A day after a large group of angry demonstrators gathered outside the headquarters of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, there’s still, at this writing, no update on Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass‘ website about the situation at the Egyptian Museum and the country’s archaeological sites, not even to say that three of the objects that he reported on Sunday as stolen from the museum have since been found. Photos of all the stolen objects, which should be widely disseminated to help prevent illicit trafficking, have yet to appear on his website.
Hawass did surface for an interview with CBS News, posted yesterday afternoon, in which he misleadingly stated that of “these small [stolen] items—eight of them—we found three.” In fact, there were 18 stolen items, of which three were found. On Hawass’ published list of eight stolen antiquities, number seven on the list was a group of 11 wooden shabti statuettes from Yuya. Only one of those 11 pieces was found.
At the end of yesterday’s CBS interview, Hawass declared:
We will open [the Egyptian Museum] in about two days from now. I will make a big announcement. Things will be calm in Egypt.
Here’s his CBS interview (after the advertisement):
According to two reports that I’ve seen on Twitter, Hawass also was interviewed by Al Jazeera, but hung up on the reporter. Here’s one of those tweets, from Troy Carter, an American living in Cairo:
Did you hear Zahi Hawass? Just hung up on Al Jazeera live on the air, after shouting he is not connected to regime.
Here‘s an account from Dominic Waghorn, reporter for Sky News, whose was with Hawass in his office at the Supreme Council of Antiquities during the demonstrations there yesterday, and departed the building with him.