Zahi Hawass Resigns

My Twitter feed first brought me indications that Zahi Hawass had resigned ... and then there was Kate Taylor's piece for the New York Times ("Egyptian Antiquities Chief Resigns", March 3, 2011).

Reached by telephone, Mr. Hawass said he was happy that he had made the “right decision” in resigning and lashed out at colleagues who have criticized him, including one who has accused him of smuggling antiquities.

Lee Rosenbaum has a good overview of the resignation ("End of an Egyptology Era: Zahi Hawass Resigns", CultureGrrl March 3, 2011). This came in the wake of Hawass listing of what appears to have been stolen from archaeological stores and sites during the recent unrest ("The status of Egyptian antiquities today, 3 March, 2011").

Comments

Charles Ellwood Jones said…

It seems likely that his resignation was a part of the dismissal this morning of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and therefore not entirely his own decision. But this story is so murky that it will take some time to sort out.

4 March 2011 at 00:13

DR.KWAME OPOKU said…

No matter what happens to Zahi Hawass in the post-Mubarak era, he has done great service to Egypt and Africa as far as restitution is concerned. He has also made archaeology fascinating for the general public. But we should not think that restitution starts and ends with the presence of Hawass. The issue will remain as long as the West retains illegally and illegitimately the cultural artefacts of other nations. When all of us are gone, if things remain as they are, the resultant problems will have to be resolved, with or without Zahi Hawass,the man who brought great dedication and enthusiasm to his work. Dr.Kwame Opoku.

4 March 2011 at 07:50

The scale of the returns to Italy

I have been busy working on an overview, "Returning Archaeological Objects to Italy". The scale of the returns to Italy from North American collections and galleries is staggering: in excess of 350 objects. This is clearly the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the material that has surfaced on the market without a history that can be traced back to the period before 1970.

I will provide more information in due course, but the researcher is a reminder that we need to take due diligence seriously when it comes to making acquisitions.

Stele returns to Greece

The Hellenic Ministry of Culture has announced (Saturday 8 September 2018) that a stele that had been due to be auctioned at Sotheby's in London in June 2017 has been returned to Greece (Friday 7 September 2018). The identification had been made by Cambridge-based forensic archaeologist Dr Christos Tsirogiannis.

It appeared that the stele had been supplied with a falsified history as its presence with Becchina until 1990 contradicted the published sale catalogue entry. It then moved into the hands of George Ortiz.

A year ago it was suggested that Sotheby's should contact the Greek authorities. Those negotiations appear to have concluded successfully.

The 4th century BC stele fragment, with the personal name, Hestiaios, will be displayed in the Epigraphic Museum in Athens. It appears to have come from a cemetery in Attica.

"Beating sites to death"

Policy decisions for protecting archaeological sites need to be informed by carefully argued positions based on data. Dr Sam Hardy has produced an important study, “Metal detecting for cultural objects until ‘there is nothing left’: The potential and limits of digital data, netnographic data and market data for analysis”. Arts 7, 3 (2018) [online]. This builds on Hardy's earlier research.

Readers should note Hardy's conclusion about his findings: "they corroborate the detecting community’s own perception that they are ‘beat[ing these sites] to death’".

Pieterjan Deckers, Andres Dobat, Natasha Ferguson, Stijn Heeren, Michael Lewis, and Suzie Thomas may wish to reflect on whether or not their own position is endangering the finite archaeological record.

Abstract
This methodological study assesses the potential for automatically generated data, netnographic data and market data on metal-detecting to advance cultural property criminology. The method comprises the analysi…

Looting Matters

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