Why Egypt’s treasures are staying hidden
Plunge in tourism means funds for new digs, including the tomb of Queen Nefertiti, can’t be found
Egypt cannot afford to keep its museums open, let alone search for ancient buried treasures because of the country’s economic crisis, says Khaled Al Anani, the antiquities minister. Tourism, a mainstay of the economy, has been hit hard since the revolution in 2011 that removed Hosni Mubarak. Many of Egypt’s renowned historical sites – from the pyramids at Giza to the Valley of the Kings in Luxor – suffered a decline in foreign visitors. “We have more than 20 museums that have been closed since the January 25 revolution and we do not have the resources to run them,” says Mr Al Anani.
His ministry is meant to be self- sufficient and not receive funds from the state. In 2010 the ministry made 1.3 billion Egyptian pounds a year. That fell to 275m pounds (Dh113.7m) last year.
“That’s a little more than 20m pounds a month. But I have to pay 80m pounds a month in salaries alone,” says Mr Al Anani.
He says that without a revival in tourism none of his new projects – such as the introduction of year-long passes for visiting museums and heritage sites, or extending opening hours – will have the desired effect.
Neither will reopening the Pyramid Complex of Unas – built for Pharaoh Unas, the ninth and final king of the fifth dynasty in the mid 24th century BC – which has been closed since 1998 for fear of overcrowding. Mr Al Anani reopened the complex in May this year.
Still, Egypt plans to partly open the Grand Egyptian Museum, a collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts that will be the world’s largest archaeological museum, next year, bringing forward the scheduled opening date by a year.
This is only possible because the required amount of US$248m (Dh911m) came from a Japanese loan years ago.
Financial woes also affect excavation attempts, which have declined sharply since 2011, says Mr Al Anani.
Other issues include a lack of international law experts at the ministry to help reclaim artefacts that were smuggled to other countries or claimed by Egypt’s former colonial masters, as well as the need to create a centralised database of antiquities to combat smuggling, efforts for which had stalled since 2000. Before Mr Al Anani was appointed to his post in March this year, his predecessor supported British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves’s investigation of the hypothesis that a secret chamber, believed by some to be the lost burial site of Queen Nefertiti, may lie behind King Tutankhamun’s tomb.
Mr Al Anani is cooler on the topic, though.
Nefertiti died in the 14th century BC and is thought to be Tutankhamun’s stepmother. Confirmation of her final resting place would be the most notable Egyptian archaeological find this century. An analysis of radar scans conducted on the archae- ological site last November has revealed two empty spaces behind two walls in King Tutankhamun’s chamber.
Former minister of antiquities Mamdouh Al Damaty said last November that there was a 90 per cent probability of “something behind the walls”, and Mr Reeves believes the mausoleum was originally occupied by Nefertiti and that she had lain undisturbed behind a partition wall.
However, the most minor of incisions in the wall could wreak damage to an inner chamber that may have been hermetically sealed for centuries.
“I did intend to open up the tomb but only if a second radar scan showed 100 per cent that there were empty spaces, which it did not,” says Mr Al Anani.