More on the Damage to Antinoupolis

Just received this update from Jay Heidel:
Dear Friends and Contributors,
Many of you may have heard recently about the damage and looting at Antinoupolis.  I wanted to be in touch immediately to let you know that the director of our mission, Dr Rosario Pintaudi, has recently met with the head of the Ministry of State for Antiquities in Egypt, Dr Mohammed Ibrahim, and we are working closely with our Egyptian colleagues to stop the looting, to increase the number of gaffirs (guardians) at the site, to add armed guards at the site from the Ministry of Interior, and to build guard houses around Antinoupolis to house these men.

It is our hope that very soon the damage and looting will lessen and that Antinoupolis will be better protected from those who try to harm it.  I also wanted to let you know that this information is making its way into the press.

There is an Italian reporter, Cinzia Dal Maso, who concentrates on archaeological and cultural heritage topics who has an article on the looting at Antinoupolis which will appear in the newspaper “Il sole 24 ore” on 31 March.  In the meantime she has posted in her blog about it:

http://filelleni.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/allarme-egitto/

There has also been a piece in English in the online version of the Egyptian newspaper ‘Al Masry al Youm’ called the ‘Egyptian Independent:’

http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/antinoupolis-archaeological-site-being-destroyed-systematically

But more importantly for influencing action here in Egypt, an article appeared in the print version of ‘Al Masry al Youm’ in Arabic on 18 March.  A scan of the article with the pictures is attached to this email, and an English translation appears below.  The thread of the story is beginning to be picked up by various media outlets and bloggers around the web.  If you have contacts in the media, please help us get the word out.  Though we have promises of gaffirs, guards, and protection from the Egyptian government, the only way to insure that Antinoupolis actually receives the protection it needs is to increase the profile of the problem in the media and keep the attention of the community and of our Egyptian colleagues on the problem.

Please know that Dr Pintaudi and all of us who work at the site as part of the archaeological mission from the Istituto Papirologico “G. Vitelli” of the University of Florence, Italy are doing all we can to stem the looting and vandalism as quickly as possible.

You have received this email because you are on the mailing list for the “Oracle,” the newsletter of the Antinoupolis Foundation.  Please excuse the use of your email address for a purpose other than issuing the newsletter.  And we’d like to mention that the third issue of the “Oracle” is in production now and should be in your inbox soon.

Thank you so much,

James B. Heidel, President

The Antinoupolis Foundation, Inc.

Al Masry al Youm article from 18 March 2013

Headline:

“Al Masry al Youm discovers the looting of the ancient city in al Minya governorate in broad daylight.  Gangs digging for antiquities in el Sheikh Abada and only one guard in charge of the security.”

Photo captions:

Top left:  “The buildings extend to the columns of the ancient city.”

Lower left:  “Planting the land to cover the looting of the antiquities.”

Lower right:  “Building the new cemeteries as a new way to hide the digging works.”

Article text:  [With additional comments and corrections in brackets.]

“Once you enter el Sheikh Abada to the south of Mellawi in Minya province - which holds remains of three ancient civilizations, the pharaonic, Roman, and Islamic civilizations - the evidence of destroyed ancient monuments is all around you.  [Islamic pottery or “remains of Islamic civilization” is mentioned throughout the article as predominating on the site; however, there is a paucity of Islamic period material around the site compared to the vast quantity of Christian material which is hardly mentioned in the article at all.]  And holes dug by the armies of gangs of the village are everywhere.  Or you may see scattered bits indicating they maybe hit a coffin of linen, or Roman coins, or small statues, or small scarabs.

“Antinoupolis or el Sheikh Abada village is on the east bank of the Nile south of Mellawi in Minya province.  The name comes from the name of one of the follows of Mohammed, Abada Ibn el Samet, under whose guidance the people of this area came to Islam.

“The great follower entered the ancient city and he passed between the Roman buildings and buried antiquities and monasteries which were built in 130 CE over an area of 7 square kilometers over an ancient pharaonic city about which its walls stand as a witness until today.  [Other than the Ramses II temple, there is no evidence of the presence of a pharaonic-period city.]

“The first thing that meets you when you enter the old city is the well of el Sahahba, as the Moslems call it, or the well of Ali el Sahaba as the Christians call it. And the history of this well goes back to the Holy Family, not only did Mary pass by this well, but also Mary the Copt [one of the wives of Mohammed] passed by this well, too.  She was one of the people who lived in this city and also Syrene, the wife of the follower named Hassan Ibn Sabet also lived here.  Mary the Copt and Syrene were sent to Mohammed as a gift.  Instead of the building of Mary the Copt, they built the mosque of Abada.  And in the city there is a house of Theodora, one of the Coptic monuments which is not being looted by the gangs.

“Once you turn from the well you find yourself in front of the first of the looting areas where there is the hippodrome - or the horse racetrack - which is about the same size as the Circus Maximus, the famous hippodrome in Rome.  The racetrack takes the shape of a horseshoe, but the digging works have destroyed most of its remaining fabric so that you can no longer make out its shape.  The digging works around all the city are not the only destruction, but the new cemeteries of 70 villages around are located here.  The new cemeteries are here because the people of the other villages failed to extend their own cemeteries, but put their new cemeteries here which are obliged to be built over the antiquities.  The people in charge of the MSA in Mellawi have said this to us, but they asked us not to use their names.  They said that when you build a new cemetery you cannot move the graves to another place, especially in a village of Upper Egypt.

“The deep digging is all around and the rest of the ancient pottery which dates back to the Roman and Islamic era are spread over the entire site.  You can see armed people digging, and they disappear suddenly when they see strangers around.  And there is only one guard with an old gun. The number of the guards were thirty-one, and now there is only one waiting for his retirement next September.  Without providing a new trained guard.

“On the top of the Deir el Hawa site [a monastery at the north end of Antinoupolis] al Masry al Youm saw some people digging in broad daylight, and once they saw us come, they disappeared as if the mountain swallowed them.  And they left a deep hole after some of the archaeologists found pharaonic gold and colored glass and some papyrus and ancient coins which give them the hope to find something valuable.  [No gold, pharaonic or otherwise, has ever been found by archaeologists at Deir el Hawa.]  The guard shot his gun in the air trying to make them run away until the police can come and see.  Once they leave, the people come back again and continue digging.

“In the site of Deir el Hawa and Deir el Sombat [another monastery farther to the north] some of the monks’ rooms can be seen, but the digging works under the walls of these rooms make them collapse.  And after the failure of the illegal digging which causes the collapse of the monuments, the second stage comes which is the plowing over and planting of alfalfa or clover for the feeding of livestock after getting rid of all the pottery, by burning it with the rubbish of the city.  Beside the garbage dump there is a temple of Ramses II which is preserved with its columns, only a few of them were destroyed without anyone trying to restore it again.  Behind the Ramses II temple a person has built his house which is against the law which says no one may build within three kilometers of a pharaonic temple.

“Around the temple of Ramses II the women of the village take the dung of the cows and water buffalo to dry to make fuel for fires to use in baking.  And after all these violations, Nagua Mohammed Ali, the manager of ancient sites in Mellawi, she cares only for not giving us any information, and she ordered her employees not to give us any information or to help us in any way.  She asked the photographer of Al Masry al Youm to destroy the pictures he had taken of the damage of the site.

“An Egyptologist who completed her PhD at Berlin University, Monica Hanna considered what happened in Mellawi, “a complete crime for Egyptian history.”  She has been supplied with notes of the damage by the Italian Mission, the Istituto Papirologico [“G. Vitelli” of the University of Florence], which works at the site.  The reports of the Mission contain information regarding the great violations of the people digging or building or planting around the site.

“Hanna adds, “What happened in el Sheikh Abada is a tragedy by all means because people there have no source of income and most of them work in digging for antiquities.  And the land allocated for building is very limited, and it stands as a barrier for normal increase of building for the people of the village.  Without the interference of the state to provide an alternative, they were obliged to go to the ancient city which has no guard for their expansions.  We ask for increasing the guards and arming them with guns so they can stand against armed thieves of the village.”

El Hibeh in the Media

Sunday London Times article (sorry for the small size--just "Zoom In"):

More on El Hibeh

Carol Redmount's newest report on the Facebook "Save El Hibeh" page:
"March 22 Update. Part I. I am very pleased to report that we have just finished six days of work studying pottery and objects from our previous excavations in Hibeh. It's an hour and fifteen minutes commute each way, but we are so happy to be working at all. We thank the SCA and especially Mme. Nadia Ashour, Director of the Beni Suef Taftish and Mr. Atef Helmy, who is in charge of the SCA Ihnasya storehouse and who has most generously permitted us to work in his office. The long commute makes for long days and I am usually exhausted by the time we reach our dig house, and so I am behind on all my correspondence. Friday is my day to catch up. And I am very, very happy to be working."


"March 22 Update. Part II. Hibeh Site Update 1. I am delighted to report that Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Ayedi, Mme. Nadia's boss and a very high official in the SCA who is in charge of all of Upper Egypt (I will post his exact title shortly, I want to make sure I have it correctly), visited us on a tour of inspection of looting of Upper Egyptian sites. He came to us at the Ihnasya Storehouse accompanied by Mme. Nadia Ashour, Director of the Beni Suef Inspectorate and several other SCA members of the taftish. We had a very productive conversation at Ihnasya, and he told me that the issues of looting sites and protecting Egypt's cultural heritage, including Hibeh, had already been discussed in parliament and would be discussed again. This was wonderful news. He then also generously gave permission for our whole team to visit the site as part of his tour of inspection. We were thrilled as so far I was the only one who had been able to see Hibeh. Our next stop was the Spanish mission at Ihnasya el Medinah, where I was able to meet Carmen Perez Die for the first time (she usually works in the fall and we usually work in the summer), an unexpected pleasure. She graciously showed us around the site in general and her current work, and pointed out several looting holes, one very deep, 6 meters or more, and other damage to the site after the revolution. I later heard there were 54 looting holes on the site. Our next visit was to Hibeh, a little over an hour's drive."


"March 22 Update. Part II. Hibeh Site Update 2. We arrived at Hibeh where our delegation, headed by Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Ayedi, whom we cannot thank enough for permitting our team to accompany his site inspection visit with members of the Beni Suef taftish and to take photographs. We were met by a number of Beni Suef security officials. We began our inspection from the north, beginning with the two cemeteries, the larger one Graeco Roman (probably Ptolemaic through Late Roman eras; the Late Roman mummies may be Coptic), the smaller one, where we had worked in 2009 and 2006, almost certainly non-elite Coptic. The mummy featured in the newspaper article was still there, and the plundered tomb with the gorgeous uraeus frieze was still visible. The thieves or their accomplices seem to have made some effort to cover up some of their handiwork, as I discovered when I compared pictures from July with those taken on our first visit with Mme. Nadia earlier this week. Bones and mummy cloth are still scattered all over, along with sad remnants of the desecrated bodies--tufts of human hair, a small braid, a pair of toes, matting, jaw bones, skull bones, every type of bones. It was horrible. Everyone was shocked. We next moved through the North Gate into the city mound itself. Immediately holes are visible everywhere. Some of these holes are many meters (8 or more at a guestimate) deep. As we proceeded through the site there was evidence of looting everywhere. Several vaulted tombs had been opened and emptied. Other structures had been dug up. Every single excavation area where we had worked since our first season in 2001 had at least one looting hole in it. At the southern end of the site it was clear that a number of areas had been badly disturbed and then filled in again. Wheelbarrow marks going in two directions could be traced in the dirt. My team and I accompanied the larger delegation for much of the visit and had photographs taken in solidarity with our Egyptian colleagues. We also raced over the site taking as many pictures as we could for scientific purposes. We must document how things have changed from our last season of excavation so that if and when, god willing, we are able to return to our work at the site we will have some idea of how to proceed. Dr. Ayedi made a thorough inspection and even proceeded to the cemetery east of the town mound (tell) to see the looting of burials there. All of us, Egyptians, Americans and Canadians, were appalled by the devastation at Hibeh. There is not a single area of the site that has not been violated. One of my Ph.D. students also told me that she saw a man on a motorcycle come over the hill while we were at the site; he took one look at the people on the tell and turned around immediately and fled."


"March 22 Update. Part III. We wish to express all our thanks and gratitude to Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Ayedi of the SCA for visiting and inspecting the site, for permitting us to come with him on his inspection. We are especially grateful for his permission to take photographs and for his permission to return to visit the site to try and reclaim as much scientific data from the looting as possible in the time remaining to us for our work. Mme. Nadia has made an official report on the condition of the site and is doing and has done her best in the past to get the site protected. Hibeh's situation is especially problematic because of the criminal organization headquarted in the village just north of the tell that is coordinating the massive looting and violation of the tell. While we are making great progress, and the SCA is doing and has done its best to try and ensure the protection of Hibeh, the site remains unprotected. We are doing our best to help the SCA and our Egyptian colleagues win its struggle to achieve protection for the site. With your help we are making a difference, and I thank everyone, Egyptians and foreigners, from the bottom of my heart, for all your support in our struggle. Without adequate security, the looting will continue day and night. I cry for Hibeh. And for all other sites like it in Egypt."

Update on the Situation at El Hibeh

From Carol Redmount, in charge of the mission at El Hibeh:

"Yesterday I went to the taftish to meet with Mme. Nadia Ashour, the Director of the Beni Suef Inspectorate. She gave me a warm welcome while we waited two hours for our police escort. When we arrived at the site we officially opened the magazine, which was intact, and I selected the material to be transferred to the storehouse at Ihnasya el-Medinah. Mme. Nadia spoke with the guards and inspectors and various others at the site and then, to my delight, asked me if I would like to walk on the tell and if I had a camera with me. The answer to both questions was yes. Mme. Nadia requested copies of all the pictures I was going to take, which of course I will be delighted to give to her, both as a flash drive and as printed copies." So we all made an inspection of the site together, Mme. Nadia, myself, several inspectors from the Beni Suef Inspectorate, two of whom, Ahmed and Rabi', had worked with us before, and our security escorts. We saw the mummy featured in the newspaper outside the entrance to city. I finally set eyes on the beautiful uraeus frieze above the limestone doorway of what must once have been a beautiful tomb, now emply. There was lots of evidence of looting in the cemetery in front of the north entrace to the site, but I am also happy to report no obvious signs of major bulldozing. I am going to compare the pictures I took yesterday with earlier photos. Walking through the north entrance, it was a physical shock to see the many looting holes still visible and the mounds of earth next to them. Our group walked all over the site together and I took photographs until my battery died. There are holes everywhere, some many meters deep. It is also clear that many other holes have been dug and filled in, so the true extent of the damage is even greater than first appearances. Everyone was appalled at the damage from the looting and many other people took pictures also. Mme. Nadia especially was furious and asked me again for copies of pictures so that she could write a very strong report about the looting. It was wonderful to walk together in solidarity on the tell with my Egyptian colleagues, and to all work together to continue our efforts to end the looting and destruction of Hibeh. After visiting the site, we all proceeded to the Ihnasya el Medinah storeroom where Atef Helmy, who is in charge of the Ihnasya storehouse, had been waiting for us all day. We were very late because of our visit to the tell and our late start. Mr. Helmy gave us all a very warm welcome. Our team is also looking forward to working with him and our inspector as we do our studies at the Ihnasya storehouse. Yesterday was, I believe, a big step forward in our quest to protect Hibeh, and we thank all of you, the SCA, and especially our Egyptian colleagues, for all your help. Our job is not finished, however, as the site is not yet protected and the gangster is free to come back today and continue looting the site whenever he pleases, which he undoubtedly will do. Hbeh, and sites like it all over Egypt still need protection."

For more information about how you can help, see my post of March 16:

Stop the Looting...

Stop the Looting...

Please read this post and TAKE ACTION!!
A Petition to Stop the Looting of Egypt's Archaeological Sites
Just a few of the disturbing and heartbreaking photos posted so far on the Facebook page "Save El Hibeh Egypt":

Comparison Photos--before and after looting

Exposed mummified child from the Coptic period

Dislodged mudbricks from the city walls stamped with the cartouche of the High Priest of Amun 

Head from destroyed mummy