Revolutions always spawn great graffiti. Mohamed Morsi, Egyptian prime minister, was mocked as 'pharaoh' for his seizure of dictatorial emergency powers (now, apparently, cancelled - or maybe not?)
I love this stencil.
Here's a couple more caricatures in the same vein from around the webs:
This one is from the US Republican Party! Their newfound dislike of Egyptian dictators is charming, let's hope it keeps up.
"Fly Osiris", the new roller coaster at 'Parc Astérix' in France. The "new PHARAONIC attraction"! Whatever you want to say about the French, at least they like a little archaeology in their theme parks. Spotted in the Paris Metro. Bonus points for the ironic graffiti (Osiris = god of the dead)
Tomb of the McMummies: an exhibit by artist Beneverywhere, featuring a life-sized mummy and other weird stuff made out of McDonalds food. (hat tip to Patrick Crowley for this one!)
SI: Why McDonald's and not, say, In-N-Out? BC: McDonald's is more iconic and has a rich lexicon of
symbols, kind of like hieroglyphs in a way. It could really be about any
fast food place. I personally doubt the food is much different from
place to place. SI: Can you describe the mummy construction process? BC: The food was dried out first, then run through a blender,
mixed with resin, packed into rubber molds that I made beforehand, and
finally the cast pieces were bonded together with more of the mixture
and cleaned up. SI: Where does a person keep this sort of thing -- and what are you planning on doing with it exactly? BC: Right now it's in storage covered with air hoses and
other tools. For now I'm going to display it as part of a larger art
show about McDonald's and Egypt. Eventually though, I'd like to find a
buyer for it -- like Ripley's, Charlie Sheen, or somebody who might
enjoy it.
I just decided this week is gonna be conspiracy week here at Archaeopop. Hold your hats.
Did you know that Barack Obama and his family are clones of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten and his family? If the picture above doesn't convince you... then you'll just have to watch the video. The Illuminati are involved, of course.
Oh yeah, and 50 Cent and Michael Jackson are clones too! and Prince Harry is the reincarnation of whoever's on the Shroud of Turin! Need more information? You should check out this book.
The book's blurb promises us some key info:
Who is this man we call the President? Will he cause a Constitutional crisis? What’s hidden within his name and his statements? Is he the coming Anti-Christ predicted by Nostradamus? Are we witnessing the rise of the Fourth Reich? Or are things much stranger than we thought?
From a brilliant article on the politics of the new Egyptian Museum by Mohamed Elshahed, published at Jadaliyya (one of the best Middle East blogs, period). It's an indictment of the security mindset, slavish devotion to foreign mass tourism, and contempt for ordinary people that has characterized Egypt's heritage establishment for the last generation. Long excerpt follows, read it all here:
The Egyptian state has been firmly in control of archaeology and of the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities for several decades. Egypt’s first and only Minister of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, personifies the notion that Egyptians are in control of their ancient heritage, previously dominated by Europeans. This control has translated into security-oriented policies that claim to protect artifacts from theft and vandalism. In reality, this has meant protecting artifacts from Egyptian masses, while making them available to tourists. The government has not capitalized on Egypt’s material legacy as a cultural resource central to discourses on national identity and heritage. The Supreme Council of Antiquities’ main goals have been security not accessibility and mass tourism not culture.
My first visit to the Museum as an adult was in 2006, when a friend was visiting Cairo from the United States. As we approached the security checkpoint, a foreboding first encounter with a cultural institution, identification was requested of us. I had never been asked for identification to enter a museum anywhere else in the world, let alone the most important museum in my home country. While she had no problem entering, being American, I was questioned about my relationship with my friend and my reasons for entering the museum. As an Egyptian, who is not a tour guide, I was treated as an object of suspicion.
The real audience for Egypt's antiquities? (elshahedm on Flickr)
This visit made clear to me that the purpose of the Egyptian Museum is purely touristic. Museums have become fortified storehouses for badly labeled, disorganized artifacts meant to be consumed purely as objects with little historical significance besides their apparent old age. Tourists are meant to be the prime consumers of these objects, as they pay seventy to one hundred pounds to enter in contrast to Egyptians who are charged a few pounds.
Adding insult to injury, during the Tahrir protests of 9 March, the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities became known as salakhana: the torture chamber. Military police used the museum as a command center, due to its secure location, where they held, interrogated, and tortured protesters. The single most important museum in the country with Egypt’s most valuable artifacts was transformed into a place where Egyptians were beaten and humiliated.
...
There is no excuse for Cairo’s Museum of Egyptian Antiquities’ current condition with peeling paint and missing artifacts replaced by hand-written notes saying in Arabic “under restoration” or “in a traveling exhibition.” The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities is in need of serious remodeling and expansion. This surely will be expensive and will need a grand vision to transform and update this important institution of world heritage.
However, the recent drastic decision to move this urban institution out of the heart of the city and into the desert two kilometers from the Pyramids is a calamity and a disgrace. To signal the decision, in 2006 the red granite colossus of Ramses II that adorned central Cairo since 1955 was removed to a storage facility at the city’s edge, where it awaits a new home in the proposed Grand Egyptian Museum.
Public museums are fundamentally urban centers firmly tied to their metropolitan contexts. The mere visibility of Paris’ Louvre pyramid and inside-out Pompidou Center or New York’s Metropolitan Museum in their urbane settings is as important as the contents of these world-famous buildings. The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities is forever associated with its Tahrir Square location, especially after the well-photographed and documented uprising that took place at its doorstep. Moving the museum into a desert location outside the city center serves the museum’s current priorities of security and tourist exclusivity. Are these still the priorities of Egypt’s leading museum in light of the unfinished and ongoing uprising?
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's antiquities minister, whose trademark Indiana Jones hat made him one the country's best known figures around the world, was fired Sunday after months of pressure from critics who attacked his credibility and accused him of having been too close to the regime of ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
Zahi Hawass, long chided as publicity loving and short on scientific knowledge, lost his job along with about a dozen other ministers in a Cabinet reshuffle meant to ease pressure from protesters seeking to purge remnants of Mubarak's regime.
"He was the Mubarak of antiquities," said Nora Shalaby, an activist and archaeologist. "He acted as if he owned Egypt's antiquities, and not that they belonged to the people of Egypt."
Hopefully this means the end of this sort of thing (via Vintagedept on Flickr)
Hawass was immediately replaced by Abdel Fattah Al-Banna as Antiquities Minister. Al-Banna had the merit of being a) not Zahi Hawass and b) frequently present during protests in Tahrir Square. He has met resistance, however, from within Egypt's antiquities establishment, as Al-Masry Al-Youm reports:
The Supreme Council of Antiquities secretariat rejected the appointment of Abdel Fattah al-Banna as antiquities minister. The appointment was part of the cabinet reshuffle ordered by Egypt's prime minister.
In a statement, the secretariat said Banna, a restoration specialist, does not specialize in archaeology and should not assume the ministry's responsibilities.
The statement called for dissolving the Antiquities Ministry and returning its responsibilities to the council, which it said would act as an independent, scientific institute run by specialists.
The new minister looks a bit nervous (Al-Masry Al-Youm)
The last line is the real point: the SCA doesn't appreciate losing its power to a political appointee, whoever he may be. They want the ministry dissolved and overall authority returned to 'specialists'.
I don't know enough about the internal politics of the SCA to have an opinion about whether this is a good idea, or not. I wish the new guy well, though my gut tells me he won't last long either. Hawass? Between cozying up to Mubarak and his own authoritarian personality, he set the stage for an undignified exit. More AP:
Just before news of his departure, Hawass was heckled near his office Sunday as he left on foot. Protesters tried to block his way, until he jumped into a taxi to get away from the melee, the taxi driver, Mohammed Abdu, said.
I doubt this is the last we'll hear of him, but perhaps his star has finally started to fall.
These day's I'm getting my Egyptology news from the Egyptologists for Egypt group on Facebook, which has an excellent news feed. Check it out!
ZAHI HAWASS is a novel fashion line not just for the traveling man, but the man who values self-discovery, historicism and adventure. Rich khakis, deep blues and soft, weathered leathers give off a look that hearkens back to Egypt’s golden age of discovery in the early 20th century. Natural dyes, vegetable dyes and organic cottons were thoroughly researched to come up with the most premium and environmentally friendly fabrics for the versatile shirting, shorts and pants that comprise the collection. Ample time was spent developing the hardware and finery to make it feel extraordinary.
The ZAHI HAWASS vision can only be fully realized in an environment that matches the grandeur and classicism of Egypt. Combined with an elegantly themed in-store shop at Harrods, ZAHI HAWASS clothing will promote a look that is both trendy and casual, conservative and cool. More than anything else, the proposed ZAHI HAWASS collection and shop will be a retail experience that evokes the beauty of Egypt through its décor, and invites consumers to pack their suitcases and journey to the exotic locale.
Trendy, casual, conservative AND cool?! Pimping orientalist nostalgia? I'm speechless, probably from laughing so hard. As blogger 3arabawy said:
I strongly recommend Zahi Hawass leave our antiquities alone, and stick to his “eponymous menswear line.”
Al Ahram online reports that the Ministry of State for Antiquities Affairs - with Zahi Hawass back in charge - will now begin accepting complaints:
Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s minister of state for antiquities affairs [MSAA], said that the administration will look into and review all complaints and suggestions to develop the MSAA. Archaeologist, Magdi El-Ghandour, director of the archaeological documentation centre, will lead these efforts.
Hawass promised that each complaint will receive a reply within a week.
It's a new era in Egypt! I'm interested to see what in practice comes out of the reorganization of the Ministry (itself established only a few months before the Egyptian revolution).
As I suspected - and despite his resignation - we haven't seen the last of Zahi Hawass. AFP and the Middle East News Agency both reported his reappointment as Minister of Antiquities yesterday. The AFP story:
CAIRO — Egypt's chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass, the guardian of some of the world's most important treasures, was on Wednesday named minister of antiquities, the official MENA news agency reported. Hawass had served as head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and later became minister of state under ousted president Hosni Mubarak. Nationwide protests that erupted on January 25 overthrew Mubarak and saw power handed over to a military council. Hawass's appointment is likely to anger pro-democracy activists who have been calling for the cabinet to purged of all old regime elements.
His nomination comes amid multiplying calls by the UN cultural agency to protect Egypt's heritage after reports of looting and theft during the unrest that followed the popular uprising. UNESCO said on Tuesday that it would write to Egyptian authorities to officially ask for more protection for the country's archaeological sites. Earlier this month, the UN body voiced growing concern for such sites which it said were threatened by pillaging. Robbers raided several warehouses around the country, including one in the Egyptian Museum, after the uprising gave way to looting and insecurity. An antiquities official said last week that 800 relics stolen by armed robbers from a warehouse east of Cairo were still missing.
Hawass' website has no announcement on this yet, so we'll have to wait for his explanation for more detail. I stick with my guess when he resigned - it was a negotiating move to improve his position within the ministry. For more, see Egyptology News' roundup of stories or CultureGrrrl's report.
Zahi Hawass, Egypt's former Minister of Antiquities and longtime head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, resigned on March 3. In an interview posted on his website, he gives two reasons why: the lack of police presence at archaeological sites and political opposition within the ministry. The first makes no sense to me; I suspect the second is quite accurate though: Zahi's enemies within the ministry have taken advantage of the revolutionary moment to try to force him out. His rhetoric about the student protests against him is Gaddafi-esque: my enemies were behind it! I'm still undecided if he was really forced out or left voluntarily in order to strengthen his hand in the long run.
I am leaving because of a variety of important reasons. The first reason is that, during the Revolution of January 25th, the Egyptian Army protected our heritage sites and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. However, in the last 10 days the army has left these posts because it has other tasks to do... That is why at the meeting of the Egyptian cabinet yesterday I had my speech prepared already and I said: “I cannot stay in Egypt and see antiquities being stolen when I cannot do anything to stop it!” This situation is not for me! I have always fought to return stolen artifacts to Egypt. I did fight Ahmed Ezz as well, the man in the Parliament, who was the most powerful man, because he wanted to allow antiquities to be sold in Egypt again.
With the resignation of the Shafiq government in Egypt and the appointment of professor and former Transport Minister Essam Sharaf as Prime Minister, Zahi Hawass has said he will leave his position as head of Egypt's antiquities authority, according to the New York Times:
In the interview, Mr. Hawass lashed out at his critics but said he was leaving his job because he could no longer protect Egypt’s antiquities. “Those people are insects, they are nothing, but what really bothered me is the situation that you read today on my Web site,” he said.
Egyptologists and cultural heritage experts said they did not know who would succeed Mr. Hawass, and one expert expressed concern that his departure would lead to more looting.
“I am terrified by the idea that this might be a sign to potential looters that now that last element of control is gone, and now we have a free hand to continue looting,” said Karl von Habsburg, the president of the Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield, a body that tries to protect cultural heritage in conflict zones.
I'm really not sure what Hawass' game is here. He doesn't seem like the type to meekly retire, and there is a big rhetorical difference between 'resign' and 'not stay on'. Al Jazeera reports that Hawass was facing opposition from within his own ministry:
Meanwhile on Friday, Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass was quoted in Egyptian newspapers as saying he would not participate in the new government to be led by Sharaf.
Hawass has been a cabinet minister since January 31 when Mubarak named a new government led by Shafiq.
Hawass said he was no longer able to carry out his duties amid what he called a campaign against him by officials at his ministry.
Sounds like the student protests might have been the tip of the iceberg of opposition to Hawass among the archaeological establishment.
Despite the drama of this headline, I would be very, very surprised if this is the end of Zahi Hawass. Among the Egyptology-oriented Facebook posse there is surprise + skepticism. Is this some kind of shock tactic he's using to make a point? I suspect we'll find out soon. Stay tuned.
This week I'm bombing you with Tut. Today, let's meet 'Tutting', a funk dance style inspired by Egyptian Hieroglyphs (and a cousin of popping). Check out this 1979 video with Mark Benson AKA King Boogaloo Tut and the dance crew Street Scape:
Those gold knickers... man I wish I could pull that off. The fruity white guy in suspenders is amazing too.
To add a layer of crazy, King Boogaloo Tut says he was inspired by this Bugs Bunny cartoon:
This clip is from 'A Hare Grows in Manhattan' (1947). The cigarette billboard scene was censored in later broadcasts as too un-PC! This scene, of course, has nothing to do with Tutankhamun: but it's a nice illustration of how 'King Tut' functions as a catchall for anything with an Egyptian theme.
Regardless, the sequence Egyptomania > Bugs Bunny > Breakdancing is some serious historical alchemy.
The January 25 movement is having all kinds of ripples, including inside Egypt's archaeology establishment. Yesterday 150 archaeologists, many young graduates, protested at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, demanding that Zahi Hawass resign. (Hawass was elevated to Minister of Heritage about 10 days ago, during the height of the protests.) Christopher Torchia of the Associated Press reports:
The archaeologists' protest was also deeply personal, with protesters saying Hawass was a "showman" and publicity hound with little regard for thousands of archaeology students who have been unable to find work in their field.
"He doesn't care about us," said 22-year-old Gamal el-Hanafy, who graduated from Cairo University in 2009 and carried his school certificates in a folder. "He just cares about propaganda."
...
The graduates said the antiquities ministry had offered them three-month contracts at 450 Egyptian pounds ($75) a month, hardly enough to survive. They noted that Egypt's tourism industry is a major foreign currency earner, and yet it was unclear how exactly the government was spending the income.
A foreign tourist spends up to 160 Egyptian pounds ($27) to visit the pyramids of Giza and descend into a tomb there, said 25-year-old Said Hamid. Multiply that, he said, by the thousands who used to visit daily until upheaval drove away foreign visitors and plunged the lucrative industry into crisis. "Where is the money?" said Hamid, a 2007 graduate who works in a travel agency but specialized in restoration of artifacts as a student.
Unlike lawyers or doctors, who have private options, archaeologists in Egypt mostly rely on the government for jobs. Protesters also complained that less-qualified people secured posts in the antiquities office through "wasta," which translates roughly as connections or influence.
$75 a month! That's an insult even in Egypt. The kids are right to be galled, given the ticket revenues the country receives from its archaeology. In many monument-rich countries the money sucked out of tourists at heritage sites disappears into the government somewhere, with no relationship between visitor numbers and funding for research or conservation.
Khalil Hamra - Associated Press
Even more of a problem is the number of university graduates in relation to available jobs. Egypt has a 25% rate of university attendance, the highest in the nation's history, and comparable to Europe and the United States. Although the country has a 9.4% unemployment rate, it's 25% for people under 30, who are 87% of the unemployed. The gap between expectation and reality for university grads is bad all over, but there is a special starkness in poor countries where the safety net is thinner. The social explosion spreading across the Arab world is fueled by this mass of young, educated and frustrated people.
It's great to hear these young archaeologists speaking out (Hawass' reputation as a totalitarian media whore seems well-deserved) but never form within Egypt. Let's hope the new order makes room for better funding and career opportunities for the next generation of archaeologists and conservators.
UPDATE (February 23): Nevine Al-Aref at Al-Ahram Online reports that Hawass has met with the protesters and outlined hisplan to create more jobs in the heritage sector:
During the meeting, which Ahram Online attended, the students made it clear that their protests were only held because there had been a lack of information about how the ministry, formerly known as the Supreme Council of Antiquities, was trying to address the lack of jobs available for newly-qualified archaeologists and restorers.
Achraf El-Achmawi, a legal consultant at the ministry, said that the new appointments would be made according to a schedule starting in March.
The first phase of this plan will provide jobs for 900 archaeologists and restorers, who will be given paid training within the ministry for a period of five months. The second phase, he continued, will follow the completion of the first one and will provide the same paid training for 500 people followed by an identical third phase.
The promises sound a bit vague to me given the unstable situation, but let's hope Hawass can make it happen.
A decapitated mummy in the Egyptian Museum (National Geographic)
If you can spare an eye from Al Jazeera's live feed from Cairo, I want to recommend two sites tracking what we know about looting of museums and sites since the protests began in Egypt last week:
Egyptologist Margaret Maitland's Eloquent Peasant, which has a good link, video, and photo roundup updated today.
I'm glad these sites are out there: given the mix of bland optimism (Zahi Hawass says everything's just fine) and alarmism ("UCLA Egypt Professor: Museum Looting, Mummy Beheading is a Huge Loss for World Heritage") it's hard to know what exactly is going on. Obviously, with the national police AWOL for a few days and the army otherwise distracted, this is a great window of opportunity for looters. Standing guard (National Geographic).
In the fuss about the attack on the Egyptian Museum (which seems to have been orchestrated by the police for propaganda value), I hadn't heard about the thefts from less-known depots and sites (Qantara, the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Memphis, Herakleopolis Magna, Saqqara, Giza), though some of them are rumors as yet without any hard data. Let's hope that Zahi is right, and everything remains under lock and key. And props to all of the demonstrators who formed that human chain in front of the Egyptian Museum.
This spooky electronic number evokes the trumpeters of the Middle Kingdom.
Delia Darbyshire, 'Tutankhamun's Egypt'
Delia sets the mood with a sample of the 1939 BBC recording of one of Tutankhamun's trumpets being played, and then delves into her own take on the sound of the time. Great stuff. The great website dedicated to Delia notes that they're not quite sure how this recording came to be, but that it's probably from 1971.
Delia Darbyshire (1937-2001) was an electronic music pioneer, longtime staff of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and acquaintance or collaborator of artists including Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pink Floyd, Brian Jones, Ringo Starr and Harry Nilsson. She's most famous for her recording of the original Dr. Who theme! If you're an electronic music fan like I am you should check out the work of the Radiophonic Workshop and the Delia Darbyshire tribute site: super coolness.
I had never heard about Tutankhamun's trumpets. (There were two, one silver and one bronze.) Apparently a British Army trumpeter named Tappern was recruited to play the silver one for a 1939 BBC recording, fitted with a modern mouthpiece. The trumpet immediately split and had to be patched, but Tappern got at least a minute of sound out of it. The bronze trumpet was played in 1939 and 1941 and survived a bit better. Here's the 1939 recording:
Pretty rad if you ask me, though the idea of the thing shattering makes me wince. Strangely, the links to this story take you deep into dead webpages from the mid-1990s, so I couldn't really verify these details. This short documentary tells the story in full if you're craving more:
Archaeopop is a blog by Daniel Shoup about archaeology and popular culture. I like the strange ways the past gets recycled into the present as art, economics, politics, and straight-up trash. I'm a researcher at the University of Bologna, Italy. Follow me on Twitter (@archaeopop) or get in touch at archaeopop@gmail.com.
