Finalmente, el Museo Egipcio de El Cairo vuelve a la normalidad

Nota de Prensa del Ministro Zahi Hawass anunciando que el Museo Egipcio vuelve a la normalidad. El Lunes recibió ya la visita de 2877 personas.

I am pleased to report that visitors are coming back to the Egyptian Museum. On Monday, the 21st of February 2011, 2770 Egyptians and 107 foreign tourists came to see the museum, which houses some of the greatest masterpieces in the world. I am proud that we were able to reopen this important institution so quickly, only three weeks after the beginning of our revolution. I want to express my deep appreciation to the staff of the museum: everyone, from the director on down, has worked tirelessly to make this possible. Some people have said that the break-in at the museum was an inside job. There is absolutely no evidence for this, and unsubstantiated statements like these are completely unfair to the dedicated museum staff.

Además nos pone al día de las investigaciones policiales para seguir el rastro de los vándalos que asaltaron el museo con el inicio de las protestas anti-Mubarak... por lo que explica, el o los asaltantes entraron por el techo, valiéndose de cuerdas, y por lo visto estas se rompieron, con lo que el tortazo debió ser de aupa... 

I went to the museum yesterday morning, and reviewed the evidence gathered thus far by the police. The best reconstruction of events that has been pieced together so far is that one looter came into the museum through a skylight over one of the Middle Kingdom galleries on the second floor. He used cables for ropes, but fell part of the way, landing on a showcase containing a Middle Kingdom coffin and some related artifacts, including a walking stick, a bronze mirror, and some jewelry. He hurt himself badly, but was still able to walk, and left a trail of blood and damaged artifacts behind him. There seems to have been at least one more vandal who came through the roof to join him, but we don't know how many others there might have been. One looter, who is from the Fayum, was caught by the museum exit that leads to the gift shop, and is still in the custody of the military police.

The museum's restorers continue to work on repairing the damage done by these vandals. I am pleased to report that the figure of Tutankhamun standing on the back of a panther that was damaged has been restored. The museum's collections management and documentation team continues to work with the curators to complete their inventory, so that we can finalize the list of missing objects and concentrate on getting everything back as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, there are people saying things that are untrue, and trying to make trouble, and sometimes the media likes to repeat these stories, because they think this will interest the general public. I prefer to ignore these people, and focus on our work. There is much to do to protect our monuments, and this is now, as it has always been, my first priority

Fuente: El Blog de Zahi Hawass

 

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