Pages

A universe of beauty, mystery and wonder

A universe of beauty, mystery and wonder
©http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/ UNAUTHORIZED USE AND/OR DUPLICATION OF THIS BLOG'S MATERIAL IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. EXCERPTS AND LINKS MAY BE USED, PROVIDED THAT FULL AND CLEAR CREDIT IS GIVEN TO OTTERS AND SCIENCE NEWS BLOGSPOT WITH APPROPRIATE AND SPECIFIC DIRECTION TO THE ORIGINAL CONTENT. --- THE FACTS AND OPINIONS POSTED ON THIS BLOG ARE HERE FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSE AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS OF THIS BLOG'S ADMINISTRATOR.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

EGYPT - MASSIVE THEFT AND DESTRUCTION OF PRICELESS MUSEUM ARTIFACTS

Never let a revolution go to waste. 
 
Ancient Egyptian civilization is a bit of a problem for the country, since it is non-Islamic.  Still, it attracts tourists.  Or used to.
 
The latest robbery has been going on in the Malawi Museum in the city of Minya, 300km from Cairo.  Looters got away with more than 1,000 objects, including a prized 3,500-year-old limestone statue, ancient beaded jewelry, gold and bronze Greco-Roman coins, pottery and bronze-detailed sculptures of animals sacred to Thoth, one of the ancient Egyptian deities represented with the head of an ibis.  

The building was initially vandalized last Wednesday, with looting and burning going on for almost a week now.  Local teenagers burned and destroyed mummies and other objects of art which were too heavy for robbers to carry.
 
This isn’t the first major looting to have happened on Egyptian soil since the 2011 uprising: during the 18-day revolution, looting took place all over the country. In particular, over 50 items were stolen from the Cairo museum. However, the head of museums Sharaf said that about half of the items were recovered at that time. 
 
In December 2011, up to 200,000 rare books were destroyed by the blaze in the building of the Egyptian Scientific Institute in Cairo.

Read more  - http://rt.com/news/museum-theft-egypt-robbery-725/


RELATED:

2003 - Ancient Iraqi sites looted, destroyed -  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/06/0611_030611_iraqlooting.html

2013 - Destruction of Syrian heritage sites
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/21/syria-heritage-danger-list

Link to this post - http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/08/egypt-massive-theft-and-destruction-of.html


*******************************************************************************


No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for visiting my blog. Your comments are always appreciated, but please do not include links.