites, or historic Belle Époque buildings that have been razed for the construction of tenements. This is not only destroying the aesthetics of the great cities, but strikes at the very heart of Egypt’s multiethnicity. Many individuals –both heritage workers and the general public – have come together to protect their heritage from the unscrupulous, from forming human chains around vulnerable monuments to the formation of social media campaigns to warn against the imminent destruction of cultural heritage, and to demand greater security at sites and monuments. This is an opportunity for greater cooperation between Egyptian and international archaeologists, and with the general public who live beside these sites and monuments. It is an opportunity to create new systems of administration and laws to protect cultural heritage, and to listen to the voices of the modern Egyptians in formulating heritage management and values. INTRODUCTION Recent events in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Tunisia have provoked considerable dialogue concerning the protection of cultural property in times of armed conflict, civil unrest and national disasters (Kila 2013). The Arab Spring, of which Egypt was a part, has had a serious effect on cultural property: 'bad as things were before 2011, never has the damage been as sustained, extensive and methodical as since the region tumbled into violence at the beginning of the Arab Spring' (Athanasiadis 2014). The cultural heritage of Egypt is a finite resource: if we do not do something to stop the looting and destruction, most sites in Egypt will be gone in 25 years (Parçak, in Vergano 2014). The Egyptian revolution of 25th January 2011 resulted in the end of Hosni Mubarak’s tenure as president, and also witnessed the disappearance of police from their posts, and a state of lawlessness that left many archaeological sites open to looting, vandalism and illegal building activities. The Central and Eastern European transitions from communism to democracy saw similar lawlessness in the 1980s to 1990s, with widespread destruction, armed conflict, vandalism and theft. Some of the main challenges to protecting the cultural property were the lack of administrative continuity, government funding, and enforceable laws and regulations in the field of cultural heritage management. Despite the recurrence of these trends, not only in Egypt, but throughout North Africa and South-western Asia as many countries try to change from authoritarian regimes to greater social, political and economic freedom, it would appear that both national and international measures are ineffective in these situations. Although thefts from museums are a serious problem, these items have – in principle – usually been studied and registered, and so are easier to track. However, even the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, Cairo, where the Registration and Collection Management Department has been creating a database of the museum’s vast collection since 2007 and has records for almost all registered museum objects, the objects' specific location [in the museum’s galleries], is not always known (Keshk 2012a). Most of the items kept in magazines (storehouses) are typically uncatalogued or have only sparse records, and so are prime targets for thieves (Tresilian 2014). At some sites, an overflow of objects are kept in undecorated tombs that are then bricked-up to safeguard them. Worst of all is site looting, for this leaves cultural heritage without context, destroying sites for future investigation, and the items looted from these sites cannot easily be traced (see Fig. 3.1). Although looting is not new and has been undertaken in Egypt for millennia, an increase in the illicit trade in antiquities is noticeable since the time of the eighteenth-century ‘Grand Tour’. There have

G. J. Tassie, A. De Trafford and J. van Wetering

been some high profile cases of looting and antiquities smuggling such as those of Frederick Schultz and Jonathan Tokeley-Parry and the Abd el-Rassul brothers (Brodie 2014; Doole 2002; Gerstenblith 2002; Tassie 2007; Wilson 2002) however, since 2011 there has been a dramatic increase in the scale and organisation of looting. This is also the case with the illegal encroachments on archaeological sites. In February 2006, the First Conference on Encroachments on Archaeological Sites was held in Egypt. This conference highlighted the problems of encroachments and their impact on sites and monuments as well as artefacts. Over ten years ago agriculture and urban development, particularly illegal constructions, were encroaching on archaeological sites up and down Egypt. Even the most famous of sites, i.e. the Giza Pyramids, Luxor, and Hierakonpolis were not free from this encroachment. Since the revolution cases of illegal encroachment have increased ten-fold, with sites such as Abu el-Hummus, Abusir, Abydos, Atfih (Aphroditopolis), Akhmim, Antinoupolis, al-Bordan, Borg el-Arab Dahshur, Fustat, Gebelein, Gerza, Heliopolis, Izbat alJabri, al-Khatib, Lisht, Maadi, Saqqara, Tell Aziz, Tell el-Hibeh, and Wadi Digla – to name but a few – all suffering incursions of one form or another. The scale of looting and theft is of course connected to Egypt’s depressed economy, lack of security and meteoric unemployment, which ran at 12.7% in 2012, with over a quarter of all people living beneath the official poverty line at 25.2% (Brederova 2014). The decrease in tourism since 2011 has also had a major impact, as the industry had been steadily rising since the mid-1990s and by the mid-2000s accounted for more than 12% of Egypt's gross domestic product (GDP) and 12-14% of total employment (Ashton 2013). In 2010 14.7 million tourists visited Egypt, contributing $13.63 billion to the economy (11% GDP); this was down to 9.8 million in 2011, recovering slightly to 11.57 million tourists in 2012, but falling again in 2013 to 9.5 million with with revenues of $5.9 billion (6.7% GDP) as a result of governmental warnings to avoid the country post-Morsi (Kingsley 2014a). The recovery in 2014 has been good, jumping 112% to 2.8 million tourists contributing $2 billion in the third quarter of 2014 (compared to 1.6 million tourists generating $900 million in the same quarter in 2013 [Ahram Online 2014; Mostafa 2015b]). There was also an increase in domestic tourism in the latter part of 2014 (Mostafa 2015a). There are 65 magazines located around the country, the ex-Minister of Antiquities Dr Mohammed Ibrahim estimated that in the first 16 months after the January 25th revolution 2% of the artefacts once held in these storehouses were looted = 50,000 artefacts (Joseph 2012), although this figure had changed in 2014 to 4,000 artefacts (Brederova 2014), the discrepancy reflecting once more just how databasing efforts have failed to keep up with the flow of archived remains. Increased security has seen a decrease in thefts, but an increase in illicit digging that has been estimated at 100 times the pre-2011 rate (5697 illicit digs in 2012). Related crimes have also risen, to include 1,467 cases of illicit trading in antiquities, 150+ attempts to smuggle antiquities abroad, and at least 35 deaths related to looting (Hendawi 2012). Recent research by the International Coalition to Protect Egyptian Antiquities (ICPEA) suggests thefts at archaeological sites in Egypt have rocketed by between 500% and 1,000% since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011. Monica Hanna – who works with the ICPEA – states that the team using satellite imagery have counted more than 200 sites that have been affected by looting, and that there has been an increase by about 300% in the past three years in instances of grave robbing. The team estimates that between 100 and 150 objects have gone missing every day since 2011 (DW 2014). “The illegal trade of Egyptian antiquities is a worldwide problem, but the U.S. is one of the target markets,” says Andrew Moore, the president of the Archaeological Institute of America´ (Shaw 2014a). THE THREATS TO CULTURAL HERITAGE The 1954 UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict was designed to protect cultural property during periods of conventional war, but has proven to be inadequate in dealing with the issues that have arisen in Egypt since 2011. It should be noted that the 1954 Convention came into being as a result of World War II, and it is perhaps unsurprising that it has not adapted to the changing face of modern conflict and social breakdown. It therefore behoves us to reassess the procedures in place to protect the world’s cultural heritage (Eichberger 2010; Forrest 2014; Schipper and Eichberger 2010). The 1954 Hague Convention includes these peacetime measures against future conflict: • • • •

Registration on ‘International Register of Cultural Property under Special Protection' Training of specialised military personnel to secure respect for cultural property Cooperation of military with the civilian authorities responsible for safeguarding it Cooperation between archaeologists, heritage managers, politicians and the military 15

Egypt’s Heritage in Times of Conflict and Crisis

What role can cultural heritage play in forming new Egyptian identities, and how will it be protected during reconstruction and development? Central and Eastern European revolutions prompted the UNESCO International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR), established to develop management strategies for cultural heritage at all levels, to include: • • • • • • • •

Improved cultural heritage stewardship and integration in disaster management Making disaster planning a national priority Skill development and professional training Media promotion cultural issues to governments and the general public ‘Blue Shield’ markings to denote protected status Cooperation and contact between domestic and international organisations Establishing a special tax to fund disaster planning, mitigation and relief Encouraging private and public partnerships

However, despite various UNESCO visits to Egypt from 2011 onwards, these strategies proved to be ineffective due to the lack of administrative continuity, government funding, enforceable cultural heritage laws and regulations, and absent security at sites, magazines and museums. Egypt's cultural heritage has emerged as one of the main casualties of both the revolution and Egypt’s fast-growing population's demand for housing. Ambitions of developers aside, there is a misplaced but enduring belief that modernity is attainable through high-rises, factories and large-scale development projects (Athanasiadis 2014). This building (or agriculture) often takes place on ‘grabbed’ land belonging to the Ministry of Antiquities (MA). 'The people responsible for these takeovers include contractors who might appropriate significant amounts of land to divide up and resell for multiple purposes, or even villagers and townspeople who live in settlements abutting the archaeological areas. The latter group tends to acquire land at a much smaller scale than the former. Acquisition involves hastily constructing a wall around a piece of land, or quickly tilling the soil and planting or claiming to plant something there. The most effective ploy used to keep the newly acquired land, if immediate construction is untenable, is to use the area as a cemetery, or at least give the appearance that this is its new function' (Ikram 2013: 366). This is primarily a ploy by contractors, whereas local people often regard these areas as lying empty and unused, and therefore believe that they are finally being utilised. This raises the issue of community archaeology and education, as increased engagement in planning and community archaeology incentives will involve local inhabitants and lead to greater public and private engagement with heritage. Looting may be one of the oldest professions, but has achieved new heights – or depths – since 2011. The absence of policing and adequate legislation has shown just how vulnerable Egypt’s resources are. During the initial demonstrations at the end of January 2011 only a few looting attempts were reported, the most high profile being that of the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, Cairo. Military personnel were deployed to protect not only the museums, but the thousands of sites around the country. After the overthrow of the Mubarak regime the military personnel were redeployed, and the Tourist and Antiquities Police that normally protect the archaeological sites and magazines did not – or could not – return to their posts owing to public disfavour. Only a few small groups of site guards (ghafirs) steadfastly remained at their posts, although some of these were held-up at gunpoint. The 16 months of interim government saw the most widespread loss of cultural property, mainly from antiquities storerooms and archaeological sites, and there was a lack of coordinated efforts to prevent this. Security breakdowns were followed by the collapse of continuity within the MSA (now the MA). After the resignation of Zahi Hawass as the Minister of Antiquities in July 2011 a lack of administrative continuity ensued, for there were rapid changes of personnel in positions of power within the Ministry of State for Antiquities (now the MA) (Keshk 2011a). Since Hawass' resignation there have been three ministers for antiquities – Ahmed Eissa, Mohamed Ibrahim and Mamdouh el-Damaty (as of June 2014) – but the disruption in the antiquities department combined with the long initial absence of the guards created a security vacuum that led to greater organisation within the looting community, a situation exacerbated by the release of numerous criminals from prison early in 2011. What happened next suggests that the majority of cultural property loss is a byproduct of the civil unrest rather than being the direct result of armed conflict, as testified to by several millennia of looting in Egypt (Ikram 2013).

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When Looters 'Excavate'

Archaeological Excavation

Selfish collecting; Desire for Adventure/Discovery; ProfitMaking

Motivation

Answer Specific Research Questions; Documenting Historical Information/ Context; Rescuing or Protecting Sites and Monuments from Destruction

Is Destroyed

Object's Association with Find Context

Is Comprehensively Documented

Is Stripped from its Context; Often Improperly Preserved, thus Destroyed

Use/Treatment of Excavated Object

Find-context Documented; Undergoes Professional Conservation Treatment

Generally Improper; Withdrawn from the Public

Storage of Excavated Objects

In Suitable Magazines; Made Accessible to the Public in Museum Collections and Publications

Is Limited to None

Objects as Historical Sources and Their Potential to Answer Archaeological/Historical Questions

As they are Preserved They Have the Ability to Answer Specific Questions About Past Human Behaviour and Historical Events

Figure 3.1: Illicit digging vs. archaeological excavation (adapted from Fasold, Stutzinger and von Kaenel 1995: 26). 'However, under the Morsi administration and its Islamist allies, the country suffered from a systematic lack of interest towards the archaeological and cultural heritage of Egypt, the total lack of political will to protect and enhance the archaeological areas, and even an ideological tendency to de-legitimize the pre-Islamic past as an essential component of national identity' (Hanna 2013b: 372). During Morsi's reign hardline preachers – both on television and in mosques – openly encouraged looting of sites and destruction of cultural heritage, perhaps owing to their pre-Islamic nature, with one particularly radical Salafist leader advocating the destruction of the pyramids of Giza. While el-Sisi’s administration has seen some improvements, the structure of command and exercise of power has suffered. However, when the organised looters strike they can outnumber the guards by as many as 15:1, and be heavily armed (Ikram 2014). In 2014 tanks and armoured vehicles are still a permanent fixture outside the Coptic Museum as well as the Egyptian Museum, stationed there to protect them against any further civil unrest that may occur. Various scales and types of looting can be identified, such as professional organised looting and the opportunistic robbers. These organised gangs consist of: ‘…an individual with connections to facilitate the disposal of stolen antiquities controls the professional “mafia” of looters. His underlings acquire, transport, and see to the nitty-gritty of the operation. Often the “king-pin” will hire thieves on an ad hoc basis, or opportunistic robbers will go to him to sell artefacts as they do not have the connections to dispose of them’ (Ikram 2013: 367-8). Two categories of organised looters can be observed: violent and relatively non-violent. The violent looters, often consisting of career criminals that were let out of prison early in 2011 are relatively new, and is a direct result of the recent increase in the traffic in arms in Egypt. These violent looters employ guards with 17


guns while hired diggers loot sites. However, the latter category have been well established in Egypt for many years, digging random pits in the hope of finding gold and other valuables. Some of these well-armed looters have killed the poorly armed site guards that remained on the sites after the better equipped police left. 'Prior to 2011, these guards were generally sufficient to intimidate prospective robbers as the guards were in positions of authority, and the fear of reprisal when caught was a sufficient deterrent to the thieves. However, the absence of a clear authority, coupled with weaponry, made looters feel relatively invincible, even those who were opportunistic and not part of a larger organization' (Ikram 2013: 368-9). In the years since the 2011 revolution, well-armed “mafia” groups have targeted archaeological sites and, sometimes with the aid of a bulldozer, have dug up monuments and artefacts, and taken them to sell on the black market, usually to powerful dealers. The illicit antiquities are either shipped abroad immediately, or held in a safe house for dealers to view and buy what they believe they can sell on. Some of these groups seem to have read archaeological reports and may possibly be using geophysical prospecting to target their nefarious activities. The unarmed gangs or as Hardy (2015a) terms them subsistence diggers, follow a similar pattern in disposing of their loot. Many of this latter group are driven by the rampant inequality and poverty and are oblivious to the destruction of their cultural heritage, only wishing to feed their families. Large portions of land under World Heritage List protection have been occupied on several occasions at Dahshur, Saqqara, and Lisht, and reused for constructing modern cemeteries, which are a cover for looting (Hanna 2013a; Ikram 2013). Prior to 1983, legal antiquities dealers operated in Egypt; Law 117 (1983) changed this, with most dealers moving overseas, ceasing business, or going underground creating the conditions for rampant abuse (Waxman 2008: 120-6). Trew (2014) suggests that the illicit antiquities business stretched to the top echelons of government under the Mubarak regime, prominent families colluding with dealers, diplomats, security forces and ministries to obtain items and remove them from the country via truck, boat or plane. Hawass’ work to undo this damage in the 2000s has been set back by the 2011 revolution and its aftermath (Smith 2014 passim; Waxman 2008: 125), and this deficit is one of the new government’s greatest challenges. The Egyptian antiquities laws are already sufficient in this respect; they just need to be properly enforced (Mostafa 2014c). Satellite imagery by Parçak among others has revealed extensive illicit digging across the country, with tens of thousands of looting pits dotting the landscape, many of them very recent (Moustafa 2014; Vergano 2014). However, these satellites do not reveal the excavations being undertaken beneath houses or the walls of tombs and temples that are being attacked in order to remove decorated blocks, as has been attested in Saqqara and sites in the Delta (i.e. Behbet el-Hagar and Kom Abu Billo), Middle Egypt and Luxor. The combined loss of information on past human activity is enormous (Ikram 2013)1. Antiquities Law No. 117 of 1983 (amended by Law No. 3 of 2010), which prohibits looting or any encroachment on archaeological sites (Ikram 2011), has failed to stem the tide. Corruption, wealthy oligarchs, funding issues, bureaucratic lethargy and risk-avoiding attitudes may all play a part (Kila 2013: 320). It is apparent that the security forces are considerably better at catching looters than either they – or governmental policy – are at preventing the looting in the first instance. Inadvertent damage by terror attacks also threatens cultural heritage, such as the car bomb that caused substantial damage to the Islamic Museum of Art in Cairo in January 2014, damaging mosques and the fabric of local buildings as well as the intended target (a police station). The manuscripts it contains had to be hastily removed, with inevitable conservation issues. In January 2915 the Al-Arish Museum in the Sinai also suffered serious damage during a terrorist attack on the nearby security directorate. A similar situation transpired at the Institut d'Egypte (Egyptian Research Council) in 2011, where an arson attack destroyed 10,000 books and damaged 20,000 more; the full fate of the remaining archives is still unknown (El Aref 2015; Cairo Observer 2014; Fangary and Wahba 2012). Further lootings and arson have damaged the Villa Casdagli (Midan Simon Bolivar) in 2013, and the Villa Kevork Ispenian (Pyramids Road) in 2011 and 2012 (Tresilian 2014), while the important Coptic areas of Abu Mina and the Wadi Natrun were attacked and looted by well-armed radical militias in 2014. It is understood that they also aim to grab archaeological land for illegal construction and agriculture activities (Egypt’s Heritage Task Force 2014). In sum, cultural heritage is suffering in the face of sectarian vengeance, poor economic infrastructure, and the existence of the illicit trade in antiquities (Brederova 2014).

1

It should be noted than Egypt is not unique in this respect. Around 78.5% of 3009 archaeologists surveyed in 2013 had encountered looting or evidence thereof in their fieldwork (Proulx 2013: 119). This is universal, with particular increases in South America, North Africa and Southwest Asia.

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VALUES OF CULTURAL HERITAGE The need for cultural heritage conservation begs the question: what are the cultural constraints determining why, how and for whom an archaeological site is preserved (Mason and Avrami, 2002:18)? It would generally appear that cultural heritage ‘value’ equates with archaeological ‘value’ (Gestrich 2011), and thus on public interest rather than economic. According to the World Bank and the IMF, there is a positive correlation between World Heritage (WH) Listing and tourism growth, with a resulting increase in long-term GDP growth: tourism thus generated increases growth per capita by around 10.4% (Lehr 2014). The cultural wealth of Egypt is such that it is in danger of becoming a WH-sponsored open air museum for tourists and the government. However this is clearly unsustainable: cultural heritage cannot merely be regarded as a commodity (i.e. visitor attraction), for it does not include the non-use values, and these sociocultural values must also be considered when assessing a site's significance to various groups, both current and future. Therefore, the aesthetic, historic, scientific, religious, symbolic, educational, economic, and ecological values all need to be considered when assessing the values of cultural heritage (Agnew 1997; Klamer 2014). World Heritage Listing does not only raise the economic value of sites and monuments, but adds a layer of legal protection to what essentially constitute not only a cultural resource but also the country’s living memory (Keshk 2011a). This protection is clearly needed. Rural sites are part of the landscape, with fields surrounding and overlaying them, while urban sites found during the construction of new buildings are built upon, sealing them for future generations (Huisman 2012); only rarely are they important enough to prevent modern construction. When archaeology is discovered during the course of constructions it is often destroyed, surreptitiously sold to dealers, or just built over rather than notify the proper archaeological authorities (Waxman 2008: 125). Most developed countries have legislation requiring developers to fund any such necessary work before any new developments destroy any archaeology present. This usually takes the form of an archaeological assessment, and any necessary excavations conducted and paid for by the developers (Stapp and Longenecker 2009). Although legislation exists in Egypt to compel developers to permit archaeological investigations prior to building activities in registered archaeological areas, this is often ignored, or when investigations are conducted they consist of test-pits dug by unskilled labours with action only taken if architectural remains or a statue is discovered. The regulations that do exist need to be not only rigorously enforced before significant damage has been done, but significantly expanded and improved upon to take in the whole country (Tassie and Hassan 2009). Once the use and non-use values of a site have been assessed, some sites may be turned over to the local population. The fact that most traditional building techniques do not use deep foundations means that the archaeology may remain undamaged, and accessible to future generations. However, more ambitious underground construction (i.e. car parks) and anything with more ambitious foundations – especially in a city – is less forgiving to the archaeology. It is of course undeniable that more land is needed for housing and agriculture, but it is also necessary to balance the needs of the past and present, and to establish better relations between governmental departments and the general public. When archaeology is discovered during the course of constructions it is often destroyed, surreptitiously sold to dealers, or just built over rather than notify the proper archaeological authorities, for they think their land will be confiscated with insufficient compensation (Waxman 2008: 125). Both better education to make people aware of the worth of their cultural heritage and greater and fairer rewards are needed to rectify this situation. Cultural heritage management needs to be flexible; it needs to be inclusive of all the stakeholders. ‘The key to making a change to site management in Egypt is to shift the focus in conservation and site management from the site itself to the local community and to society at large’ (Fushiya and De Trafford 2009: 49)’. This sentiment, is echoed by Fushiya (2010) who highlights the fact that the local communities have often been given limited access to knowledge, and limited opportunities to become involved in the archaeology, with the modern living standards of everyday Egyptians often restricted in order to protect national heritage, leading to discord and resentment. This is a failure on the part of cultural heritage planners, for the failure to recognise the relationship between archaeological sites and modern society will condemn both and serve none. The past cannot be hermetically sealed in the present, and the needs of the modern population cannot be ignored (Agnew 1997). Amongst the various factors that have negatively impacted on cultural heritage in Egypt is the failure to recognise the relationship between the archaeological sites and the present society — both the local community and other stakeholders. Local involvement is an essential element of successful archaeological site management. Recognition of the role of the local community could make a great contribution in improving the present critical situation of many archaeological sites worldwide (Pyburn 2014; Schadla-Hall and Larkin 2014).

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This issue is particularly visible in Egypt, owing to the way in which the missions tend to excavate. Academic archaeology relies upon seasons of several months of fieldwork per year, reflecting funding patterns and teaching obligations, whereas contract archaeology is only undertaken in response to a specific threat to cultural heritage, and continues until the site has been investigated and recorded. Contract archaeology at present only accounts for a very small percentage of the archaeological work undertaken in Egypt. Research sites are therefore often worked at for only a fraction of the year, and are reliant upon the good will of the local community for their preservation or protection in the archaeologists’ absence. It therefore behoves the archaeologist to always involve local groups in their work, to communicate the results of their endeavours, so that they are part of the process of exploration and learning. The combined experience of the local population and the archaeologists, consisting of a thorough knowledge of local circumstances, the region, its landscape, and its history, is important in the process of understanding the history of a site. Not only is this a pragmatic function, but is also a socially requisite one, given that local groups may have genetic, social and cultural connections with the site, and are also bound to inherit its custodianship once archaeological works there have ceased. As Wendrich (2006: 186) states: “Stimulating the interest of the local population in nearby antiquities and creating a heightened awareness of their cultural value will help to preserve the ancient remains. Direct economic interest of the local community in the local antiquities will strengthen this effect considerably. For archaeologists, important issues are at stake. To have the support of the local population in the protection of an archaeological site is as important as legal and government protection. Archaeologists can have an important role in stimulating such support by aiding the development of sustainable tourism. They can provide the knowledge to make an unglamorous archaeological site into a fascinating narrative… By involving the local population directly in the excavation and adding a training component and site management plan to the archaeological work, an unglamorous mud-brick site might change from a useless section of off-limits land at the fringe of a community to a source of pride and potential income.” LOWER EGYPTIAN CULTURAL HERITAGE IN TIMES OF CONFLICT AND CRISIS Lower Egypt’s cultural plight since the revolution needs some further elucidation. Magazines were targeted from 2011 onwards – at sites including Tell el-Fara'in, Tell el-Dab'a, Qantir, Saqqara and Mit Rahina (2013) – in the widespread belief that they contained gold and similar valuables, when they found that they only contained pottery and bones they smashed the seemingly valueless remains in anger and (Al Rawi 2011; Ikram 2013). Between 2011 and 2012 sites in the Memphite necropolis (Abu Roash, Abusir, Dahshur, Giza, Saqqara, Saqqara South and Tarkhan) and the Delta (tomb of Kenamun in Tell el-Maskhuta, Tell el-Basta, Tell Tenis, Tell el-Yahudiya, Sa el-Hagar [Sais], San el-Hagar [Tanis] and Zoulien) were also looted or attacked (Al Rawi 2011; Hanna 2013b; Looting Database Archives). Throughout 2014 and into 2015 a sharp increase has been recorded in illegal excavations being undertaken by citizens living in the slums of the province of Alexandria (Egypt Independent 2015a). 'The reasons behind this large-scale loss of antiquities are poverty, greed, and ignorance. The dramatically escalating cost of living in Egypt, the increasing number of available and desirable commodities ranging from foodstuffs to electronics, the lack of jobs, and the poor pay, especially in the public sector, all contribute to people’s attempts to supplement their income whenever possible' (Ikram 2014). Collector demand for illicit antiquities, along with the illicit antiquities dealers and the middlemen who hire local villagers to dig for them must bear the greater responsibility, as the middlemen and dealers are the ones who make the greatest profits (Brodie 2011; 2014; Brodie et al. 2000; 2006; MacKenzie 2011). Land grabbing incidents are also increasingly common. Notable examples include Al-Bordan in the west Delta, where residents from Al-Hamman bulldozed Graeco-Roman structures in order to construct summerhouses2, and the site of Tarkhan, where much of the Early Dynastic and later tombs have been covered by a modern cemetery, two houses, and ploughed fields (Ikram 2014). An illegal landfill has existed on the archaeological land of north Abusir since 2007. This land is owned by the MA and is registered on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the archaeological land of the Memphite Necropolis. 2 Contractor Yasser Khalil and truck driver Mohamed Abdel-Sattar were accused of damaging the archaeological site, but they denied all charges (El-Aref 2013a). The armed gang returned in early 2014, but were successfully repelled.

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Unfortunately, the site is currently in such a bad state that fumes from burning garbage reach to the nearby archaeological monuments (ECHO Website). The area around the pyramid and other monuments at Abu Roash has also become a dumping ground (Fushiya and De Trafford 2009), as have the barracks of Mohammed Ali built to protect the Citadel (Schwartzstein 2014). Another such site used as dumping ground was the Masalla section of Al Matariya district, which is the location of ancient Iwn or Heliopolis and contains one of Egypt's few remaining freestanding obelisks. The area behind the Dynasty XII obelisk of King Senusert I had been turned into a garbage dump picked over by sheep and goats, and a nearby spot where remains of a Middle Kingdom temple lies was used as a swimming pool for dogs. Subterranean water had leaked into the archaeological pit where the remains lie, filling it with water, and dogs are taking a plunge to escape the summer heat. If obdurate, archaeological remains are often destroyed to make way for land grabs. In June 2013 the Gate of Ramsis IX of the Ramesside Temple of Ra in Arab al-Hisn in ancient Heliopolis was set ablaze. This resulted in severe damage to the inscriptions. The people responsible for this act of arson wanted to seize the land on which the ancient temple lies. This act seems to have been part of a systematic campaign in the region, for there had been previous attempts to break another gate at the site, that of Ramses II, as well as attempts to burn the site. This group had also built small huts and converted part of the area into a parking lot and car wash area. However, Monica Hanna led a campaign later that June to clean up the ancient site of garbage that had been dumped there, and in the same month launched a campaign called Egypt’s Heritage Task Force, which is a crisis management team to keep an eye on ancient sites during times of civil unrest. It should be noted that local residents are not solely responsible for this form of damage. Clerical and administrative error led the Ministry of Endowments to bulldoze archaeologically valuable remains near Souq al-Khamis while laying the foundations of a large wall to surround the market. This destruction and also further encroachments in the area was only stopped after much damage had been done (El-Aref 2012; 2013a; Hanna 2013c). There is not a case in Egypt that would not benefit from greater and better efforts to educate and engage communities in the importance of their local heritage. The case of Dahshur is a good example. This UNESCO World Heritage site is home to two of Egypt's oldest and best-preserved pyramids, surrounded by very economically deprived areas, exacerbated by poor farmland quality3, population increases and burgeoning poverty and unemployment. Between 2006 and 2007, Fekri Hassan undertook the development of a site management project for Dahshur and the Memphite Pyramid Fields (and Dahshur lake), which in 2009 became the UN project Mobilization of the Dahshur World Heritage Site for Community Development. The project spanned five UN agencies and five governmental institutions, to include the UN World Tourism Organization, UNESCO, the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, among others (Galla 2012; Hassan 2013). Local residents were surveyed in order to assess their knowledge and understanding of the archaeological remains: the fact that 41% of all woman and 27.3% of all men were unaware of the remains’ cultural significance (Hassan 2013) testifies to the lack of cultural involvement that appears to be endemic in Egyptian society. The project aimed mainly at preserving the cultural heritage of Dahshur, enhancing local economic development and creative industries, raising local awareness of the importance of cultural heritage, protecting the area’s natural resources and promoting the development of sustainable tourism in the area. Governmental authorities and the local community could engage with the UN on an environmental and cultural programme. The programme also targeted Dahshur Lake as a part of the development project, with many studies being undertaken and a request submitted for the Environment Ministry to define it as a protected area. Goals: • Expand employment opportunities in UNESCO World Heritage sites o Supporting local production of arts o Promoting the development of creative industries and small tourism businesses o Particular focus on women and youths • Build capacity for cultural management and protection of World Heritage cultural assets; • Promote public awareness of the social value of WH sites and natural resources • Provide forums for cross-cultural exchanges. Achievements: • An integral tourist plan for Dahshur 3

Climate change and the building of the Aswan High Dam have badly affected the quality of agricultural.

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50 million EGP allocated by tourism ministry for basic infrastructure 4.4 million EGP to build a visitors centre. A master plan of the area Quality environmental assessment and a protected area report. o Area declared as “environmentally managed” o Control of hunting and protection of biodiversity More than 3,000 people received training in a variety of potential tourist industries o Basic hospitality, horse cart driving, tourist guides o Trained artesans have produced prototypes of products to be widely marketed o More than 300 people received specific training on entrepreneurship. 294 loans of