Thursday 1 May 2014

Photos of Recovered Egyptian Museum Objects


Staff from the Egyptian Museum, Cairo have been posting images of the items recovered on 29th April 2011.
Recovered (photo Mohamed Elbadry)
 
They differ from what the press was reporting (what's new? Egyptian journalism). The images show how badly damaged some of them are. The nine items shown in the photos are:

JE 60713 (et al.) gilt wooden  statue of Tutankhamun - KV 62, arm broken, crest of crown missing, left hand and staff missing, gesso and gilding badly flaked since theft. (EMC-P30-Vit-43)
JE 29357 (et al.) [?] Copper alloy cast Apis bull. The photo looks vaguely similar to the missing object, but there is no base attatched and both photos unclear, so identification not certain (EMC-P
48-Vit-W-2)

There were still seven shabtis from the tomb of Yuya and Thuya (KV 46) missing and one other. This other missing shabti is 20 cm long, and seems to be the one lying on the left of the photo (the scale is indicated by the alabaster shabti 20.8 cm long).
JE39590: limestone shabti Tuna el-Gebel (EMC - P48 - Vit 2).

The most easily identified Yuya and Thuya shabti is the alabaster one:
JE 68994: (EMC P 43 - Centre-S -Vit 13 Side 1 Level 4 -c)
Another relatively easy identification is the smooth gold one:
JE 68998:  (EMC P 43 - Centre-S -Vit 13 Side 1 Level 2 -d)

That leaves seven Yuya and Thuya shabtis missing, but in the photo of the recovered items there are only an additional four (3rd, 5th, 7th and 8th from left in the photo). Which ones are shown in the poor Twitter photo of those recovered on 29th April?  It seems JE68992 at 21 cm high is not in the photo, there is none which seems as short as the alabaster one. The remainder could be from among the following wooden ones  (all from the same case: EMC P 43 - Centre-S -Vit 13....):
JE 68987 - 22 cm
JE 68993 - 25.5 cm
JE 68989 - 25.7 cm
JE 68995 - 27.7 cm
JE 68983 - 27.8cm
or
JE 68984 (this is the one that was erroneously said to have returned 11th April 2011, but was not)

The photos show nine objects recovered, the press reports say there were "ten".

The statues of the "two  statues of Queen Nefertiti's children" mentioned in the press reports are not shown in these photos. The statue of Tutankhamun in the arms of Menkaret obliquely mentioned in reports is not shown in the photos, which suggests that it was not in fact recovered, after all.

So, I make it that after this latest bust, three  Yuya and Thuya shabtis are still missing, but which ones is not yet clear. Also missing, it now seems, is the statue of Tutankhamun from the Menkaret statue (JE 60716.1). All the remaining Amarna items from the downstairs case are still missing (JE 44867, JE 44873, JE 44874, JE 52976, JE 53250, JE 59291, JE 65040). In addition, there is jewellery (JE 47906 EMC P6 - centre vit A), a group of items from P48 (JE 94481 faience amulets, JE 55175 bead string,  JE27326 stone statue, JE 30204 bronze statue), and still three items from P 19 missing (TR 10.11.21.8 - false beard, TR 10.11.21.3 false beard, JE 9080 Onuris statue). In total, nineteen objects

It is worth noting where these nine objects had been in the museum, all in the southeast corner of the upper floor. Although most of the damage took place on the west side of the upper floor, the people that stole these items were in another part of the museum. How had they got in? How did they escape with the loot?

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