OK, in the interest
of time, I think
we should probably get started.
Everybody, welcome back to the
fourth and the final session
of this meeting, which is
Breaking Political Boundaries.
Political considerations
have always
been relevant for
archeology in Egypt.
It would be disingenuous
to suggest otherwise.
However, I think it's
definitely the case
that the 25th of
January revolution,
and the events that are
following it, that continue
to follow it, have
brought political issues
to the forefront for scholars
who are working in this field.
In the months following the
implosion of the Mubarak
government, reports of the
looting of sites, museums,
and magazines created
a great deal of anxiety
for the safety of the
material we study.
At the same time, it
caused real concern
for the safety of
friends and colleagues
who are living in
Egypt and personalized
the political dimension
of the country in new
and very immediate ways.
With the apparatus of the state
unable to police or to monitor
many parts of the
country, the fate
of the archaeological
sites lay mainly
in the hands of the people
who were occupying them.
Many sites had been seen
locally as a resource for income
from tourism.
As the tourism economy and the
Egyptian economy in general
failed, looting became an
alternate economic strategy,
although this was by no means
the rule in every place,
as I think we'll see.
The large-scale breakdown
in regional control
created security problems
that not only imperiled
archaeological sites,
but also, in the wake
of evacuations and
season cancellations,
made many wonder if it would be
feasible to continue excavation
projects.
Initially, this manifested
as an increased interest
in remote sensing, survey,
and site monitoring projects.
But now, five years out
from the revolution,
many projects are beginning
to turn to local communities
as engaged and
invested custodians
of archaeological sites.
This long overdue
recognition of the community
as a vital actor in the
preservation and interpretation
of cultural heritage
is a central concern
of both of the papers
in this session.
And the new focus
seems extremely
appropriate in a
country finding its way
in the wake of a very
difficult revolution where,
not just in archeology,
popular voices are striving
to break down political, social,
and cultural boundaries that
have stood for a
very, very long time.
Monica Hanna, the
first of our speakers,
was born in Heliopolis and
did her undergraduate degree
in Egyptology and
archaeological chemistry
at the American
University in Cairo.
She later went to the
University of Pisa
in Italy to complete
her doctorate.
From July 2011
until November 2012,
she was a post-doctoral
fellow in the Topoi Cluster
of Excellence in the Department
of Egyptology of North African
Studies in Humboldt University.
She is currently an assistant
professor of cultural heritage
and architecture at the
Arab Academy for Science
and Technology and Maritime
Transport in Smart Village,
Cairo, and Aswan, Egypt.
Her research focuses on
space, knowledge, and identity
of archaeological sites,
with particular interest
on different meanings
and reflections
of heritage on identity
of space and communities.
She's been working on a
project in al-Qurna, Luxor,
for the different narratives
of the multiple worlds
of the Theban Necropolis
and its meanings
to the various stakeholders.
Recently, she has been working
with the media and a group
of volunteers to bring
publicity to the plight
of various archaeological
sites in Egypt, including
and especially Dahshur,
and also Heliopolis.
She has been granted the
Safe Beacon Award for 2014
for her efforts in the salvage
of antiquities under conflict
and was named by UNESCO the
Monuments Women of 2014.
Gary Scott received his
doctoral degree in Egyptology
from Yale University with
a special concentration
in the ancient Egyptian
art, particularly sculpture.
Dr. Scott began working in
museums while he was in college
and has served in both
administrative and curatorial
capacities at various museums,
including the Yale University
Art Gallery and the San
Antonio Museum of Art,
being both curatorial chair and
interim director of the latter.
Since 2003, he has been the
director of the American
Research Center in Egypt.
So I'd like to introduce
Monica for her paper,
"Breaking Political Boundaries
of Archaeological Work in Egypt
post-2008."
[APPLAUSE]
Good afternoon.
I'm really thankful to be here.
It's my first time in Brown.
And although the
topic of this talk
is quite depressing
and grim, but I think
it has a very good
silver lining.
So bear with me the graphic
details of the looting.
And try to think
positive about the future
on how we can improve this
for Egypt's cultural heritage.
I'll go very quickly on
what we're going to cover.
We're going to cover
Matareya, Abu Sir, Dahshur,
Abu Sir el-Maleq,
Antinopolis, Arsina, Istabl
Antar, what happened in the
Mallawi Museum that was just
inaugurated on Thursday.
Unfortunately I could not make
it there-- al-Fustat and then
Alexandria.
We'll start by
ancient Heliopolis.
And as most of you
know, ancient Heliopolis
is situated in the most
dense-- demographically
dense-- area of North Cairo.
This is how it looks like today,
where the Senusret obelisk is.
This is what happened post-2011.
People started entering.
This is the main Temple of Atum.
They started breaking
through the walls.
They wanted to go
appropriate the site.
And I choose the
word appropriate.
Because I think this
is what they think.
They think that this
land is no man's land,
so we might as well take it.
So the first thing
that they do is not
that they do not go directly.
Because probably authorities
would be alert very quickly.
What they do-- and
this is very smart--
is that they change the identity
of the archaeological site.
So instead of us knowing
all the people who
live around the site,
they know that this
is the Temple of Atum.
They turn it into a car park.
So in three, four,
five years, people
will no longer remember that
this is an archaeological site.
People will remember
that this is a car park.
So if we take it, and we
decide to build on it,
no one is going to object,
which is exactly what happened.
Part of the Temple of Atum
was immediately taken.
And you see these
four or five buildings
were immediately erected,
right after 2011.
Same here-- and if you remember,
Minister Mohamed Ibrahim
announced the discovery
of an offering table
in Matareya in 2013.
Actually, this was thrown
out by the land mafia.
They were constructing
the buildings.
And they found this.
And they thought ah,
this is too much trouble.
And we cannot sell it.
So they turned it in to the MSA.
Here is where the
University of Leipzig
excavate its Ramesside area.
And unfortunately
here, on this side,
is a building called
[NON-ENGLISH].
One of the problems--
bear with me
that I will bore you with a
lot of Egyptian administration
details.
[NON-ENGLISH] is the
new Thursday market.
This was built on
archaeological land.
There was false reports
that the land did not
have any archaeological
remains so they could cede it
to the governorate.
The governorate had
the huge problem,
which is the [NON-ENGLISH] would
block off the [NON-ENGLISH]
Matareya, are the
Matareya Square,
and no traffic
could go in and out.
So thought of this brilliant
idea is that if we build a new
[NON-ENGLISH], people
will willingly go and sit
in [NON-ENGLISH] and clear
the traffic on Thursday.
Well, so where is
the empty place
that we can do such an
ambitious project on?
It's the archaeological site.
So they took this part.
Funny enough, the vendors
refused to relocate
to [NON-ENGLISH].
They still block [NON-ENGLISH]
Matareya every Thursday.
And it's an empty building.
No, it's built on
archaeological land.
Then again, here, this is
close to the 26th dynasty
tombs, a football pitch.
Well thankfully,
the football pitch
does not ruin the
archaeological context.
But then again, it's changing
the identity of the site.
People will no longer
remember that this was part
of the 26th dynasty cemetery.
People will remember this
was the football pitch.
And again, they started
constructing modern cemeteries
there.
And cemeteries in
Egypt are a mess.
Because if you construct
an illegal cemetery
on an archaeological site,
you cannot move them.
Because religiously, you cannot
open a tomb of a dead person.
So if they are there,
they're there for eternity.
So we have to stop them before
a single person is buried.
Here this area is
called Abulhoul,
because there is a small
sphinx here, if you can see it.
Unfortunately, this is
what remains of the site.
And you see, these white bricks?
Now it's a five-story building.
Last time I visited, I could
not take an updated photograph,
because there were
some thugs around.
And I was worried about
taking out my camera.
So now it's a five-story
building, again,
built with no permits and
on the archaeological site.
Then again, this is
the biggest magazine
of Egyptian objects in Cairo.
And suddenly, after 2011, this
building reached six stories.
And they said, the people,
this is not a private building.
This is a religious institute.
So it's for the community.
It's for the public.
After the building went
six stories, it of course
opened into shops and
other utilities building.
Of course, it's very
dangerous because it's
right next to the
biggest magazine, that
was never properly audited.
We do not know how many objects
are inside of this magazine.
And perhaps we will not know.
And I don't think
there the forecast
to do any proper magazine
audits in the near future.
This is here is [NON-ENGLISH].
And [NON-ENGLISH] had
very important Greco-Roman
sarcophagi, mud
brick structures.
But it was called [NON-ENGLISH]
because it was a property
of a lady called [NON-ENGLISH].
[NON-ENGLISH] lived most of
her time in Canada with her
children.
And she died in Canada, as well.
The day she died,
the very next day,
the land was seized and was
taken by the local land mafia,
although her will
had stated clearly
that the land should be ceded
to the Ministry of Antiquities.
Fortunately, because it
was private property,
the ministry could
not do anything.
They have not previously
documented the sarcophagi
or the mud brick structures.
Here is the sun temples
of-- the Ramesside Sun
Temples in Matareya.
And they've tried to burn
the temple I think something
like seven times by now.
They always try to
set it on fire, again,
in an attempt to wipe out
any archaeological identity
of the site.
Of course, there is a problem
with solid waste management
in the area.
Nobody collects garbage there.
So the only empty place they
can dispose of the waste
is the archaeological site.
And here is the gate of
the son-- the high priest,
the son of Ramses IX.
And you see they've
tried to hack the blocks.
Because, again, if they wipe out
the hieroglyphics inscriptions,
it's just a block.
And probably the
inspectors will be scared.
So they will move the
blocks into the magazine.
And the site will no longer
have visible archaeological
features.
So we can easily bid on it.
Here this is a close image
of modern-day hacking out
of cartouches.
Again, here trying to
burn it-- and they also
do re-use the site in
other illegal activities
such as drug dealing,
prostitution, and arms
dealing as well.
Here they tried to destroy,
again, the gate of Ramses II.
They chiseled out this part.
Again, they tried to attack
the cartouches, which--
how do they know that if
they attack the cartouche
they attack the
identity of the gate?
Well, this is what they've done.
Before the event
of 30th of June,
in 2013, we knew-- the
inspectors in the area
came and told us that the
local land mafia there
had had sold the area of the
sun temples to each other.
So this person was going
to take this bit of land.
And this person--
they already had
photographs of these contracts
that they did with each other.
So they've divided the temple.
So as soon as the
protests would break,
that they would go
in with bulldozers,
completely wipe out
the site, and take it.
Of course, at that time,
the police was irresponsive.
The army was irresponsive.
So the only way we thought
we could save the site is
by making a
[NON-ENGLISH], a big mess.
So what we did is that we called
for volunteers from the area--
television, press--
and said we're
going to clean the temple.
We're going to do a youth
campaign to clean the temple.
And that the temple
is threatened.
And we need media attention.
And this is what we did.
In one day, we brought I think
something like seven television
channels, and press people,
and youth from the area
and from outside of the
area, and inspectors.
That day we cleared nine
tons of solid waste.
Of course, we need to work
for another two, three months
to clear the whole waste.
But it was just a stunt.
We did this so that the
land mafia in the area
would be scared enough
from attacking the site.
And happily, it worked.
No one dared to get
close to the site.
Because when we went
to the site, of course
the police came.
There was something like 15,
16 police people standing.
And the protests passed
without anyone actually
approaching the site
with a bulldozer.
So this was quite a success
with just very simple tools
that we had in hand that time.
We'll move more
south to Abu Sir.
And this is where Abu Sir
is located in the Memphite
necropolis.
And Abu Sir was badly hit.
Actually, the whole
Memphite necropolis
was badly hit with looting.
I remember on the
29th, the Saturday
the 29th of January,
2011, people
were calling in cars
with microphones,
and microphones of
mosques and churches,
asking villagers
to go out and loot.
People, villagers, were
going out to loot in picnics.
You can see women taking the
lunch to the husbands, who
were actually digging out in
the Memphite necropolis, which
is the total contrary of
what happened in the Theban
necropolis.
In the Theban necropolis, when
they opened the Armant prison,
all the convicts went out.
But the Qurnawis came out with
their sticks and small guns
and protected the whole
archaeological site.
That was only very little
looting in a place called
[NON-ENGLISH], and was done
from people within the Qurnawi
community.
So it was very weird how
at Memphis this happened,
while in Thebes, this happened.
But I think it has to do
a lot with how Thebans,
or Qurnawis, view of their
livelihood, in comparison
to the villagers around Memphis.
So here we are in Abu Sir.
Looting happened extensively.
I remember, in 2010 I
read in the newspaper
that a wall was going to
be built around Abu Sir.
And this wall would
cost 34 million pounds.
Again, the wall did not protect
the archaeological site.
There was this obsession
from 2002 until 2010
there was this obsession
with constructing walls
around archaeological sites.
And I think that it,
yes, saved some sites.
But then other sites, like Abu
Sir-- it did not save Abu Sir.
It did not save Dahsur.
It did not save many sites.
Because if this money was
perhaps invested differently,
it could have saved
them at that time.
Here, more looting--
this is here,
very close to the Step Pyramid.
This is a mud-brick
vaulted tomb.
You can see how far
from the Step Pyramid.
So we're talking
about looting, right
at the foot of one of the oldest
stone structures in the world.
Here, again, more looting
pits, more looting,
very close to the Step Pyramid.
And not just that-- in
the middle of the chaos,
this archaeological sites and
solid waste management problems
are quite interrelated.
In the middle of the
chaos, as most of you know,
that the Memphite
necropolis is all
registered on the
World Heritage List.
And part of the land
registered is this area called
[NON-ENGLISH], or
the Basin of Flowers.
Funnily enough, it was
turned into a landfill.
You can see here
the Giza Pyramids.
And in the middle of when
no one was paying attention
to the Memphite
necropolis, people
started dumping garbage--
and really large amount.
It's not a local
village dump site.
This is a dump
site from all Giza.
So you need to think of
all Haram, Giza, Zamalek,
Mohandessin garbage
being dumped in Abu Sir.
You can see here more garbage.
And not just that--
they even started
to illegally quarry sand out
of the archeological site.
And of course, this
was a safe haven
to transport any archaeological
material looters were finding,
because they can transport
them in and out, in these sand
mines.
We move more south to Dahshur.
And Dahshur was-- the area of
the Black Pyramid in Dahshur
was property of the
army until 1997.
When it was ceded
to the ministry,
to the Supreme Council
of Antiquities then,
it was never properly
surveyed and excavated.
So it was quite virgin.
The noble cemetery
around Dahshur
was relatively untouched.
So you see here, most
of the burial shafts
are characterized-- the
tombs there are characterized
by a long shaft and a
side burial chamber,
completely raided
out, as you can see.
The guards in Dahshur
were caught in crossfire.
Because Dahshur was
just out of control.
We had gangs coming from
all Egypt-- organized gangs
and local villagers--
digging in Dahshur.
So many would even get
killed in crossfire.
We also had children
that were being
taken to dig in these
shafts, because they're
small and agile, that were
dying and being sanded over.
So Dahshur was a big mess
for a very long time.
And if you look at
satellite images,
this was Dahshur in 2009.
This is here the pyramid.
This is the modern cemetery.
In 2010, we already
had five pits.
So people started actually being
interested in looting there.
In May 2011, these
were the amount
of looting pits around
the Dahshur Pyramid,
and here, in 2012.
And then, as Gregory
said this morning,
the Ministry of Antiquities
just sanded and buried--
sanded in these pits,
without any documentation,
salvage archeology, or
even taking note or mapping
these looting pits.
And not just that-- when
it's a lawless place,
people, again, start
thinking of construction.
A contractor came and
took over the causeway
of the southern
pyramid of Sneferu
and started building a cemetery.
And as you know,
again, cemeteries
are untouchable in Egypt.
Once they are in place,
they're in place for good.
You can see here the Red
Pyramid and these cemeteries.
Of course, we've stopped further
construction of the cemeteries.
But they have not
yet been removed.
We do not know if
anyone is buried,
because we made a
[NON-ENGLISH], a huge mess,
when they were
being constructed.
And even this man
thought that he
could take the area of the
[INAUDIBLE] Temple of Sneferu
and cultivate it.
And he was bringing water
on his donkey every day
to start the cultivation.
Poor man.
Well, this is the silver lining.
The community of Dahshur said
that we're not happy with this.
We're not all looters.
The village is called
[? Menshai ?] Dahshur.
And they called us
and said we want to do
a protest against the looting.
And so they came.
And we stood together-- again,
brought press and television.
And immediately, the very
next day, the army point close
to Dahshur dispatched a
patrolling car and looting
stopped.
It still happens until today,
but at a much lower scale.
There are no longer organized
gangs working in Dahshur.
Still, looting is ongoing.
But it's not at the
same very high rate
that was happening in 2013.
We move more south
to Abusir el-Malek
And Abusir el-Malek
is here between-- it's
very close to Maydum.
It's between al-Wasta
and Beni Suef and Faiyum.
There is a canal that connects
Faiyum with Beni Suef.
And it's right on the
apex of the canal.
And Abusir el-Malek was
never properly studied.
Its a 500 acre
archaeological site.
We have Naqada II pottery
coming out of the site up
until that we know
that [? Caliph ?]
Marawan of [INAUDIBLE]
Abbasid Dynasty
was actually killed
at the monastery,
right in Abusir el-Malek.
And if you've ever visited the
Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo,
there used to be--
it's still there.
It was not broken
when it was bombed.
There is a very big glass jug
coming from Abusir el-Malek.
It also has Hyksos burials.
It had a cult for Anubis.
It has Greco-Roman,
Christian burials.
So it's a very, very, very
rich archaeological site that
was never properly excavated.
So of course, it turned
into a Swiss cheese.
People were going-- the way I
found about Abu Sir El-Malek is
that I was visiting Faying And
on the way back from Fayoum,
I took the Western
[? Said ?] Road.
And I sat on a [NON-ENGLISH],
a coffee place.
And probably they
thought I'm not Egyptian.
So a man came and
approached me and said, ah,
I have [NON-ENGLISH],
if you want to buy.
So I said, ah, where
did you get them from?
He said, there is-- he
was very straightforward.
He said to me, there is
an archaeological, site
right here.
We all go and try to find
food for our children.
This is what he exactly said.
So I asked him to
show me the site.
And it's really very
close to the highway road.
I went.
It's in the middle
of the village.
And this is what I found--
sarcophagi broken everywhere.
The whole site is raided.
And actually, there
were police reports
that there were arrests being
done in Beni Suef of people
with colored sarcophagi.
So that made the connection
of where the colored
sarcophagi were coming from.
Here again-- inscribed
tombs being cut out.
We really could not find a
name for the owner of the tomb.
Mummy is completely ripped off.
They tried to find amulets,
jewelry, heart scarabs--
anything that they can sell.
And the looters of the
village-- in Abusir el-Malek, I
noted two types of looters.
There is the organized gangs.
Because we can see their
lunchboxes left on the site.
They come.
They're very organized.
They clean a few
tombs, once at a time.
And they come with
their lunch boxes.
And they're very organized.
While the others
are the villagers.
And in order that
the villagers do not
get arrested with the loot,
they hide the loot on site.
So they keep the loot
in one of the shafts.
And they characterize that this
is the loot of this family.
And this is the
loot of this family.
And they do not cross.
Here, again-- pieces of
sarcophagi left behind.
The [NON-ENGLISH] of the site
was actually making tea out
of the wood of these sarcophagi.
Bones.
This is legs of a mummy,
cartonnage, faces,
feet of a mummy.
What we could do
for Abusir el-Malek
is that no one cared about it.
It was this site, in
the middle of nowhere.
It raised no
scholarly attention.
And what we knew
from the communities
there is around 25 children
have died from 2011 to 2013.
Again, they were using
children to go down
the shafts, to find objects.
So this is one of the kids,
for example, that would come.
They would have objects in
their pockets-- bead, nets,
little [NON-ENGLISH],
little amulets to sell.
And you can even buy a little
[NON-ENGLISH] for 20 pounds,
50 pounds.
It was [INAUDIBLE] insane.
And what we could manage to
do, as independent scholars
and people working with
Egypt Heritage Task Force,
is that we tried to give
attention to Abusir el-Malek.
So there was nothing
in our hands,
except to enlist it on
the World Monument Watch.
And we successfully
listed it for 2016.
And we hope that we will
do more activities there,
to raise awareness
of site desecration.
Again, the Ministry
of Antiquities
sanded over many
of these objects.
They even hid the
broken sarcophagi,
with no archaeological
recording, or even photographs.
I think I'm the only person
who has photographs of what
happened in Abusir el-Malek.
We move more south, to
Antinopolos and Sheikh Ibada.
And it's in Minya.
Minya is my hometown, so I've
given more attention there,
because I have the networks.
I could know how to navigate.
I would get phone calls
from relatives around that
this person is looting.
There is looting here.
So this was the network
that we were working on.
So after the revolution-- the
site is 1,024 [NON-ENGLISH].
And it was not
registered until 2012.
We've managed to
get a prime minister
decree for to register
the whole site
as the Italian-American
satellite images, just in 2012.
So before that,
anything that was even
happening outside of
the borders the police
could not do a
vertebral against it.
Because it was not
antiquities land.
This is the [NON-ENGLISH].
You can see these two columns.
These are these two columns
today, in the building.
So it tells you how fast the
landscape of Sheikh Ibada
is changing.
These are the images of the
Italian-American mission,
right before 2011.
So the block was
gone after 2011.
Here, this is the biggest
hippodrome in Egypt,
in Sheikh Ibada.
And the only parallel is that
of Circus Maximus in Rome.
And again, they started
building Islamic tombs on them.
Here, this is [NON-ENGLISH].
And then this is what happened
in it after 2011-- same here.
So this is the problem,
is that looters do not go,
like us, with
trowels and brushes.
They actually go with
bulldozers, with big hose.
They try to find anything
that they can sell.
So people, when
they tell me well,
thank god you don't
have ISIS Egypt,
I tell them looters are doing
the exact same thing that ISIS
is doing to the archaeological
sites in Syria and Iraq.
Here again, and, of course,
informal construction
on the site.
And the looters--
here are the chaps.
These are the looters.
These are the ones
who go out and loot.
The problem with Sheikh
Ibada is that it's
on very thin
stretch of the Nile.
And the village is growing.
There is no chances
for development.
There is no factory.
The agricultural
land is limited.
So people have really
nowhere to work.
The only place for
them to work is
to go and find coins,
parchment, little statues,
little amulets that they can
sell on the antiquities market.
And if you chase them,
they usually run away.
North of Sheikh Ibada there
is a Coptic site called
Deir Abu Hennes, or Ansina.
And it's categorized
by this rock-cut church
in the mountain.
And there are also some
Egyptian architectural elements
from the Amarna period.
Beneath the decorated
church is a keep.
And people in Deir Abu
Hennes-- the monks there
used to copy manuscripts.
So the keep is formed
of little libraries.
It looks like a catacomb,
where they could
keep the different manuscripts.
Unfortunately, many people
who work in Deir Abu Hennes
work also in the
quarries in Minya.
So they have access to dynamite.
So they brought the dynamite.
And if you can see,
these are dynamite holes.
They tried to dynamite
the keep, in order
to find the treasure behind.
You can see here, this is a
very clear dynamite blow up.
And it's very funny.
Because we always hear of
sectarian problems in Egypt.
But in Deir Abu
Hennes, the locals
there go bring the
sheikh from Sheikh Ibada
to help them find the treasure.
So the Copts call on
the Islamic sheikh
to come look for the treasure.
So it's insane there.
Here, again, another
dynamite hacking out
of Coptic inscriptions,
illegal excavations.
This was being prepared to be
cut out and sold on the market.
It was gone the
following time I went.
This, too, will
probably go away.
And in [? Ansina ?]
[? el-Kabliya ?] there are
the different
monastic settlements.
They're completely
being destroyed.
They're made of mud brick.
And the archaeological mission
that used to work there
has not had the
permission since, I think,
2010 or something.
So the site is being
completely destroyed--
and also agricultural
expansion coming to the site.
And you see how thin is the
strip of land between Deir Abu
Hennes and Sheikh Ibada.
So people really
have nowhere to go.
They have no jobs.
So the only place they can go
for is the archaeological site.
We move to Istabl Antar.
Most of the cat
mummies were disturbed.
They think they will find
a huge treasure to sell.
Of course, the cat
mummies probably
do not sell for a lot of money.
We go to the Mallawi Museum.
The Mallawi Museum was
broken into on the 14th
of August, 2013.
My father is originally
from Mallawi.
So I used to visit this museum,
since I was a little kid.
I had a very strong
emotional tie to this place.
So when I heard that the
Mallawi Museum was attacked,
I tried to contact many people.
And I managed to get the
register of the objects.
Of course, it was in Arabic.
We had many colleagues.
We have Kathryn Bandy
from University of Chicago
helping us translate
it into English.
And we've immediately
dispersed an English version
of the registrar of
the museum to all
the different
authorities so they
can keep an eye of the objects.
On the 17th of
August, I got a phone
from the chief of the museums
and Ministry of Antiquities
telling me, hm, did anyone send
a photograph of the museum?
And I told him, no, didn't
anyone from the ministry
go check out the museum?
It was looted for three days.
And he told me, no.
Because the security
situation is not good.
I immediately took
a friend of mine.
She's a journalist.
And we took a car to Mallawi.
This was, of course,
the museum before it
was-- this is how I saw the
museum, as soon as I entered.
It was 5:00 PM on
the 17th of August.
This was the museum,
completely devastated.
Mummies were burned.
Here, again, these were five
very beautiful sarcophagi
coming from
[? Telesharona. ?] And we
have other five sarcophagi
coming from the same place.
They're in the Museum of Tanta.
And again, here, this mummy
was completely burned.
It was this mummy, though
it was completely destroyed.
And this was a Greco-Roman
statue as well.
There was still fire ongoing
in the nearby facility
of the Civil Unit.
There were 13 Demotic papyri.
I found this one.
I also found an intact that
I did not know what to do.
Because you're in the
middle of everyone shooting.
And if I take the
Demotic papyrus
and step out of the museum,
I will get arrested,
or I will get shot and
the papyrus stolen.
So I managed to hide
it until the next day.
And we found it intact.
I'll show you the photograph.
Basketry-- and again, it was
these kids, at the museum,
running with statues of
Osiris, or whatever they
could take from the museum.
And when I was there, I told
them, why are you doing that?
And one of the kids said,
because [NON-ENGLISH].
This belongs to the government.
And I hate the government.
So I'm getting even
with the government
by destroying the museum.
Of course, it was
useless to tell him
that this is your museum.
You can come and see it.
And they would not listen.
So the next morning, I came
back with Abdussami Farghali,
who is the Chief of
Antiquities Police there.
And we had the [NON-ENGLISH],
the head of the museums.
And it was only the three
of us and a few policeman.
And as soon as we were
approach-- we came from Minya.
As soon as we
approached Mallawi,
we heard shooting
for around 15 minutes
that we could not
enter the site.
And then we waited.
And then shooting
continued for two hours.
When we finally
entered, we realized
that a man was getting
his daughter married.
So they were putting her
furniture on a truck.
He started shooting two bullets.
The police were alarmed.
So they started
shooting at the man.
And then the terrorists
started shooting at the police.
And we had crossfire for two
hours, for no absolute reason.
We, [NON-ENGLISH], managed
to get to the museum.
This was how it was back then.
We collected as many
fragments as we could.
We moved the remains-- that
they removed around 46 objects.
So we saved 46 objects out
of 1,089 that were looted.
Here is the saved
Demotic papyrus.
I've managed to hide it
well from the looters
until the next day.
Again, broken sarcophagi,
animal sarcophagi.
And what was the nice thing
there is that although some
personnel of the museum
were too scared to come,
we had youth coming from
something called [NON-ENGLISH],
or the Mallawi Cultural Salon.
And they were young men and
women coming to give us a hand.
They said, we knew
what happened.
And we'd like to
come and help you.
And they brought boxes.
They brought cotton.
They brought many other
things to help us.
And we've managed to move
the stuff to [INAUDIBLE].
We move to al-Fustat.
And al-Fustat is the oldest
Islamic capital of Egypt.
It was going to be given
to the governor of Cairo,
to be turned into
a public garden.
Thankfully, after so much
fuss that we managed to make,
the governor changed plans.
But then again, it
was not planned--
it was not intended to
be a garden, of course.
This story was we change
the identity of the site.
It's no longer the
City of Fustat .
It's a public garden.
Then, in three, four years,
buildings will come on it.
We move very quickly to
al-Abd theater in Alexandria.
And the problem
of al-Abd theater
is the land is privately owned.
But of course, the
antiquities law
allows the Ministry
of Antiquities
to take the site if it's of
archaeological significance.
As you can see, we have
found very few parallels
for this Mediterranean site.
It released very interesting
structures and objects.
And the contractor, in one
night, on Wednesday last April,
completely sanded the
archaeological site.
He came with bulldozers.
And overnight they had
destroyed the site.
So there is no longer
archaeological context.
We lost the site.
And of course, now if we
really excavate the site,
most of the structures
will be completely lost.
So then it's no
longer archaeological.
And he wins.
And he takes back his site.
The oasis, the
Western Desert Oasis,
also suffered huge looting--
burials completely disturbed.
Here, this is in Bahariya.
This is in Dakhla
Oasis, in Masada North.
[NON-ENGLISH] in Dakhla--
mummies completely devastated
in search for anything to sell.
Of course, nothing
documented of this.
I'm usually asked,
how can we all help?
And I say, as heritage
practitioners,
help Egyptian colleagues
through educational resources,
academic support, and
collaborative salvage
archeology projects.
Publish academically and
write for the public more
on how looting is
destroying world heritage.
Work with Egyptian authorities
on creating public awareness
campaigns on how unethical it is
to buy looted heritage objects.
And as the general
public, people
passionate about heritage, we
need to tweet, post, and share.
Social media has
an excellent power
in campaigning for heritage.
Spread the word with those
not on the social media.
Get in touch with
friends in the media
and send them the stories.
Report any antiquities
shop, gallery, or jewelry
that you think is selling
antiquities to us.
We work directly with the
antiquities police in Egypt.
Work together with
heritage practitioners
on creating a strong ethical
code on trading historical art.
Protecting world's heritage
is a shared responsibility,
where each citizen of the world
needs to actively take part.
I'll finish by this quote from
the book of Monuments Men.
It says, "You can wipe
out an entire generation.
You can burn their
homes to the ground.
And somehow they'll
find their way back.
But if you destroy
their history,
you destroy their achievements.
Then, as if they've
never existed."
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you very much.
I have a tendency
to touch a button
and what I think could be
there suddenly disappears.
So I thought I'd
get some assistance.
So thank you very much.
This is not my
first time at Brown.
The first time I was
at Brown was actually
a charming little story.
I was in my first year
at graduate school
at Yale University.
Ricardo Caminos was
an Egyptologist here.
We were both in
Boston for an evening
reception for Egyptologists.
And he found out
I had to go back
to New Haven the next-- be in
New Haven the next morning.
And I was driving
back that night.
And he said, well, do you think
I could get a ride with you?
And I said, of course.
I'd be delighted to.
And we pulled into Brown
well after midnight.
And by way of showing his
appreciation for my gesture,
I got on a tour of Wilbur
Hall about one o'clock
in the morning.
And he proudly proclaimed,
taking me all through it,
that he had a [INAUDIBLE]
on every single floor.
So that was my first
introduction to Brown.
Also, I would be remiss,
as director of ARCE,
if I didn't thank
Jim and everyone here
at Brown for your
kind welcoming of ARCE
a few years back for
the annual meeting.
It was one of our best ever.
So that was very nice, indeed.
I'm going to hope that
my presentation today is
a little bit
lighter than the one
we just sat through-- a
very good presentation,
but depressing in a way.
I hope that we'll have a
slightly more positive story
to tell.
And I thank the
organizers for asking
me to describe some of our
work in Egypt that we're
doing, in terms of
outreach to the community.
And this is a way in
which, in a general sense,
the disciplines of
archeology and Egyptology
have a contemporary
crossover, or contact,
with the economic, political,
tourism, and community outreach
sectors.
I think that
probably most of you
have a knowledge of the American
Research Center of Egypt.
But I'm going to take just
a second for those of you
who may not be familiar with us.
We were founded
in 1948, initially
to represent American scholars
to the Egyptian government
and the Egyptian government
back to American scholars, which
means we're almost 70 years old.
We, in the 1960s,
expanded to fellowships,
both for graduate students
who were finishing
their dissertation work and to
senior scholars on sabbatical.
And then, in the 1990s, we began
to work in the heritage sector,
through significant
USAID grants--
United States Agency for
International Development.
And that partnership
is now 20 years old.
Our partnership with
USAID has centered
into three basic areas.
Initially, it was training
and monument conservation.
And now we have expanded
outward to include job creation.
And that's one of
the things that we'll
be talking about today.
The project began-- we had
a comment about the contrast
between moist and dry.
And that was certainly
how this project began.
USAID conducted a ground
water lowering project
at the Karnak Temple
and Luxor temples
and asked ARCE to come in as
a follow on, to do monitoring.
Because no one knew
quite what would
happen when the pumps
were turned on-- also then
to conduct conservation
projects and do some training.
So this is how we got into
this particular project.
And this was, of course,
before the Egyptian revolution.
One of the places
that we concentrated
was the Khonsu temple, which
provided a great training
facility.
Because it was
under-visited-- still
is not visited
heavily-- and presented
in a microcosm all
of the problems that
were to be encountered
in the temple,
in a larger temple context.
So we used it as a
wonderful training facility.
We built a modern conservation
lab right next to it,
disguising it with
mud brick, so it
looks like its part of
the fabric of the temple.
The conservation lab
has training facilities,
which you see here, with
one of our lead conservators
training a group of
Egyptian students.
In the three years that we
did this particular part
of the program, we trained
over 70 Egyptian Ministry
of Antiquities conservators.
These are all
building conservators.
And then, next door to
that, in the same building,
is a space with
laboratory space, where
we have basic conservation
tools and equipment--
nothing so challenging that
it couldn't be maintained.
And this is why something
that's important.
And so with this,
ARCE really created
the first fully-functioning
conservation lab,
in Upper Egypt,
the one at Aswan,
sadly never quite taking off.
One of the things
that we did was
to make sure that we were
creating lime mortar.
Because obviously the old cement
that was used to patch seals
monuments, helps the percolating
salt come up, and helps
break the building apart.
So we've removed concrete and
replaced it with lime mortar.
Here you can see that
process going on,
with one of our
conservation students
up on scaffolding at
the Khonsu temple.
We also did a great
deal of cleaning,
trained our
conservators in cleaning
of the interior chapels.
And then the Egyptian
revolution came.
And I decided to try to pick
one of the nicer pictures
that I recovered
from that space.
ARCE Cairo office is a block and
a half away from Tahrir Square.
So we had ringside seats
for the whole thing.
And it was interesting how many
times I got to whiff tear gas.
In any case, the
revolution came.
ARCE has stepped in in a couple
of places to help afterwards.
One was one l'Institut
d'Egypte's library
was set on fire.
We partnered with the Library of
Congress, through the embassy,
and brought over
conservation specialists,
got them equipment,
helped them salvage what
they could of their library.
Again, in February 2014,
when the Islamic Museum
suffered in a bomb blast that
was meant for the police depot,
we stepped in and were
the first to respond
with a grant from the
embassy and USAID.
And it was decided that we--
in my 30 years of museums,
I have never-- I
was in the museum.
I did not show slides.
It was actually heartbreaking.
I've never seen such
devastation in a museum setting.
In the library section,
the manuscript library,
which is on the
second floor, it was
like being in an 18th
century Naval battle.
There were huge pieces
of sharpened wood
that were just thrown
across and jammed
into place on the opposite
side of the building.
A telephone-- or lamp post burst
right through the front door,
lying inside smashed cases.
It was really devastating.
In any case, it was decided
that the first step that ARCE
could take, and should
take, was to try
to secure the buildings
so it was safe for people
to go in an work.
And so we worked on the
facade and the exterior.
And that project is now over.
We're waiting for them to reopen
the museum, which we understand
that President Sisi has to do.
So we're not quite sure
when that will happen.
As a result of the revolution,
though, I'm happy to say,
as Monica noted,
there are some areas
that survived pretty well.
And Luxor was one of them.
And ARCE's work in Luxor
continued unabated,
throughout the entire period.
We kept basically on our
schedule and continued working.
Here you see art conservators
working in chapel six
at the Khonsu temple.
There was actually a
heartwarming story in Luxor,
when there was an
attempt by actually
a guard to loot the place.
And the local population
turned out, and got the guy,
and defeated the whole scheme.
And Karnak remained safe.
So it was a heartwarming story.
[INAUDIBLE] chapel 11-- we
continue these things today.
So the project--
one of the projects
that we have
undertaken, and the one
that I will spend most of my
time discussing today, deals
with community outreach,
and helping people
understand that they do have an
investment in antiquity sites.
And this is one of
the things, I think,
that is increasingly called
for and needed in Egypt, to try
to bridge the cultural gap
there is between so much
of the population and
their cultural heritage
that they live around.
I think, if you'll pardon
me, that Egypt is not
like Greece or
Italy, where there
is a population that
feels a connection
to their past in every sense.
So it needs education.
It needs community outreach
from those of us who
value the cultural heritage.
Obviously, there are Egyptian,
like Monica and her team
and her students, who very
much care very deeply about it.
But the wider
population really does
need to have a better
sense of what goes on.
Well Luxor was really
devastated economically.
Because of course, it is a town
that depends almost entirely
on tourism and tourism revenue.
To give you a sense of this, we
started this project in 2012.
But in 2013, tourism hotel
occupancy in Luxor was 2%.
When we did this project,
throughout 2013-- it
continues today-- but throughout
2013 ARCE, little ARCE,
was the largest single
private employer in Luxor.
So we really made a difference.
One of the things
we try to do-- just
before the revolution, the army
came in with their bulldozers
and got the village of Qurna.
They did they did
not do a particularly
delicate destruction, but rather
left things in terrible shape,
with debris everywhere.
We felt that it was worth trying
to do what we could to improve
that so that future
visitors to the site,
when tourism comes back, would
have a better experience.
We conducted a
clean up, basically,
which involved
basically day laborers.
John Sherman is my
associate director,
who handled the project.
This is almost like an old
WPA project, in a sense.
And he was very sensitive
about sharing the wealth,
so that he made sure that
there was only one family
member per family
that ARCE employed,
to diversify the income
distribution as much as we
possibly could.
It basically consisted of
removing rubble and rubbish
from the sites that had been
left from the demolition,
as well as laying new
pathways and signage.
So we've tried to
improve the site greatly.
You can see the
remains of the houses.
And having seen the site when
it had recently been bulldozed
was really another
heartrending experience.
In addition to the day laborers,
we also use semi-skilled labor.
As I mentioned, we have
tried to put in pathways.
Here you can see some of
the dry stone masons setting
cornerstones to line the
paths that people now
can drive or walk on to get to
various tombs that otherwise
were fairly inaccessible.
Here, a fellow
putting in pavement.
And then a minor industry has
been a mud brick industry,
where we took the used mud
brick from the demolished houses
and structures and
repurposed, refashioned it.
These are used not only in ARCE
facilities, or ARCE projects,
but also by our colleagues
at Chicago House,
by an Italian mission,
and by several others who
work in Luxor.
We stamp each brick so that
it will be quite evident
not only who did
the work, but also
that it's modern brick, for
someone who will come by later.
So that's been a minor industry.
To give you a sense
of the contribution
to job creation in
this region, this
is a chart of one
of our seasons,
where, again, I'll read
it through for you,
but you can follow along.
We wanted to target
650 employ-- we
wanted to employ 650 workers.
We actually got 704.
Initially we planned
for 18 months' duration.
We got it through to 20.
We hadn't really thought
about how many workers
we wound up training,
these semi-skilled jobs.
That was 120.
We set a 47 goal for the
training conservators.
We trained 61.
We weren't sure how many
archaeologists we'd get.
We trained 35 in
archeology field schools.
And we trained the first field
photographers for the Ministry
that I know of that
are working for them.
In terms of the support
of small business,
we had set that as
one of our goals,
so that there would be
a trickle down effect.
So we did buy as much as
we possibly could in Egypt,
and as much as we possibly
could locally, in Luxor.
All of the data that
we retrieved-- we
mapped the entire spaces
that we've worked in.
If there has been archaeological
material, we've recovered it.
Most importantly,
for someone who
is a cultural anthropologist
and wants to come back someday,
we've also recorded all of
the stuff for that we found
from Qurna, which included
everything from photographs
of people that were left
behind to magical incantations,
little spells to
get back at people.
One of our archaeologists used
the laborers as informants.
And so we knew who was
living in what part of Qurna,
and where their family
connections were.
So again, some cultural
anthropologists
should come in at some point and
put that material to good work.
USAID liked very
much what we did.
And they gave us
a further grant.
And you can see that
while the numbers--
we decided we were going to do
a project at Medinet Habu for
[? Ray, ?] which we did.
We targeted 100--
wound up with 89.
But that was balanced by
employing more workers
to work at Karnak, where
the inspectorate found
additional things for us to do,
including repairing their AC
unit.
I had mentioned this
trickle down effect.
And here you can
see a part of it.
This is a tea vendor, who
obviously tracked our labors'
break times, and came out, and
sold tea and light refreshments
and that sort of thing.
And so, of course, he
made money from our men.
And he packs, obviously,
to other people,
not only in his family, but
other businesses in Luxor.
So we try to have a wider
effect, economically,
than we otherwise might have.
I'm going to look at the
site of Theban tomb 110,
just because this is where
we did our more specialized
training for professionals
who are employed
by the Ministry of Antiquities.
And here we worked mainly
with archaeological teams
and with conservators.
In this case, we
took archaeologists
have been part of former
ARCE field schools,
had therefore considerable
training, as well as
conservators, who had also
worked with former ARCE field
schools, and brought
them back as instructors.
So this was actually
the first time
that ARCE had conducted its
training sessions totally
in Arabic.
Because, of course, the
trainers with all Egyptians.
So that was an
accomplishment for us.
Tomb 110 was damaged
heavily in antiquity.
There was a huge
fire in there, which
chemically altered the pigment.
I walked in, inside it,
and I thought, well,
this is a good place to train.
Because how could
we do any harm?
I had very low hopes
for what would come out.
And I was actually very
pleasantly surprised.
Here you can TT 110, with the
conservators working inside it.
The walls were
absolutely blackened.
This is a technique that
our lead conservator chose,
which was almost like a
reverse photographic sense.
In other words, it's
almost a negative.
So they've cleaned the soot
away, around the hieroglyphs,
so that the hieroglyphs actually
stand out, away from this.
It's the soot that's making
it readable and stand out
from the back.
Archaeologists were trained
in various techniques.
Here you can see
our team members,
recording the small finds
from the TT 110 area.
We employed an osteologist,
because we found
lots of osteological material.
And after this training
project, our conservators
have now moved on-- our advanced
conservators have now moved on
to other tombs, to
Ramesside tombs in Dra' Abu
el-Naga region.
There's a political
side of all of this,
which is also important.
Because, of course,
this is money
that's coming from the American
taxpayer and government money
through USAID.
And it's been an important
way in which we've
tried to mend some of
the political fences that
were damaged between
the US and Egypt
as a result of the revolution.
Our ambassador,
Stephen Beecroft,
is the fellow in the
blue plaid shirt.
He is visiting our site.
Here he's looking at the
archaeological material
at TT 110 and here the
osteological material.
To his left is
Ambassador David Thorne,
who is the senior advisor
to Secretary of State Kerry.
This was a very
important visit for him.
Because he was very disgruntled
and discouraged about Egypt,
and was really encouraging
Secretary Kerry to not
bother with Egypt.
And it was actually as a result
of this particular trip--
here is the USAID
mission director--
that he went back with
very positive feelings
about what ARCE could do.
And this was a really
nice opportunity for ARCE
to bring together US
government officials
and Egyptian
government officials.
Here, you can see the two
US ambassadors to your left.
And the rather
distinguished looking
woman looking at the
work in the center
is the Egyptian minister of
international cooperation.
This was the first time
that she and her associate,
who's sitting here in black, had
actually visited an ARCE site.
And they were very
impressed, not only
with the training that we were
providing for professionals,
but just for the
economic assistance
we were giving to Luxor.
So this was a very positive
meeting all the way around,
that also had a press
conference, that
was held within the
Karnak Temple, where
our ambassadors made a point of
speaking to Egyptian television
about their own feelings about
the desirability of bringing
tourism back to Egypt and
the American government's
interest in trying to help.
Other positive things
have been, of course,
that we trained a good team
of Egyptian archaeologists
and a good team of
Egyptian conservators, who
are shown here, with the
ambassador at the very back.
And at the end of
the program, they all
got their certificates.
Here you can see the
celebration with family members.
Finally, TT 110 was
opened by the ambassador.
I'm going to take just a
brief tag on for another form
of community outreach.
And this will be a
very brief overview.
We obviously heard Betsy's
presentation earlier.
And she's been a
delight to work,
one of our absolutely
best project
directors we've ever had.
And her dedication
through Red Monastery
has been inspirational
for all of us.
This is the knave of
the Red Monastery.
We saw the chapel, a the
three [INAUDIBLE] church,
that she worked on.
This is the knave, which
has not been worked on yet,
or we've begun to work on.
And we're going to use this,
not only because there are
remains of wall paintings here.
So our Italian team will
clean the wall paintings.
But they'll also use it as a
training facility this time,
and work with
Egyptian colleagues.
So again-- a reminder of
the interior of the church.
But also as an outreach, how do
you help maintain these things?
And how do you impart
their significance
to the local community?
And we've decided to do this
with an interfaith group
of young women
that we have hired.
We're training them.
You can see our trainer
kneeling in the center,
with the white shirt on,
[? Gina ?] [? Papum. ?]
The project's being overseen
by Michael Jones, who's
in the blue shirt.
And of course, [? Abunas ?]
[? Antonius ?] has charge
of the monastery, and is
[INAUDIBLE] the project.
The idea is to
create interpreters
for the site, who will reach
out to the citizenry of Sohag,
but also to the
Coptic faithful, who
come as pilgrims, which are
by far and away the largest
visitors to the site.
And then, when Western
tourism comes back,
we hope that will pick up again.
They visited the White
Monastery, as well.
So they get a sense
of what's going on.
They have talks with our
Italian team of conservatives,
to understand the work that's
going on, so that they in turn
can help interpret it back.
There is fairly
intensive classroom work.
And there is also time for
them to share their experiences
with the [? Abuna. ?]
Again, it was
important to involve--
I felt it was important
to involve our government,
so they could see the
kinds of things that we do.
And the ambassador was
happy to be there and add
his support to this initiative.
Finally, there can be
some unexpected results
when you do this kind of work.
One of the last things
we ever wanted to do
was to find anything.
And in March 2015, we did.
We found two previously
unknown 18th dynasty tombs.
I thought it might be fun
to just close with these.
This is the opening
to one of them.
The wires coming out of
it were how we managed
to photograph the interior.
This gives you a shot.
This was a tomb
owned by Amenhotep,
whose nickname was Rebiu.
He was a doorkeeper
at the Karnak Temple,
as was his son Samut, who
we discovered next door.
You can see that it's got a fair
amount of pigment still left
and that the paint is
actually pretty nice.
The false door stela
and the couple.
You can also see
that it was damaged
by Akhenaten, people who
went through to make sure
that Amun was not there.
So I'm afraid poor Amenhotep
and his wife, Sitamun
have both lost their names.
You can see also that it
has a funerary depictions.
And this funerary
depiction, also-- I'll
draw your attention to the
figure of the far left,
which I think is
very interesting.
It's Osiris Khenti-Amentiu,
shown as human, and not
as mummiform, which is nice.
It has a nice painted
ceiling, as well.
This is a tomb of
his son, Samut,
which although smaller, in some
cases is even better preserved.
There are details
showing the couple,
and another detail
showing just really
how lovely and well-preserved
the painting is here.
We think, because of the
large number of mummy parts
and funereal objects
that are on the floor,
that this may well have
served as a reburial site.
But also, based on some things
that we found in the courtyard,
we think this also might
have been a mortuary station
in the late period.
But I'll leave that to
others to talk about.
Finally, we've been
responsible-- we have installed
security doors, until we
decide, and the ministry
decides, what they want
to do with the site.
So thank you all very much.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
I would now like to introduce
our discussant, Robert Preucel,
who's the director
of the Halffenreffer
Museum of Anthropology and
professor of anthropology
here at Brown.
He's trained as an
anthropological archaeologist.
He is particularly interested
in the relationships
of archeology and society.
His field work projects
include the archeology
of a Utopian community
in Massachusetts--
that's the Brook Farm project--
and a post-Pueblo revolt
community in New Mexico.
He received his doctorate
from UCLA in 1988.
And he was a member
of Jim Hill's Pajarito
archaeological research project.
He also received a post-doc
at Carbondale in 1989
and organized a conference
on the processual and
post-processual debate.
In 1990, he took an
assistant position
at the University
of Pennsylvania.
And he was made Sally and
Alvin V. Shoemaker Professor
of Anthropology in 2009.
He was curator in charge
of the American section
at the University of
Pennsylvania Museum
of Anthropology and
Archeology from 2010 to 2012.
Welcome.
Thank you very much.
I'd like to preface my remarks
by thanking Laurel, Miriam,
and Jenn for the
invitation, and Darcy
as well for just introducing
me-- for their invitation
to participate in this
wonderful workshop
and for giving me
the opportunity
to comment on these
two fascinating papers
by Monica and Gerry.
I hope I can do them justice.
There was so much
material just presented,
and so many different
sites, that my ability
to actually engage with
their presentations
will be somewhat limited.
As was mentioned, I'm a
Southwestern archaeologist
by training,
particularly interested
in indigenous responses
to colonial practices,
particularly the archeology
the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
I have a longstanding research
project with Cochiti Pueblo
that I hope is a good example
of collaborative research
and practice.
And many of the
goals of the project
have been established in
consultation with a Cochiti
Pueblo tribal council.
I've worked with high schools
interns on the project.
I've worked with elders.
We've done videotape.
We've done oral history.
I'm also an advocate of
pragmatic archeology,
an approach that
Steve Mrozowski and I
have defined as the explicit
integration of archeology
and its social
context in ways that
serve contemporary human needs.
So why am I commenting
on a group of papers
related to Egyptian heritage?
Well, as some of you know, I
have a longstanding interest
in Egyptology, dating back
to my high school days
in Philadelphia,
when I volunteered
as one of Charlie
Detweiler's mummy dusters
in the Egyptian section
of the Penn Museum.
The highlights of
my job were actually
re-housing the magnificent
Meroitic pottery collection,
collected by David
Randall-MacIver and Leonard
Woolley as part of the museum's
Eckley B. Coxe expedition.
I continued my interest
as a Penn undergraduate.
And as a senior, I actually
took an independent study
on Middle Egyptian
with David Silverman.
He had just arrived at the
University of Pennsylvania,
and just finished
his dissertation
on questions in Middle Egyptian.
And actually, it was
eventually published, I think,
through [INAUDIBLE] Press.
After graduation, I enrolled
in a master's program
at the University of Chicago,
where I actually studied
Middle Egyptian with Klaus Baer,
and studied Egyptian religion
with Ed Wente.
And Helene Kantor was
my MA thesis advisor.
I wrote on, basically,
Egyptian cylinder seals
during the pre-dynastic period.
I was interested in
trade and exchange
from Mesopotamia to
Egypt, back and forth,
as reflected by cylinder seals.
Although I eventually chose
to focus on Southwestern
archeology, with
Jim Hill at UCLA,
I kept my language
interests alive at UCLA,
taking Late Egyptian and
Coptic with John Calendar.
So these are my
Egyptalogical credentials,
such as they are--
language focused.
And I have to say, I
haven't had much chance
to use them since my
graduate student days.
But I like to think my
archeology has been influenced
by the philological tradition,
the importance of language.
And as I write about
semiotics in archeology,
language plays a very
important role in that.
So let me begin my commentary
on Monica and Gary's paper
with some general observations
about the boundaries
of contemporary
heritage discourse.
As we all know, universal
or World Heritage
is the idea that some
places-- usually defined
as monuments, groups of
buildings, or sites--
have such compelling
significance
to all of humankind
that they are
to be preserved for the
benefit of future generations.
This view is embodied in the
preamble of the World Heritage
Convention concerning
protection of the world
cultural and natural
heritage in 1972.
It is the basis and rationale
for the World Heritage List
that currently identifies
over 1,000 properties,
of which about 815
are cultural, 203
are natural, and 35 or mixed.
So they make these
distinctions, as you know,
between natural and cultural.
Similarly, the idea
of national heritage,
or patrimony,
specifies that there
are places of national
significance associated
with important people, historic
events, or aesthetic values,
that warrant preservation
on behalf of a citizenry.
English heritage,
for example, exists
to make sure that, quote,
"the best of the best
is kept to enrich the lives
of English citizens today
and in the future."
This is from their website.
Here, heritage is
used as a technology,
to give social values
material permanence,
and thus facilitate
the continuity
of contemporary social
forms and institutions.
Now historically,
heritage discourse
has always involved
the push and pull
of universal and
national interests.
For example, the
Athenian Acropolis
is both a site representing the
World Heritage idea and a site
embodying the Greek
nation itself.
[? Tanasia ?] [? Razic ?] has
recently examined the tension
between these two forms of
heritage in the context of her
analysis of local
tourist guidebooks.
She finds, not surprisingly,
that their narratives emphasize
the Acropolis as a global
tourist attraction that
both represents and
belongs to Greece, rather
than to the world.
This tension is similarly
illustrated in the controversy
over the Parthenon Metopese.
The British Museum,
as we know, claims,
on the behalf of the entire
world, as a universal museum,
that they hold it for
the benefit of the world,
versus the Greek government's
claim that it represents
Greek heritage, and
the demand that they
be repatriated and installed
in a new Parthenon museum.
Now heritage
discourse has always
required managing competing
national interests, as well.
And we can point to examples,
like the bust of Nefertiti.
And we know a little bit about
the history of this-- Zahi
Hawass arguing that the
Egyptian authorities were
misled by Ludwig Burckhardt's
export of the bust in 1913.
And, of course, he
demanded that Germany prove
that it was removed legally.
The Supreme Council
of Antiquities
made a series of formal requests
to the Prussian Cultural
Heritage Foundation, demanding
their bust to be returned.
And the foundation has
refused up to this point.
And the German Culture
minister, Bernd Neumann,
asserted that Germany
is the lawful owner
and Egypt has no legal
grounds for the return.
There is, of course,
an interesting history
to all of this, going back to
really when the bust actually
was first displayed, in 1924.
In 1928, Egypt offered to
exchange other artifacts
for the bust.
But Germany declined.
And of course, in
1933, Hermann Goring
apparently considered
returning the bust
as a political
gesture, but was vetoed
by Hitler, of all people.
So this history
actually draws attention
to how a singular
object can come
to embody national interests
that obviously continue
to be played out today.
In the last decade,
heritage discourse
has broadened to include
the interests of indigenous
and non-Western peoples.
And this has caused
a reassessment
of Western
heritage-related concepts.
As Lynn Meskell
puts it, quote, "we
should recognize that not all
individuals, groups, or nations
share those views of
universal heritage
or have the luxury of affluence
to indulge these desires."
She also notes that,
quote, "we uncritically
hold that heritage,
specifically World Heritage,
must be a good
thing, and thus find
it difficult to comprehend
groups who support
counter-claims, whether for
the reason of religious, moral,
economic, or political nature."
Counterclaims to heritage
can be clearly seen
in the repatriation
debates, many of which
I'm familiar with in the New
World-- especially NAGPRA
in North America, but also
Australia, Canada, and New
Zealand.
NAGPRA in particular
has given rise
to new concepts of
ownership for us
to consider--
community ownership,
as opposed to private property--
and new categories of evidence
to be weighed-- oral history
versus archeology, for example.
Now the Egyptian case, described
so well by Monica and Gary,
is a study of the struggles
involved in the democratization
of heritage discourse.
So we see here World
Heritage interests
with respect to
preservation access,
national interests with respect
to tourism, in conflict,
and both being challenged by,
heritage claims with respect
to identity, resistance,
from local villagers
and communities-- different
kinds of communities.
Monica shows us quite
clearly, in her paper,
and she properly notes,
that the current challenges
of Egyptian heritage are
largely the result of 200
years of Western intervention.
This has caused heritage
to become a commodity.
And its consumption
has been limited
to Western tourists, scholars,
and the Egyptian elite.
The effect of this
intervention has
been that the majority
of the Egyptian people
have been alienated
from their own heritage.
Lynn Meskell provides
a vivid example
of this in her discussion of
the relocation of the village
of Qurna to make way for tourism
in the Valley of the Kings.
This move was resisted
by townspeople
and resulted in actual violence.
Monica's presentation
documents the destruction
that followed upon
2011 and the attacks
on the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Entire villages participated
in the looting of the Memphite
necropolis close
to Abusir, Saqqara,
[? Dasht, ?] and [? Lisht ?].
And, at the same time,
she sees a new form,
and actually she represents
herself a new form,
of cultural advocacy.
She notes that regular
citizens formed a human belt
around the Egyptian Museum until
the early hours of the morning,
until armed forces
could be deployed
for the protection
of the museum.
She also notes that armed
locals at [? al-Buarite ?]
and al-Qurna protected
the archaeological sites
in the Theban necropolis, when
the convicts were released from
the Armant Prison.
She talks about how the
villagers of Dahshur
protested successfully against
the looting of the site there.
New grassroots
organizations are beginning
to be created to
address this situation.
And her organization,
Egyptian Heritage Task Force,
is one of the
leaders in this area.
She has been actively
involved in campaigning
for the protection of sites
such as Abu Sir al-Maleq, which
she mentioned here
in her presentation.
She and the task force
literally fought off
armed looters that were
attacking the Mallawi Museum.
And they've also produced
films of on-site vandalism
and communicated their
concern through social media.
So when she asked us to
participate in social media,
she's only asking us to do
what she's already doing,
to enhance the scope of it.
Significantly, the ministry has
consulted with her and the task
force on various solutions
to manage the site of Abu Sir
al-Maleq and, as she
mentioned, that it's now
listed on the World
Monument Watch for 2016.
This is significant because
the ministry no longer sees
the task force as a
competitor and is taking it
on board as a partner in
the process of managing
Egyptian heritage.
Gary has highlighted ARCE's
role in public outreach,
creating new jobs and
educational opportunities
for archaeological students,
as well as local community
members.
Significantly, his
research, his work,
serves to bridge the cultural
gap between the wider
population and their
cultural heritage.
He presented a slide, which
showed how many people he
actually employed.
I think he identified
a goal of 650.
And he actually hired 704
to serve as archaeologists,
day laborers, photographers,
conservators-- and this work,
as he mentioned,
funded by USAID.
He also mentioned the creation
of an interfaith group
of young women to serve as
docents for the Red Monastery.
Both of these are examples of
providing job opportunities
for local Egyptian
people and clearly is
something that we need to
continue doing and invest in.
So to conclude, heritage
has traditionally
been examined in the context
of political interests.
However, people like Laurajane
Smith and Rodney Harrison
are drawing our attention
to the importance
of considering heritage
[? discourse ?]
as a form of human rights.
More specifically, it's about
the right to define oneself,
the community to
which one belongs,
and the values that that
community collectively shares.
Non-Western and
indigenous scholars
have recently critiqued
Western archaeologists,
anthropologists, and historians,
as well as museum curators,
for their neglect of indigenous
agency and local politics.
They've also challenge the
universalizing tendencies
of the World Heritage
Convention for failing
to incorporate
culturally-relevant concepts
of heritage.
They've questioned the focus
on the material-- artifacts
and monuments--
at the expense of
the immaterial and intangible
forms of heritage--
language, dance, and song.
So I think we can all agree
that all of these concerns
need to be taken into
consideration today
if heritage discourse is
to become more democratic.
From this perspective,
heritage should no longer
be considered a thing or a
property, but rather a verb.
Heritaging is thus
the ongoing process
of negotiating social meanings
and practice with respect
to signs of the
past and traversing
the boundaries embodied in
static formulations of global,
national, and local
community character.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
We're running a little
bit behind schedule.
But I think we do have time for
about 10 minutes of discussion.
So I'd like to open
the floor for that.
Yes?
Well I think Bob addressed
this to a certain extent.
But both the speakers
are concerned
with instilling in
the Egyptian people
some sense of appreciation
for their ancient heritage.
And Gerry contrasted the
situation in Greece and Italy,
where those countries
have reconciled
their ancient heritage--
pagan heritage, if you will--
with the Christian heritage.
And there's really
no problem there.
And I'm wondering what
the solution is for Egypt?
I think, fortunately,
Egypt doesn't
have the kind of fanatic,
anti-antiquity that we've
found in Afghanistan with the
blowing up of the statues.
But I think there's
just-- they don't care.
It's irrelevant to a lot
of fundamentalist Muslims,
for whom history starts
in 598, or whatever.
So I'm just wondering
what specific steps
you would recommend
to try and raise
the consciousness of the
general public in Egypt
and an appreciation
for their ancient past?
Monica?
Well I think people cannot
appreciate something they
don't know about.
I want you to tell me
how many books in Arabic
were published academically.
You'll find everything
stopped with Philip Hassan
in the 1950s.
So how can you imagine
people who have no access
to the information, and
also used to have no access
to the site-- the Giza
plateau would be closed
on [NON-ENGLISH] for Egyptians
in favor of tourists.
So how can you
appreciate something
you have never read about?
You have no access
to the knowledge.
So the key is if you
publish books in Arabic,
they will understand.
And you do not need
to dumb them down,
as Neal said this morning.
Think just totally, as you
publish here for the West,
you need to publish in
Arabic for the Egyptians.
It's very simple.
[? Mita? ?]
Yeah, I completely agree.
And to continue with
that, this conversation
of cultural heritage and
local alienation from the past
connects nicely to the
digital humanities discussion.
But is it not problematic
that the widest dissemination
of information is primarily in
English or Western languages?
Because this not limits
access to Western audiences
or those with a
Western education,
but it also implicitly
makes preservation
of the past a Western project.
And that exacerbates--
I would think
that would exacerbate local
alienation from their past.
So it's great that we can train
people on the ground in Arabic.
But it seems
disingenuous to say,
oh, the people don't have
an interest in their past,
or et cetera, et cetera,
when us, as Westerners, talk
about democratizing
knowledge, and the role
of digital humanities, and
democratizing knowledge,
and yet we at least
don't seem to have
a priority on widely
disseminating knowledge
in local languages.
Now I know that the
governments might censor access
to the web pages.
But at the very least,
it seems like it
would be a meaningful
symbolic gesture
to have this historical
knowledge widely distributed
in local languages.
Absolutely.
Yeah?
Can I just say, Monica, how
incredibly courageous you are?
And not just for physically
putting yourself in a museum
and hiding away a papyrus, but
for your critiques actually
of the Ministry of Antiquities,
and what's going on.
Because that, in
itself, is a huge step
to be taken by someone
who is actually working
in the Egyptian academy.
And I'm wondering if you
could talk a little bit more
about what space there
is for Egyptian academics
to make those kinds of critiques
of their own government.
Well I think when I
first started I just
found that there was a gap.
The Western scholars were too
scared to lose their permits.
The Egyptian colleagues were
too scared-- they were not
empowered to talk.
So there was this gap that
I think, as being Egyptian,
and educated in the
West, I could fill.
And back then, I think
the state of fluid,
the political fluidity at that
time, I think gave that space.
And I think, if you just
speak to the public,
and if you speak really
genuinely out of the good will,
people respect you.
And this creates public opinion.
And when you have public
opinion backing you up,
the ministry then respects you.
At the beginning, they
would not listen to us.
I remember once a previous
minister came out and said,
oh, she does not have
a PhD in archeology.
She should not talk about
archeology, which I do.
But you see, they start
attacking you personally,
instead of responding
to the claims.
And thank god, [NON-ENGLISH]
I have a very good support
system.
We have around 500
inspectors working with us
as the task force.
So with that support
of knowing that you're
doing this for the--
and I remember,
one of the good professors
that taught me once called
me and told me, Monica, you're
never going to get a job.
You've ruined your
academic career.
And I told her,
well, I don't care.
I've preserved my integrity.
And I could really
feel that that--
I would not be able to face my
students one day and tell them
we did everything that we could
to save these sites while we
didn't.
So well, what I did actually
gained enough public support
that I was nominated for the
Minister of Antiquities three
times and turned it down,
because I'm wise enough not
to accept the position.
Yeah, I was [NON-ENGLISH]-- the
first time I was even pregnant
in six months then.
And now even the
military generals,
they call me when
they need to under--
there was a problem in
[NON-ENGLISH] three that they
were ceding [NON-ENGLISH], which
is the military gate to Egypt--
they were ceding this site the
four locals from [INAUDIBLE].
And when the
ministry made claims,
the first person that the
military generals called me.
They said, we know that you are
going to say the right thing.
Is it really an
archaeological site?
And I said, yes.
It is an archaeological site.
Although it's
registered, but there was
a problem with the paperwork.
So we've gained this status.
I was even received by
the previous president,
Adly Mansour, twice.
People now listen to us.
They know that we're not
talking out of spite.
We're not talking-- we
have documented everything.
We use satellite
images, as you've seen.
We use photographs.
So in a way, we've gained an
independent position in Egypt,
that people now,
when the ministry
say-- during the disaster of the
Tutankhamun beard, for example,
people were turning for us.
Is it true?
Is it true?
They would dismiss the claims
by the Ministry of Antiquities
then.
Them because they knew
that since 2011 we've out
in the field and doing this.
So we've gained a credibility
within the Egyptian society.
And I think this has
given us the edge
to continue with the fight.
Matt?
I just want to echo Ian's
praise-- very courageous work
that you're doing.
So thank you very much
for your presentation.
But my question is
rooting what Bob was just
mentioning about Lynn
Meskell and Rodney Harrison's
recent work about heritage
being about human rights.
So particularly
about the last slide
that you showed
on what we can do,
it seems that heritage discourse
is attacking the symptom,
rather than the actual disease.
And the disease is clearly
rooted in social inequities,
which if you look at a landfill
on an archaeological site,
that clearly deals with
a global health crisis.
We're dealing with social
inequalities on drastic levels.
So if we're just talking
about knowledge about heritage
and archaeological
sites, is that just
treating a symptom rather than
the underlying disease itself?
Yes.
Yes and I definitely
agree that it
has to do a lot with
social inequality.
And for example, in
2006 I started a project
in [NON-ENGLISH], where all what
we did was train the Bedouins
to become tour
guides for the area.
Because we thought that
it's the Bedouins who should
show the site to the people.
And the problem, again-- it
has to do, [NON-ENGLISH],
with all due respect to
the people in the room,
with Western ideology
of archaeological sites.
Unfortunately, many
Western scholars
still want to come
with a colonial cast
and tell people what to do.
I've worked on
excavations many times.
And on very few incidents
the chief excavator actually
explain to the workers
what they were excavating.
They just use them as the
number for the daily wage.
So there is a huge gap.
I think that the
Western intervention
needs to completely change.
And I think the
future will not allow
any more such
post-colonial-- colonial
and post-colonial mentalities.
And of course, this fits
totally with equality of rights.
Just a quick follow up to
that, in the terminology,
in terms of the
colonial discourse
and how it still operates,
do local children
identify themselves as looters?
No.
They do not think that
actually looting is a crime.
They identify themselves
as treasure hunters.
Their mothers would say
they're finding enough money
for their school supplies.
OK, I think in that case
we should probably move on
to our concluding remarks.
Thank you everybody
who participated.
[APPLAUSE]
All right, so we're nearing
the end of our program, which
is quite sad.
But it's been a brilliant
and productive day.
So I suppose we all deserve
the drinks that are coming
in the reception afterwards.
Our closing remarks
will briefly take us
back to the traditional core
of the State of the Field
workshops, a chance for us
to step back and examine
the place of teaching archeology
and Egyptology in North
American universities
and how that sits
with the new
realities of our field
as things change
politically, geographically,
and methodologically.
Professor James P. Allen is
Charles Edwin Wilbour Professor
of Egyptology here at Brown.
He received his PhD from
the University of Chicago.
Before coming to
Brown in 2007, he
had previously been an
epigrapher with the University
of Chicago's epigraphic survey,
Cairo director of the American
Research Center in Egypt,
and curator of Egyptian Art
at the Met.
From 2008 to 2015, he was
president of the International
Association of Egyptologists.
Professor Allen's
research interests
include ancient Egyptian
grammar and literature,
which you may have heard
about, religion, and history.
He's written extensively
on these subjects,
and is currently working on
the publication of material
from the Met's
excavations at Dahshur,
a new comprehensive grammar of
the ancient Egyptian pyramid
texts, and a study of ancient
Egyptian religion and thought.
Welcome.
[APPLAUSE]
OK, thank you.
It's my pleasure to be the
token philologist here today.
When Jenn and Miriam asked me
to give the closing remarks,
I thought, well, OK.
I can come over, show
the flag, and put it
in a broader perspective.
And only after I
agreed did I realize
that I would have to sit
through an entire day
of archaeological papers.
Never mind!
Actually, to my
surprise, I found
myself interested by the
program, engrossed in it,
definitely informed by it.
And I even enjoyed it.
So thank you.
I congratulate both
of you, actually,
for putting together a
perceptive and innovative
program with the right
approach, the right topics,
and above all, the right
people to make this really
a groundbreaking event.
So congratulations.
As far as my sum up remarks,
I'm of course looking at this
from a non-archaeological side.
And it used to be
that archeology was
the poor relative of philology.
For literate societies, such
as those of ancient Egypt,
archeology was not needed
for interpretation, only
for discovery, particularly
discovery of things
that we could read,
that would tell us
more about ancient
Egypt, and the recovery
of architectural remains.
And archeology
was only important
for those benighted societies
that didn't have writing
or didn't leave us
any written records.
And for them, archeology
was the default means
of recovering data for
want of anything better.
Well obviously,
that's changed now.
And I found this particularly
interesting because it
touches on something
that I've realized
for most of my
professional life,
but really only has come home to
me in the past couple of years,
and that's the danger of the
preconceptions, the unconscious
preconceptions, that
we bring to the data.
Let me give you some examples.
Egyptian art-- people
look at Egyptian art
and these funny
characters and think
these people couldn't draw.
How does this compare
to the ethereal nature
of Greek sculpture, for example?
And it's not until we actually
began to look at the art
from the Egyptian point of view,
not from our point of view,
and realize that they were
perfectly capable of doing
things naturalistically.
But they weren't interested
in doing it naturalistically,
at least not in
two-dimensional art.
Instead, these are symbols.
This is symbolic art.
How about religion?
Compare the finery of
Judeo-Christian Islamic
theology to animal-headed gods.
No comparison.
Until you realize
these guys didn't
worship animal-headed gods.
Again, this is a symbol.
And not looking at it from
the Egyptian point of view
has caused us, or had caused
us, to misinterpret it.
I've been particularly
conscious of this in language
for the past couple of years and
have realized, come to realize,
the misinterpretation
of the data
that we unconsciously cause by
imposing on it the categories
of our own languages.
So we expect to find
past, present, and future
in a language that didn't
care to express past, present,
and future in the
same way that we do.
And it's only by backing
out and beginning
to try to look at the language
from its own point of view
that we really begin
to understand it.
So what's today been all about?
I think it's the same
thing in archeology.
We started out with
culture, with Stuart,
and supported by [? Neil. ?]
We can no longer look at Nubian
culture as the barbaric
southern relative
of the civilized Egyptians
who lived in the Nile Valley.
Instead, we have to
try to look at it,
if we want to understand it,
from the Nubian point of view,
from the Sudanese point of view,
and not from the Egyptian point
of view, or from what we think
is the Egyptian point of view.
Chronologically, we have to
have some kind of framework
to talk about things.
But unconsciously, the framework
has provided boundaries for us.
And so we expect to find
neat chronological divisions,
that sometimes the
Egyptians themselves
created for us, when
archeology shows us
a different picture altogether.
Geographically we,
unconsciously I
think, think of Egypt
in modern terms--
this square in
North Africa, where
of course for the
ancient Egyptians
there was an entirely
different view.
And to begin to see how the
ancient Egyptians interacted
with what they themselves
did not consider Egypt
gives us an entirely
different perspective
on ancient societies.
And finally, methodological--
we have to interact
with the modern world.
We can no longer go,
and recover our data,
and spend years putting
them in an elephant folio
book that winds up on
a dusty library shelf.
Instead, we have to think of
new ways of presenting these,
not only to scholars
and students,
but also to the general public.
And then what seemed
to me the kind
of outlier in all of this,
which is the political aspect,
until I realized that this also
is a very good example of how
we have to back out,
or try to back out,
of the unconscious
biases that we bring.
We can no longer
afford to go to Egypt,
and dig around in their
backyard, and find our data,
and leave, without doing
something in return
for the country
that's welcomed us.
And I think we've gotten that
message very clearly today.
And it's something
that we're going
to have to remember and
act on in the future.
So it's been a long
day for all of us--
not just the philologists,
but also the archeologists--
so thank you for giving me
these few minutes to wrap up.
And again, congratulations
to the organizers
for putting this all together.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you, Jim.
When the philology
side says lovely things
about archaeology, at least in
the context of Brown itself,
the aim has been
achieved in many ways.
So we realize it's late.
We would like to invite all of
you guests and participants,
if you wish, to participate
in a final discussion
to bring thoughts together and
to move towards going forward,
which as many of you,
participants and otherwise,
have expressed is really one
of the things you were excited
about in this conference
in the first place.
[INAUDIBLE]
So we still have definitely
some time for questions,
first some final round ups.
And then we'll go
to the reception.
So any more remarks?
Any more questions?
Yeah, Betsy?
So would it be
really selfish to ask
if you'll show that slide
through of the Red Monastery
church that we forgot
to turn on earlier.
I will do it.
It's so beautiful.
Let's see.
You are-- is it going?
I think you have
to hit the-- yeah.
Go to full screen.
I'm going to.
OK.
Nope.
[INAUDIBLE]
Is this the one?
Yeah, it's actually--
put it back to the start.
Oh, I see.
I apologize for taking
up so much time.
No.
No, it's cool.
You want it back at the--
Yeah, thank you very much.
No worries.
I'm excited about it.
Feast your eyes while
you feed your heads.
It can just be a
little background
while we have our discussion.
Sure, OK.
So I'm actually
interested in starting
a little bit of a discussion
about how we can prepare
students of Egyptian
archeology--
who are either in an
Egyptology department,
or a NELC department,
or anthro department,
or an archeology
department-- for a job market
that might require
them to have skills
in the digital humanities,
and drawing from other areas.
Because the State of
the Field is sometimes
developed into a discussion
about how we can better
the training for our
future archaeologists
working in a given region.
So I'd really like
to hear thoughts
from primarily professors
and graduate students
about what kind of training
they would be valuable for them.
Yeah?
Well, apologies for
taking the floor again.
But as an art historian,
I don't have the benefits
of-- those of you who
are archeologists--
working with your students,
as a matter of course,
with digital technologies.
So what I've been doing, in
my more traditional realm,
is giving students
the opportunity
in my seminars of
presenting a final research
paper at the end
of the semester,
or presenting a
digital exhibition.
And I've been involving our
Digital Scholarship Center
in giving training for them.
And they're very
excited about that.
Because a lot of jobs in
art history now-- actually,
most of them--
include information
about digital humanities
experience preferred.
I will say, I rely on
students almost entirely,
in the field, to do most of
the digital stuff, at least
in terms of field work--
not always my own students,
in some cases.
But the 3D modeling I've
been doing, and what not.
But it is a problem,
I agree with you.
Because nearly
everyone who I've asked
to serve the roles as
surveyor, GIS person, what not,
has come to me with some
of these skills already.
I'm not going to take someone
who doesn't already know
how to do that as my surveyor.
And Parker, it's been
great having you here.
I think you at least can get
our students in at the ground
floor with GIS from an
archaeological perspective.
But I think this is a
huge problem, in fact.
Because it is.
It's a skill set that you
guys are expected to have.
And I'm only half a
generation older than you are,
and I don't know
these things myself.
So I can't teach you.
One of the places where it's
happening institutionally,
and certainly here at
Brown, is in the library.
But also, in things
like our Granoff Center,
they're doing some things--
computational mathematics.
So there are connections.
And many universities are
already building these Centers
for Digital Scholarship.
Maybe they're a
library attached.
Maybe they're attached
to a humanities center.
It really depends.
But yeah, increasingly
you're not
going to know how to
do the programming in R
and god knows what else
my technologist colleagues
in the library do.
But that's why you have to
collaborate and at least know
who are the specialists
that you need in order
to get a digital
project off the ground.
I think you can
always also encourage
interdisciplinary research.
This is what we have planned
to do for the new university
in Aswan.
We're going to have
interdisciplinary research
between computer science and
the archeology department.
And we're creating a heritage
technology lab, especially
for that with remote sensing
equipment, 3D scanners.
And the architecture
students will work with us
also with the 3D
scanners and a GIS map.
So I think this makes
all three parties happy--
the architecture, the
computer scientists,
and the archeology students.
I think that's really important
for the high-level development
of technological
tools in particular.
But why I worry about
our students falling
through the crack,
for instance, are
you need to know how to use
these tools at a higher level
than perhaps some of
your professors do.
But you don't need to
be developing them.
And where do we
get the people who
aren't going to be
writing the software,
but need to be able to use GIS?
Yeah?
I'd also suggest that the
infrastructure has to change.
And so before an
upcoming grad student
decides I'm going to
put a lot of my time
into developing
these skills, I have
to know that the output
is going to be accepted
in say, a tenure-track program.
A website as opposed to
a published article--
is that going to have
the same street cred,
and go on my resume,
and mean something?
And then the other thing is
the upcoming grad student
has to think very
carefully, if I'm
going to invest all this
time in digital humanities,
that time has to
come from somewhere.
So does that mean I'm
not doing late-Egyptian,
or I'm not doing some of
these traditional offerings?
And so where's the balance?
What am I going to give up in
order to gain these new skills?
And can we bless that and
make sure that that's OK?
Do we have to redefine what
a traditional archaeological
or Egyptological program
is going to teach?
I think that interdisciplinary
element is really crucial.
That's what it's all about.
It's changing your mindset.
It's not I'm going
to do Egyptology
or classical archeology
and that's just it.
You need to come to
it as an archaeologist
or as a student of
that ancient culture
also, and then just draw
on all those relationships.
Because on the one hand, I
also think the technology-- all
that since-- it's so
much become specialism.
There's no way you can deal
with all the specialisms.
You can do that.
But who's going to deal
with the archaeozoology?
And who's going to deal
with the geoarchaeology?
So in that sense, you
can't put together
a program that covers all the
specialisms, or expect-- well,
you could do a program.
But you can't expect
everybody to take
all those programs [INAUDIBLE].
So field work is crucial,
going out into the field.
And that should be an integral
part of all those programs.
Well certainly here it is.
And that is crucial.
Because even if you
don't do it yourself,
you see others doing it.
And you pick up
something. [INAUDIBLE]
At least you get an
idea this can be done.
And the digital element
is, in that sense,
different from zoology
and so on in that
it pervades many more elements.
And to respond directly to
that point of recognition also,
certainly here in
this university, that
is now the case that
digital publications,
as long as they're
reviewed and so
on, that they are recognized.
It's not a problem.
I'm actually in the
process of-- well,
I should have this weekend
or next week-- reviewing
our standards for
the [INAUDIBLE]
to explicitly write that in.
That's the policy here, which
over the last few months
or so has been changed.
So I think all that is coming.
And that's just a matter of time
how long it takes for things
to-- but what's really
important-- the digital element
is, in a way, the minor element.
So when you want to judge
it, it's is it peer reviewed?
There's quality there.
And it doesn't
matter whether it's
printed in velum or
out there on the web.
Angelica, you've
been [INAUDIBLE].
Well one of the things
about collaboration
is that the relationships
change a lot.
You say, as a professor I
don't have all that knowledge.
You say, nobody can
have all that knowledge.
And it's all true.
The relationship between
students, faculty, and staff
is changing dramatically.
We're at equal level,
collaborating on projects,
getting things done.
So that whole social
contract changes.
It's really important
that the senior scholars
take the lead in this and really
think through what it means.
Yes, quality is essential.
I always call it GIGA--
garbage in, garbage out.
If you don't have
quality research that
analyze these projects,
then it looks glitzy,
but it doesn't mean a thing.
So it's really a
matter of training
the people who do the review.
Usually it's
professor [INAUDIBLE].
I don't know if you have
the same system here.
But these are people
who are not typically--
haven't grown up with
collaborative work
or with technology.
And I think the collaborative
aspect is even more
important than the technology.
The moment you publish
in archeology--
and even in archeology
it's not that
explicit-- you need
to make explicit
what was your contribution
to an article with eight
collaborators.
What is your contribution to a
project with 20 collaborators?
Some people put more
in it than others.
And then there's also the
question, as archaeologists,
we're supposed to just
know how to do things.
We don't get lessons in
using [INAUDIBLE] station,
or differential GPS,
or a 3D scanner.
Those are all things that we're
supposed to learn in the field.
So there's a large part of
apprenticeship to archeology
that doesn't really
get recognized either--
so I guess more than just
the digital that's at play.
If I can continue on that--
that collaborative aspect
is doubly important in
the light of particularly
the last session that we heard,
because it should not just
be the senior faculty
and the students
from those universities, but
also local collaborators,
and the local communities.
That all has to be
rolled into one, working
with local archaeologists.
We saw a little bit in the ARCE
work with the conservators.
But it should be, just
as it is in other parts
of the Mediterranean,
other parts of the world,
it should be local--
a regular practice
that you work with local
archeology students,
but also just local people
from the village who
would be interested and
that kind of things.
We've taken to
work on a project--
particularly make sure that
we work on the weekends,
so in the weekends
when people are off
that they can
actually come and see
inside and have easier access.
And that's recognizing that
you're part of a wider world,
and you're not sitting in
your ivory tower is so simple
but is--
Frank, currently that's the
privilege of the tenured.
Because there is no mechanisim--
even if you stay oh, well we're
going to recognize peer
reviewed digital publications
in the same way we recognize
print publications, that's
still the same type of outcome.
It's just a different
means of dissemination.
How are you going to
recognize the effort
that it takes, and the good to
the field that it does, to have
someone engage in a
collaborative project
of getting the community
involved in saving a site?
But it's just as much effort
as writing an article.
But the outcome is really
different and cannot be judged
in the way that we have usually
judged things as a marker
towards tenure,
which is, frankly,
what I think we're
all going for.
The [INAUDIBLE] Art Association
has established a committee
to create a set of standards
with detailed information,
and also a chart to enable
people to evaluate something
in print versus
something digitally.
And I wonder if one
of your institutions
might do the same thing for
archeology and Egyptology.
So I can't remember which
organization it was.
I think it's the AAUP, American
Associate of University
Professors, has
recommended-- and it
came through the
National Academies--
this inclusive view
of scholarship.
And I know, at least at our
institution and a number
of other large
research institutions
in the West, that's
been adopted formally
in tenure consideration,
that it's not just
is it a digital product.
It includes things
like live performances
and all of these
other things that
matter in our contributions.
But how do you quantify
them with a impact
score of the journal, and how
many people have cited it, even
if they said you were an idiot?
That's still 20 citations.
And they count the
same as if they
said you were brilliant in
those kind of calculations.
There's also a big
change happening
on the level of
public in involvement
in American national funding.
So the NEA and NEH
have completely
overhauled their
grant system now.
And there's so much focus
on public and community
engagement built into that.
So even the scope of
funding-- in order
to get a project,
you're going to have
to-- that's being enforced
now, which I think
is a very big positive.
Beth.
One other thing--
and this goes back
to the structure
of the programs--
is language training,
and having Arabic--
it's the elephant
in the room, right--
as having Egyptian Arabic count
in these graduate programs.
Sometimes it's difficult. I know
at UCLA we have a fall season.
And we would miss the
first quarter of Arabic.
And you'd have to come back
and catch up, basically.
You'd end up doing
the class there.
And then you were
expected to do German,
French-- the ancient
languages and Arabic.
It counts more--
again, our program
was split between
NELC and archeology.
And in archeology there
were a lot more people
doing the Arabic exam.
But especially when it comes
to the cultural heritage
side of things, I
think that's something
we can't ignore any more.
It isn't.
And I think [INAUDIBLE].
And we're not, sorry.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
--education.
We are such a
monolingual society.
This is going to be hard.
Oh, the Europeans
are all [INAUDIBLE].
As a European, which language
do you want me to learn?
I want to go back to Hanna.
Because I actually tried
to set up a community
project in Fayoum.
I was stopped by the
SA-- by the ministry.
I know.
Because it was too dangerous.
I tried to train students.
I wasn't allowed.
I did many field school
for [? inspectors ?],
which are extremely useful.
So I'm not complaining.
But I've just started
working in Ethiopia.
And there I can work with
students that actually go out
to the schools.
So we're starting this
whole community project
with Ethiopian colleagues.
And it's something that also
needs to change in Egypt.
So how are we going to do that?
Because again, it would
be really neo-Colonialist
if we are going to tell the
Egyptian ministry for you
should do A, B, or C.
Well, we're trying to
push them to do that.
Because even I remember when
I spoke with Kent Weeks.
When I complained to
him that the signs
in the Valley of the Kings
are written only in English.
What kind of message is this
giving to the Egyptian public?
He told me it was the
Ministry of Antiquities
who insisted that the signs
would be written in English.
It's post-colonialism
by the book.
Yes, we have to change this.
And I think the
current minister is
very open to such initiatives.
And I think, through
employing locals
to do the part of speaking
with the community,
this will be more successful.
Because they can overcome
the language barrier.
They can add more accessibility.
And even for
ethnographic purposes,
if you need to document
the social history
of archaeological
sites, I suggest
best is would be training
locals to do the job,
and then doing it.
I used to do the same
when I was in Harga
as an undergraduate
student studying.
I would go to the villages and
speak about pigeon breeding.
Because we had a pigeon tower.
And we wanted to do understand
the dynamics pigeon raising.
And it worked very well.
Because people would accept a
local person who could speak
Arabic, who is easy, who can
maneuver children very well.
Yeah, it requires a
bit of maneuvering.
And with proper pressure on the
ministry from us and from you
as well, I think this
barrier will be broken.
And I also want to
say I would love
to translate all the articles
in [INAUDIBLE] in Arabic.
We now only do the abstracts.
The trouble is A, if two
people look at the Arabic,
nobody can agree
what is good Arabic.
But it's so expensive.
So yeah, it's just something
that we need to find funding
for, one way or another.
Yes, I think maybe the USAID.
I know, I was just
thinking that.
Gary, [INAUDIBLE].
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
And it could be a mandate
from the funding agencies,
that if you get funding--
just as now NSF is saying
and mandating you
have to put your data
in a digital
repository, they'll have
to mandate that your
scholarship be also translated
into the local language.
But mandated and funded.
Yeah, but most mandates
are unfunded mandates,
at least in this country.
If you go to the
UN bookshop, which
is the most famous
bookshop in Cairo,
you would not find a single book
in Arabic about ancient Egypt.
On that depressing note.
Yeah, that's exactly
what I wanted to say.
Or maybe a little bit--
Well actually, maybe a little
more uplifting note-- in Sudan,
like in Ethiopia,
this isn't a problem.
We're actually
encouraged to engage.
And that's something I've
thought about independent--
I shifted my view from just
going in and doing the work.
But increasingly, and
going back a few years,
we've tried to engage
with the people
that we hire and explain
to them what we're
doing, not just technically
but also what we're finding
and what it says about things.
And then Michelle
and I both have
been giving lectures
to different groups--
men and women, because it works
a little if it's segregated,
given the local society.
But Michelle went out to
the local school, as well.
And like Neil, we're
preparing materials in Arabic.
And actually that idea of
having a video in Nubian
is really good.
And I think we'll try that too.
Because of course, Nubian is
the first language in our area.
Arabic is the second
language, the lingua franca.
But I think that's
something that we all
should be doing more of.
And I absolutely
agree with that.
And that's something
that's worthwhile,
I think, regardless of the
tenure clock, or whatever--
I think it's worthwhile.
I was not trying to argue
against the local [INAUDIBLE].
[INAUDIBLE] devil's
advocate about it.
I think all these
kind of things,
too-- we like to think in
those absolute calculus of does
it count towards
tenure, or whatever.
But there's also
a calculus of what
sets you apart from the
rest of the people competing
for a position.
And I think, if you've
shown that you're
engaging in these
kind of activities,
I think that will
potentially impress
a search committee that's
looking to fill a position.
If you acquire one
of these skills,
and not acquire the skill
of just to say, oh, yeah.
I can do GIS-- but
with a goal in mind.
So yeah, you're not going to be
able to every technical thing.
But find one thing.
Apply it well.
And that gives you something
to talk about with people when
you go in for a job interview.
And again--
[? interdisciplinaity. ?] I
was trained both
as an Egyptologist
and in anthropological
archeology.
And I'm in an
anthropology department.
I got that way because I
could talk across disciplines.
And a lot of Egyptologists
have gotten positions
in-- there aren't that many
Egyptology departments, right?
So a lot of Egyptologists
have gotten positions
in history departments,
art history, and so on.
Because they can talk across
those disciplinary boundaries.
And I think that's clearly a
boundary that has been broken
within Egyptian archeology.
If you look at who's here
today, and talk to them
where our students are
going, that we are not just--
we are Penn, and
Chicago, and Brown.
But we're not just
the places that
have a traditionally taught it.
Yeah?
Well as someone who's
recently transferred
from being a student
to faculty, I can say,
you are asked a
lot about-- yeah,
and like Stuart was saying,
search committees are always
asking about
engagement, and looking
for that as a new
model, at least
in my personal experience.
So that sea change has happened.
Let us hope that university
tenure committees also
are on board, not
just the hiring
committees within departments.
Because it's an awesome thing.
I think that is a much
better closing comment.
And on behalf of my two
organizers, co-organizers
here, we would really
like to thank you again
for coming from near and far,
and making this a fantastic
workshop and event.
We're very grateful for
the great introductions,
for the great papers, and also
for the great discussions.
And again, thanks to Jim for
those very rounded off closing
notes.
Before we all have
our first wine,
there's definitely one
person who is always
acting in the
background, but who
made this actually possible,
who brought all the people here,
and who's organizing all
the wonderful receptions
and dinners.
And this is Jess Porter,
our logistics manager.
[APPLAUSE]
