In more ways than one:
"Egypt secures monuments, recovers plundered items" by Christopher Torchia, Associated Press / February 2, 2011
CAIRO — Egypt’s museums and ancient monuments, including the Pyramids of Giza, are secure despite upheaval in the streets, and officials recovered nearly 300 archeological items that were plundered by armed Bedouins in the Sinai Peninsula, the government said yesterday.
Unlike what the U.S. did in Iraq (although we did protect the oil ministry).
One way to remake a country after regime change is to eliminate their collective memory of the past. In this case, the Egyptians are not going to allow that.
Paper says armed Bedouins, blogs assert and implicate Israeli special forces. Decide for yourselves who is to be believed.
The week-old uprising, marked by huge street protests, deadly clashes with police, economic paralysis, and a mass exodus of foreigners, raised fears of major theft or destruction of Egypt’s treasures. Some museums and antiquities were threatened in a series of close calls.
Not that kind of revolt (which tells you of its legitimacy as a people's movement despite AmeriKan media manipulation and U.S. government maneuvering).
Now, however, the Egyptian military is protecting the pyramids, the temple city of Luxor, the Nile cruise destination of Aswan, and other major sites, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told the Associated Press.
Military vehicles blocked access to the pyramids near Cairo, but Luxor’s Valley of the Kings remained open to tourism, a chief driver of the Egyptian economy.
Thieves broke padlocks at tomb entrances in the ancient burial ground of Saqqara, but nothing was stolen or damaged, Hawass said in an interview.
??
He declared Egypt’s major museums, including the Coptic and Islamic museums in Cairo, to be safe.
Why wouldn't they be?
Cryptic Attack on Coptic Church
Oh, right.
Btw, word from the street is that Christians were protecting Muslims and vice-versa against Mubarak's thugs and their assaults.
Hawass, who was named antiquities minister in a new Cabinet appointed by besieged President Hosni Mubarak, said the survival of Egypt’s rich archeological heritage amid chaos reflected a fundamental pride among Egyptians even as they revolt against their leadership.
As it would ANY NATION and ITS PEOPLE!
“We cannot be like Afghanistan,’’ said Hawass, referring to a depleted nation where war overshadows centuries of cultural history. “Civilization is inside the Egyptians.’’
Isn't it bad enough Afghanistan gets U.S. bombs dumped on it?
The sites have not been immune to the chaos.
Last week, Bedouins pulled up in a truck and looted a storage site in Qantara, near the Suez Canal. But 288 items — the majority of what was missing — were returned, said Hawass, a prolific, flamboyant figure who escorted President Obama around the pyramids during his 2009 visit.
People surged into the garden of Cairo’s famed Egyptian Museum at the peak of the violence on Friday, but civilians formed a human chain to protect the building. Dozens of looters were detained over several days and most appeared unaware of the value of what was in the museum, gleefully ransacking the gift shop.
“They thought that the museum shop was the museum,’’ said Hawass, Egypt’s top archeologist. “These people are ignorant, they are outlaws.’’
Nine looters climbed the fire escape to the museum roof and lowered themselves on ropes from a glass pane ceiling onto the top floor, where they fumbled in the darkness, tossing aside ancient objects in what museum staff believe was a frenzied search for gold.
Some damage occurred next to the gated room containing the gold funerary mask of King Tutankhamun, one of the museum’s chief attractions.
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