Egypt
Al Masry Al Youm (Mete Eriksen)
- New York Dealer Pleads Guilty To Smuggling
ArtInfo (Benjamin Sutton) With a slideshow of some of the arteacts. How did a Brooklyn man smuggle enough Egyptian artifacts into the U.S. to open a small museum? Mostly by lying on customs forms. On Wednesday the New York antiques dealer Mousa Khouli...
- Stamping Out The Illicit Trade In Cultural Artifacts
The Guardian, UK (Mark Vlasic) The allegations could have come straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. Three art dealers and a collector have been accused of running an antiquities smuggling ring that illegally shipped Egyptian treasures, including...
- Smuggled Artefacts Seized By Us Authorities
Reuters Africa A set of 2,000-year-old sarcophagi and other Egyptian antiquities were smuggled into the United States by a black-market artifacts ring and recovered by U.S. law enforcement agents, officials said on Thursday. Charges unsealed in Brooklyn...
- Alleged Egyptian Antiquities Smuggler Apprehended
Monsters and Critics A Lebanese antiquities dealer was arrested in Bulgaria after being charged with smuggling stolen ancient Egyptian artifacts, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) said on Thursday. 'Ali Abu Taam was accused of smuggling...
- Salima Ikram Lecture About Animal Mummies
The Daily Texan The animal mummy room in Cairo's Egyptian Museum fascinated Salima Ikram the first time she traveled to Egypt. Unfortunately, it had been shut down. "I felt it needed rescuing," Ikram said with a laugh. Ikram, a professor of Egyptology...
Egypt
International smugglers increasingly target Egypt's artifacts
Al Masry Al Youm (Mete Eriksen)
The dismantlement of an international mummy and artifact smuggling ring by US authorities in July raised alarms about the status of stolen Egyptian artifacts in transnational black markets.
The daily newspaper Metro-New York recently reported that three New York men were arrested for smuggling 2000-year-old Egyptian artifacts into the US from the United Arab Emirates by lying custom officials about the contents of their luggage. In this case, the antiquities were worth US$2.5 million.
Experts say the discovered amount is only the tip of the smuggling iceberg.
Salima Ikram, professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo and a leading expert on animal mummies, says the smuggling begins in various sites in Egypt and ends up in the hands of antiquity dealers in Europe, the US, and some areas in the Gulf.
“By removing a mummy, or indeed any artifact, from its context we are destroying its meaning and what it can contribute to the sum of human knowledge,” says Ikram.
"Also by removing mummies illegally," she adds, "they and their surroundings are being destroyed. Thus, a piece of Egyptian history is lost forever."
- New York Dealer Pleads Guilty To Smuggling
ArtInfo (Benjamin Sutton) With a slideshow of some of the arteacts. How did a Brooklyn man smuggle enough Egyptian artifacts into the U.S. to open a small museum? Mostly by lying on customs forms. On Wednesday the New York antiques dealer Mousa Khouli...
- Stamping Out The Illicit Trade In Cultural Artifacts
The Guardian, UK (Mark Vlasic) The allegations could have come straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. Three art dealers and a collector have been accused of running an antiquities smuggling ring that illegally shipped Egyptian treasures, including...
- Smuggled Artefacts Seized By Us Authorities
Reuters Africa A set of 2,000-year-old sarcophagi and other Egyptian antiquities were smuggled into the United States by a black-market artifacts ring and recovered by U.S. law enforcement agents, officials said on Thursday. Charges unsealed in Brooklyn...
- Alleged Egyptian Antiquities Smuggler Apprehended
Monsters and Critics A Lebanese antiquities dealer was arrested in Bulgaria after being charged with smuggling stolen ancient Egyptian artifacts, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) said on Thursday. 'Ali Abu Taam was accused of smuggling...
- Salima Ikram Lecture About Animal Mummies
The Daily Texan The animal mummy room in Cairo's Egyptian Museum fascinated Salima Ikram the first time she traveled to Egypt. Unfortunately, it had been shut down. "I felt it needed rescuing," Ikram said with a laugh. Ikram, a professor of Egyptology...