Al-Ahram Weekly. Heritage Page. 6-12 December 2001 

A difficult choice

After somewhat tiring days conducting young houseguests through the Egyptian and Coptic museums, and the Pharaonic and Islamic sites in and around Cairo, I took to my favourite place at the Yacht Club in Maadi to relax. There I spent a delightful few hours identifying the unrecoverable writes Jill Kamil. 

In the glow and afterglow of the setting sun, I watched a “boat family” – father, mother and two small children– hauling in a line void of any Nile fish of a size worth mentioning.  As they rowed against the stream, I found myself travelling in my mind’s eye to loftier realms: through the corridors of the ‘Met,’the ‘Rom’, the BM and the Louvre. In short, I pondered what – given the choice of any single pharaonic monument from among those that now adorn museums of the world, I would I would chosefor exhibition at our own Museum of National Heritage at Giza.

Greece has been battling the return of the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon in Athens; India would probably claim for its own the 108-carat Koh-I-Noor that sits atop the crown of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother; and Nigeria would undoubtedly settle for even a fraction of its Benin bronzes.

What single object should Egypt reclaim, given half the chance that is! There are so many historically important and artistically distinctive works of all sizes and periods, that were taken abroad long before laws were enacted protecting Egypt’s national heritage, that the choice would be extremely difficult. 

I played the game of elimination.  First I dismissed the return of any of Egypt’s obelisks. As far as I am concerned Rome can keep the obelisk in the Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano, and indeed the twelve other obelisks that adorn its city.  I would not deprive Istambul of the obelisk of Thutmose III in the Hippodrome, which is sadly weatherworn anyway. And the obelisks in the Place de la Concorde, Paris; “Cleopatra’s Needle” on the Thames Embankment; and the New York obelisk in Central Park can. As far as I am concerned, stay where they are. We have obelisks enough in Egypt:  those of Thutmose I and Queen Hatshepsut at Karnak; Ramses II’s all over the place –  at the entrance to Luxor temple, by the Cairo Tower on the island of Zamalek in Cairo, one from Tanis near the airport, and several in Cairo Museum.  We also have the obelisk of Senusert (Sesostris) I at Mataria, ancient Heliopolis. Obelisks are out!

Next I dismissed the return of any mummies. They were dug up and transported abroad in thousands by tourists in antiquity because mumia, the flesh of mummies, was thought to have healing qualities and mummy flesh was big-time business. Anyway, we have the mummies of some of our greatest kings in the Egyptian museum, including Thutmose II and IV, Seti I, Ramses II and Merenptah.

Would I call for the return of famous statue of the Seated Scribe in the Louvre? No. Again, we have a fair quota in the Egyptian Museum. And as for the beard of the Sphinx in the British Museum, we had an opportunity to have that formless piece of stone returned (at Egyptian expense) during restoration of the Sphinx in the 1980s; when it was suggested that its re-installation might help strengthen the neck of the monument, its weakest part. But it came to nothing, and I do not consider it worth raising the issue again. So – no beard! 

How about an unquestionably valuable and unique work of art? Say, the famous bust of Queen Nefertari, wife of Akhenaten, taken out of Egypt by the German team excavating at Tel El-Amarna in 1912; or beautifully-sculpted statue of Ramses II as a young man inTurin? Apropos the former, let me admit, I have never been as keen on the one-eyed queen who, to my way of thinking, is outranked by the quartzite heads of Akhenaten’s daughters, the royal  princesses in the Egyptian Museum with their large heavy-lidded eyes, well-shaped lips, and distinctive skulls.

As for the and highly polished statue of Ramses II as a youth, seated on a throne with the war crown on his head, this is truly an exceptional piece but would it be worth making an issue over. If not, what other piece?

As for jewelery, stelae, fragments of painted relief, funerary papyri -- the return of none of these, in my opinion, would add appreciably to the horde we have on Egyptian soil. So herein lay my dilemma.  I set myself to select a masterpiece from among the greatest museums of Egyptian antiquities in the world, and here I was, dismissing objects one by one.

Obviously by search had to be refined. Surely there must be ONE object, so unique as to be as important to Egypt as the Elgin Marbles to Greece, and the bronze busts to Nigeria?

In my mind’s eye I recalled the era of Mohamed Ali, the extraordinary figure who dominated Egypt for the first half of the century. When he established himself as the champion of order and embarked on a vast programme of reform to transform Egypt into a modern nation, he was aided in his ambitious undertaking by, among others, the French Consul Bernardo Drovetti – for which he was granted a special permit to excavate archaeological sites, build up a collection of antiquities, and send them to France. Other European nations soon got heed of these activities and decided to follow suit. They gave their consuls the task of collecting antiquities on behalf of their governments. It was a ‘no holds barred’ battle for the best. Treasures were chosen by Britain’s Henry Salt, the Austrian Giuseppe Acerbi, and Giovanni Anastasi of Sweden and Norway   whose collection was dispersed in the museums in London, Paris, Stockholm and the Netherlands.

Then, not to be outdone, the Americans joined the race after the end of the Civil War. From 1870, and for the next half century, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts were able to fill their galleries with Old Masters, Greek statuary, Chinese vases and, through their archaeological teams working in Egypt, Nile valley treasures.

I recall to mind the exquisite painted wooden models of female offering bearers in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, in decorative long shifts and carrying wine casks, meat and live ducks in baskets on their heads. But they  worth fighting for? No. For one thing we have in Cairo Museum (Room 27) offering bearers from the tomb of Meket-Re that radiate the same sophistication and elegance as those in the Met. What about the small alabaster statue of King Pepi II seated on the lap of his mother Queen Anknes-mery-re, part of the Wilbour Fund collection now in the Brooklyn Museum? Perhaps! This is unquestionably a delightful piece. It is the earliest piece of sculpture of the theme mother and child’ dating to a period much earlier than hitherto supposed. It dates to the Sixth Dynasty (some 2,200 BC). The two figures (each sculpted in strictly frontal position and seated at right angles to one another) are utterly delightful. But is this the best I could do?

The long-standing battle to get back the Elgin Marbles was highlighted when Melina Mercuri became Greece’s minister of culture and claimed them as “part of our cultural heritage; they are our soul!” What single Pharaonic monument has been taken abroad can be claimed as part of Egypt’s soul?   When Nigeria launched negotiations to recover two thousand bronzes that were looted as trophies of a colonial past, they were left with nothing; the royal palace in Nigeria is void of a single relic of a great religious and artistic heritage. Chief Inneh of Nigeria declares “…our sacred altars were raided. We need our records of the past. Without it part of our life is missing”.  But the British Museum has no plans to readorn the Parthenon with its marbles, nor will it send back to Nigeria statues which represent an article of faith forever lost to the bulk of the population. Are there Egyptian monuments abroad that fall into such a category? 

The “boat family” had by this time moored on the bank of the Nile; they were out of sight. Indeed, the river had lost its sheen. But the weather was balmy and I found my mind shifting from monuments in the museums abroad, to the sites in the Nile valley from which they came.  Is there something from Giza –Thebes –Amarna, that would serve as a highlight in the new museum of Egypt’s national heritage, something that would serve as a focal point of interest? How about the diorite statues of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet taken from the temple of Mut at Karnak? Or the alabaster coffin of Seti I, its exquisite hieroglyphics inset with blue paint? How about a relief from noblemen’s tombs depicting scenes of everyday life? Or, better still, the return of one of the magnificent seated statues of of queen Hatshepsut in Metropolitan in New York? 

As the last of the  light faded, I leaned back in my chair and looked at sky. It was a deep grey dome. No moon, nor a single star. Just as uninspiring as the plaster replacement of the dome stolen from the temple of Hathor at Dendera. 

Yes of course! That was it. Had I the chance to reclaim a single treasure from Egypt for a place of honour in the Museum of National Heritage, it would be the domed ceiling of Dendera, the spectacular Zodiac. I had recently seen it in Alberto Siliotti’s The Discovery of Ancient Egypt: Four standing figures of the sky-goddess Nut, and eight of the kneeling earth-god Geb, hold aloft the dome of heaven in their upraised arms. Within the blue, star-spangled sky are various astrological adornments including the twelve signs of the Egyptian zodiac: Lion, Serpent, Balance, Scorpion, Archer, Goat, Crab, Twins, Bull, Ram, Fishes and the Water-bearer; and a host of heavenly bodies represented as anthropomorphic figures. These sailed through my mind’s eye as the stars slowly emerged in the night sky at Maadi, and I visualised the clusters surrounding the images on the spectacular dome at Denera.

It was one of the most famous cases of looting in Egypt. When General Desaix of Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt in the late 18^th century saw it, he was so enchanted with it that he commissioned Denon to draw it for what became the Description de l’Egypte. Denon’s compatriot Segato redrew it in 1820. When French collector Sebastien Saulnier saw it he decided that such a remarkable piece should belong to France. But he did not declare his intention. He realised the risk of others getting heed of what he was doing.  So he announced his plan to excavate at Thebes, where he bought some mummies and antiquities to cover his tracks. English visitors were at that time sketching at Dendera, and only after they left did Saulnier return, and with his agent, a French engineer Jean Lelorrain, set to removing the ceiling of the temple. 

It was a formidable task. It was carved on two huge blocks of stone nearly a metre thick, and gunpowder was used to blow holes in the temple roof. Despite carefully controlled blasts it was a miracle they did not bring down the entire roof. After twenty days of sawing by a well-paid force of local workmen, the masterpiece could finally be dragged on special wooden rollers towards a waiting boat … at least that was the intention. But so heavy was it that the rollers wore out and Le Lorrain had to resort to levers and brute force. When it reached the edge of the Nile, there was a further drama when it slipped off the sloping planks during loading and fell into the soft mud. Were it not for timely action and concerted effort, it could not have been reloaded.

The British had by this time got heed of the activity in Dendera and when Salt saw the monument he interceded to claim the Zodiac for Britiain. Having managed to claim for the British Museum, possession of the Rosetta Stone found by the French, they probably thought they would have no difficulty in taking possession of the ready-for-shipment Zodiac. But they failed. The monument arrived in Paris and was sold to King Louis XVIII for 150,000 Franks. It was placed in the Biblioteque Nationale and is now in the Louvre.

It was time for me to pay my bill for the fresh lemon juice, and drive home. I rose from my chair, turned my back on the Nile, and crossed the street my car, assured that if there was one single treasure for which I would champion a return to Egypt, this would be the one. I would claim the Zodiac not for its artistic value alone, but also because we tend to overlook how much the science of astrology that developed in Alexandria in the third century BC under Ptolemy II Philadelphus owed to the Egyptians. Hipparchus, the greatest ancient astronomer, made accurate determinations of tropic year and lunar month and, using 150 years of Alexandrian observations plus earlier Egyptian and Babylonian observations, and mapped positions of 850 stars. I raised my eyes to the star-spangled night sky over Maadi, and willed a Persian carpet to bear the Zodiac of Dendera back to Egypt.