Securing Heritage in Crisis Situations: Some Thoughts on the Egyptian Scientific Institute and Sri Lanka's Volunteer Heritage Police

As with the Cairo Museum, security cameras, fences, and personnel were apparently not enough to protect the Egyptian Scientific Institute:

T

hese treasures are guarded by security personnel 24 hours a day, along with surveillance cameras positioned throughout the library’s interior and exterior. An advanced system can extinguish fire in seconds, and an electric fence lines the premises.

Here's more evidence, if it were needed, that normal security systems are not designed to deal with the kinds of security challenges posed by crisis situations.

The lesson should be clear: cultural authorities everywhere should be thinking now about worst-case scenarios and developing contingency plans. The starting point might well be to take advantage of the institution's own employees. That is a lesson the late Donny George might have taught (he and a few other colleagues returned when they heard about the looting of the Iraq Museum and spent several days holding the fort before the Americans finally showed up). It is somewhat surprising to learn that 2300 people work for the Egyptian Scientific Institute. That is a large crew, and it is too bad that some of them were not conscripted to form a human chain around the Institute, as Egyptian citizens did at the Cairo Museum.

But it is the country's citizens themselves who could and should provide the primary resource to be called upon during emergencies to protect their nation's heritage. And not just emergencies: Sri Lanka's National Heritage Ministry, for instance, is setting up a volunteer force to assist the police in guarding monuments against antiquities looters. Developing non-governmental organizations devoted to protecting heritage is something that should be high on the agenda of foundations, international organizations, and cultural officials in-country.

After Iraq National Archives, after Baghdad Museum, after Cairo Museum, Why Was Egypt's Library Not Secured?

The burning of the Egyptian Scientific Institute in the midst of the chaos in Cairo is a cultural disaster on a par with the worst acts of destruction of heritage in recent years, arguably worse than the losses to the Iraq Museum (since stolen artifacts can still be recovered, whereas the burned original manuscripts are gone forever). Whether the fire was started by a Molotov cocktail or, as some have asserted, was set by the soldiers inside the building, is not yet clear, and may never become clear. What is clear, however, is that the burning of this library reflects yet another abject failure of heritage policy to protect heritage when it is most at risk.

It is not as if this eventuality was unpredictable. After the Cairo Museum was robbed in the midst of similar chaos last January, the Egyptian government, and the military leaders who run the country, should have been able to work with international heritage protection agencies and organizations such as UNESCO, the Blue Shield,and others -- including the many, many Egyptian citizens who care deeply about their heritage (and showed it by joining hands to cordon off the Cairo Museum in January) -- to put in place contingency plans to keep cultural institutions secure during periods of unrest. Last but not least, the US government, which subsidizes Egypt's military to the tune of billions, ought to have demanded the Egyptians secure their cultural institutions and sites as a condition of aid. But of course, since we have no carabinieri-like forces ourselves to do this sort of thing, and little interest ourselves in securing cultural sites apart from major tourist attractions such as the Baghdad Museum or Babylon, chances are that no one from the Pentagon was even thinking about the problem, even after the looting of the Cairo Museum.

That was in January. Did the fate of the Cairo Museum provide a wakeup call that site security needed to be an urgent policy priority? It was not until mid-October, after months of bureaucratic chaos, that the government announced it had set up a committee to develop security plans, so the answer is most likely no. Nor did any citizens' groups evolve out of the noble ad hoc handholding at the museum.

The result? If this CNN report is accurate, the military did not set up a perimeter around the building. Instead, a small number of soldiers stood on the building's roof and goaded the protestors:

The library was a scene of intense confrontation Saturday.

A dozen men dressed in military uniform were positioned on the library roof and threw cement blocks and rocks on the protesters and sprayed them with water hoses to push them away from the building.

But protesters hurled back rocks as well as Molotov cocktails. Then a massive explosion erupted, apparently originating from inside the building, and black smoke billowed.

Firefighters were busy putting out another fire in a nearby building.

Protesters were bleeding from rocks thrown at them.

What is to be done going forward, beyond the important immediate task of salvaging the remnants of the library?

First, the courage, energy, and passion that Egyptian citizens have shown in responding to the disasters at the museum and now at the library needs to be channeled into civic organizations that can be mobilized proactively next time around.

Second, UNESCO needs to either shift resources from conservation and development or supplement them with additional funding focused on securing cultural sites during periods of political unrest.

Third, the United States needs to exercise some leadership and influence, where it has leverage or ties with militaries in countries undergoing transitions or crises, to induce them to do the right thing.

Fourth, NGOs and foundations that support cultural heritage conservation need to begin thinking about how they can work directly with nascent heritage site protection NGOs in-country.

More on the Looting of the Cairo Museum: It Appears to Have Been Left Unguarded

Zahi Hawass has posted on his blog a report on the looting of the museum (see below). It is a self-damning account: Hawass admits that the museum was not well guarded, "unfortunately", but his account strongly implies that the museum was hardly guarded at all. Only three tourist officers were in the museum, and they were there only because they were not able to get out before the curfew. The museum thus was massively vulnerable, and was saved from a far worse fate only because the mob of 1,000 that scaled the wall pillaged the newly built gift shop in the mistaken belief, Hawass tells us, that they were in the museum itself.

So, to sum up, in the wake of a revolution in Tunisia that made it very likely there would be unrest in Egypt, the national museum had no contingency plan in place. Nor have other museums or the archaeological sites been secured: Hawass tells us that "I could not find anyone to protect the antiquities at the site" of Abusir, for instance, and looters armed with guns and a truck have emptied a storehouse of the Port Said Museum, while, unmentioned by Hawass, the Memphis Museum has been reported looted.

That security was so lax is astonishing, especially after the object lesson one would have thought the looting of Iraq's Museum and archaeological sites taught us all. Hawass should be held responsible for this failure, along with whatever museum security experts the museum and the antiquities council have been using. Beyond that, the international community of heritage protection organizations needs to stop pretending that security against looting is something they can leave to others so they can focus on the nicer tasks of conservation, excavation, and tourism-related development. The need to make securing and policing sites and museums job one should have been learned from Iraq. Maybe it will be now.

The Situation in Egyptian Antiquities Today

On Friday, January 28, 2011, when the protest marches began in Cairo, I heard that a curfew had been issued that started at 6.00pm on Friday evening until 7.00am on Saturday morning.  Unfortunately, on that day the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, was not well guarded.  About a thousand people began to jump over the wall on the eastern side of the museum into the courtyard.  On the western side of the museum, we recently finished something I was very proud of, a beautiful gift shop, restaurant and cafeteria. The people entered the gift shop and stole all the jewellery and escaped; they thought the shop was the museum, thank God!  However, ten people entered the museum when they found the fire exit stairs located at the back of it.

 As every one knows, the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, is naturally lit and due to the architectural style of it, there are glass windows on its roof.  The criminals broke the glass windows and used ropes to get inside, there is a distance of four metres from the ceiling to the ground of the museum.  The ten people broke in when I was at home and, although I desperately wanted to go to the museum, I could not leave my house due to the curfew.  In the morning, as soon as I woke up, I went directly there.  When I arrived, I found out that, the night before, three tourist police officers had stayed there overnight because they were not able to get out before the curfew was put in place.  These officers, and many young Egyptians who were also there, helped to stop more people from entering the museum.  Thankfully, at 10.00pm on Friday night, the army arrived at the museum and gave additional security assistance.

I found out that one criminal was still at the museum, too.  When he had asked the people guarding the museum for water, they took his hands and tied him to the door that lead to the gift shop so that he could not escape!  Luckily, the criminals who stole the jewellery from the gift shop did not know where the jewellery inside the museum is kept.  They went into the Late Period gallery but, when they found no gold, they broke thirteen vitrines and threw the antiquities on the floor.  Then the criminals went to the King Tutankhamun galleries.  Thank God they opened only one case!  The criminals found a statue of the king on a panther, broke it, and threw it on the floor.  I am very thankful that all of the antiquities that were damaged in the museum can be restored, and the tourist police caught all of the criminals that broke into it.  On Saturday, the army secured the museum again and guarded it from all sides.  I left the museum at 3.00pm on Saturday, 29, 2011.

What is really beautiful is that not all Egyptians were involved in the looting of the museum.  A very small number of people tried to break, steal and rob.  Sadly, one criminal voice is louder than one hundred voices of peace.  The Egyptian people are calling for freedom, not destruction.  When I left the museum on Saturday, I was met outside by many Egyptians, who asked if the museum was safe and what they could do to help.  The people were happy to see an Egyptian official leave his home and come to Tahrir Square without fear; they loved that I came to the museum.

The curfew started again on Saturday afternoon at 4.00pm, and I was receiving messages all night from my inspectors at Saqqara, Dahsur, and Mit Rahina. The magazines and stores of Abusir were opened, and I could not find anyone to protect the antiquities at the site. At this time I still do not know what has happened at Saqqara, but I expect to hear from the inspectors there soon. East of Qantara in the Sinai, we have a large store containing antiquities from the Port Said Museum. Sadly, a large group, armed with guns and a truck, entered the store, opened the boxes in the magazine and took the precious objects. Other groups attempted to enter the Coptic Museum, Royal Jewellery Museum, National Museum of Alexandria, and El Manial Museum. Luckily, the foresighted employees of the Royal Jewellery Museum moved all of the objects into the basement, and sealed it before leaving.

My heart is broken and my blood is boiling. I feel that everything I have done in the last nine years has been destroyed in one day, but all the inspectors, young archaeologists, and administrators, are calling me from sites and museums all over Egypt to tell me that they will give their life to protect our antiquities. Many young Egyptians are in the streets trying to stop the criminals. Due to the circumstances, this behaviour is not surprising; criminals and people without a conscience will rob their own country. If the lights went off in New York City, or London, even if only for an hour, criminal behaviour will occur. I am very proud that Egyptians want to stop these criminals to protect Egypt and its heritage.

At this time, the Internet has not been restored in Egypt. I had to fax this statement to my colleagues in Italy for it to be uploaded in London on my website.

Cairo Museum Looting: What More Might Have Been Done

Responding to my post below, Mark comments:

The Egyptian Ministry of Culture has been reviewing its museums' security protocols since the theft of a Van Gogh from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum. Clearly, no one expected the Cairo environs to grow so hostile so fast. Even with a lock down, which it appears the Museum instituted, there was little it could do without the support of the army, which was clearly focusing its attention elsewhere. What alternative steps could have been taken to prevent this from happening since only six days ago the protests were much less volatile?

It reads as if it were a rhetorical question, but it is not true that there was little the museum could do without the support of the army. It is in the nature of political protests that they erupt quickly, so museums need to have contingency plans ready to dal with this eventuality, which calls for security protocols that have to be different from those designed to prevent clandestine theft. 


So, what alternative steps could have been taken? Here are a few, for starters: 
a) the tourism police, who apparently were the forces available to Hawass, should have been deployed in greater numbers. Of course, if the number of looters attacking the museum is in the hundreds or thousands, antiquities police cannot be expected to hold the fort, but in this case the number of looters was small and could have been fended off if all the entrypoints had been covered, it seems. 
b) citizens should have been organized in advance into a "Protectors of the Museum" or some such civil-society disaster-assistance group like the Blue Shields. My information may be wrong, but what I have heard is that Egypt has no Blue Shield, and nothing like SAFE. Given Hawass' celebrity it would have been a snap to organize such a group, which would have arrived earlier and had a stronger plan for stopping looters than the deeply moving ad hoc human chain did.
c) the museum should have had a standing arrangement with the Egyptian army to have forces deploy immediately upon request.


Additional suggestions, anyone?