Egypt will not permit any new foreign expeditions to begin excavations in southern Egypt for the coming decade in an attempt to preserve the monuments, the antiquities chief said on Wednesday.
Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said concentration is instead needed at sites in the Nile Delta and in the desert.
"We say this for the sake of the monuments," Hawass told reporters. ``We are not going to please you [foreigners] and destroy the monuments.''
He said there are 300 foreign expeditions in the country.
"Those are scholars and re-spected ones, working in the field and who know the value of Egyptian monuments," he said. "But we also have amateurs, who can damage the monuments."
Most of the expeditions concentrate their work in the south of the country, where rich archaeological sites include the temples of Luxor and Karnak and the Valley of the Kings.
The ban on new expeditions is part of a series of measures taken by the council after a British expedition made headlines over the summer by claiming -- in a program aired on the US Discovery Channel -- to have identified the mummy of Queen Nefertiti.
Egyptian council officials were angry at the report, which they felt sidelined the council, and rejected the claims, saying the mummy was a man.
Hawass also said the British team violated a contract that obligates archaeologists to announce any discoveries through the council and not independently.
Amid his furious attack on Joan Fletcher, the head of the British team, Hawass said the archaeologist sent him a letter denying that she had said the mummy belongs to Nefertiti.
"Joan said she never said this is Nefertiti. She said that she just thought she was Nefertiti," he said. "I wonder how someone deceived the whole world, and now she is telling us she didn't."
Egypt has long lamented antiquities that have been taken out of Egypt, including the Nefertiti bust and the Rosetta Stone, which is on display in the British Museum. But Hawass said he could only ask for the return of antiquities taken after 1970, according to a UNESCO treaty of that year that does not apply retroactively.
"We have a catalog of all artifacts that were taken out illegally from Egypt after 1970," said Hawass, who leads a campaign for the return of stolen Egyptian artifacts. "We will not cooperate with the museum that doesn't return Egypt's antiquities."
Among the new rules adopted by the council, Hawass announced that all the excavation missions will receive training before starting working on the sites and that archaeologists must publish their discoveries in English and Arabic in the council's journal.
Archaeologists at the press conference also announced the discovery of part of a 3,200-year-old cuneiform tablet of diplomatic correspondence between the ancient Egyptian and Hittite kingdoms. The 5cm-by-5cm tablet, found by a German team working in Qantir, about 100km northeast of Cairo, is believed to be one of the few Hittite letters discovered in Egypt.
Edgar Pusch, head of the German team, said the text, sent from King Hattusili III to Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II, is related to a peace treaty between the rival kingdoms, which fought a war from 1300 to 1200BC before agreeing to the first known peace treaty.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
A feud has broken out between the top leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on whether to maintain close ties with Russia. The AfD leader Alice Weidel this week slammed planned visits to Russia by some party lawmakers, while coleader Tino Chrupalla voiced a defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The unusual split comes at a time when mainstream politicians have accused the anti-immigration AfD of acting as stooges for the Kremlin and even spying for Russia. The row has also erupted in a year in which the AfD is flying high, often polling above the record 20 percent it
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
‘ATTACK ON CIVILIZATION’: The culture ministry released drawings of six missing statues representing the Roman goddess of Venus, the tallest of which was 40cm Investigators believe that the theft of several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era from Syria’s national museum was likely the work of an individual, not an organized gang, officials said on Wednesday. The National Museum of Damascus was closed after the heist was discovered early on Monday. The museum had reopened in January as the country recovers from a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty last year. On Wednesday, a security vehicle was parked outside the main gate of the museum in central Damascus while security guards stood nearby. People were not allowed in because
RSS