Originally posted by TheWayISeeIt
Harte -
Re: British archaeologist Joann Fletcher 'not following protocol'.
Jane Brink did not follow the protocol in that she annouced her find and did not tell Hawass personally that she was going to do it – as he is head of the SCA panel of a 100 who made the edict -- One imagines that this is because of his tendancy to take over the projects and take the credit for discoveries in Giza. (There is a pattern here as this is Hawass' excuse for most of the banned explorers we are disucussing.)
I've said here that I thought Hawass was too much of a showman. But if you're gonna get a permit from the SCA, you are agreeing to abide by the protocols in the permit.
You don't like it then dig in Ethiopia or somewhere.
Originally posted by TheWayISeeIt
Dietrich Wildung, an eminent scholar who runs the Egyptian Museum in Berlin:Harte: For conspiring to steal ancient artifacts (care to defend this?)
Yeah, actually I do. Here ya go:
"The ... authorities have incontrovertible evidence that he was involved in the illegal trafficking and buying of antiquities," Hawass wrote in his column for the English edition of the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram. But when asked why Egypt, two years later, still hasn't moved to indict Wildung -- as Italian authorities recently did in bringing a case against Marion True, the J. Paul Getty Museum's curator of antiquities -- Hawass acknowledges that the tapes are hearsay that can't prove a case.
Wildung, once friendly with Hawass, is now banned from excavating in Egypt but denies any wrongdoing. He says Hawass is playing to Egyptian public opinion and perhaps retaliating because Wildung criticized him for empty showmanship on a 2001 TV special that put a robot into a pyramid. "For populistic reasons, he has unfortunately invented these stories, which are 500% against my personal conviction and my understanding as a museum professional," Wildung says from his Munich home.
So Hawass acknowledges there is no proof, it is hearsay . The Defense rests, moving on.
There is no court case, Wildung is not charged with a crime.
This means, in a democracy like mine, that the man would then be free to exercise his rights. Are you claiming that he has some "right" to excavate in Egypt? See, the suspicion is enough to preclude him from getting a permit because he has no absolute right to dig.
You know, of course, that the vast majority of Egyptian antiquities lie illegally in other countries?
Originally posted by TheWayISeeIt
Harte - Not West. Ironic that you make this claim, considering West (and Bauval) actually live in Egypt. "Banned?" I think not.
Well, you think wrong and you know it. They may live there, but they are certainly not being granted permits to work in Giza. It is officially known and accounted in multiple news sources that West and Schoch were forcibly ejected from Giza in 1993 after the ‘water eroded the sphinx’ discoveries, and West (or Schoch) has never been granted a permit again from Hawass despite repeated request.
I believe I said as much in my post. Neither West nor Hancock has the credentials required by the SCA for permitting. Nor are they (either one) associated with any accredited University or otherwise scholarly group - both requirements for permitting unless a waiver is granted by the SCA.
Yet, Hawass has allowed Hancock access too areas that you or I could not have access to:
As John West kindly reported in his open letter to Stower I have changed my views on the validity of the forgery theory. The relieving chambers are strictly off limits to the public and are extremely difficult to gain access to. I had been unable to obtain permission to visit them prior to the publication of Keeper/Message in 1996. However, in December 1997, Dr Zahi Hawass allowed me to spend an entire day exploring these chambers. There were no restrictions on where I looked and I had ample time to examine the hieroglyphs closely, under powerful lights. Cracks in some of the joints reveal hieroglyphs set far back into the masonry. No 'forger' could possibly have reached in there after the blocks had been set in place - blocks, I should add, that weigh tens of tons each and that are immovably interlinked with one another. The only reasonable conclusion is the one which orthodox Egyptologists have already long held - namely that the hieroglyphs are genuine Old Kingdom graffiti and that they were daubed on the blocks before construction began.
Source
Why would Egypt let a retired journalist dig around in some of the most important (archaeologically speaking) ground on Earth?
You are aware, are you not, that West is an author, not a scholar? He is best known as a tour guide, in fact. And that is primarily how he makes his living.
I'd like to see evidence that Schoch has been prevented in any way from research in Egypt. Applications for permits to do subsurface scans around the Sphinx are routinely ignored, as the entire area has been scanned twice now and parts of it three times. With accompanying excavations two of those times. Given that the technology for such work hasn't vastly improved since the last time (I believe it was the late 1990's) it's not surprising that no permits for this sort of work have been granted since then.
Assuming, that is, that Schoch has even applied since then and also assuming that such subsurface testing was what he was applying for (that's been his M.O. at Giza.)
Originally posted by TheWayISeeIt
Harte - The link claims Gatenbrink was banned, but in fact he was not. He lost his backing from the German museum he was working for and thus had no status to do work in Egypt - according to Egyptian law.
First of all he was working for the "The German Archaeological Institute", who got the permits, allowed him to investigate, he made various discoveries, recorded them, told GAI and Hawass and waited for 22 days for an annoucement that was not forthcoming. He then, to my mind rightfully, got paranoid and left Egypt with the footage.
The whole episode devolved into a various and nefarious seeming scandal:
The official reason given by the Egyptian Antiquities Authorities (known as the Supreme Council of Antiquities - SCA - ) was that Gantenbrink leaded the news of the discovery to the British Press in April 1993 and thus, apparently, broke a 'rule' of archaeology. The director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, Dr. Rainer Stadelmann, sided with the Egyptians and condemned Gantenbrink for his press action. Dr. Stadelmann was adamant about the non-importance of the find. "This is not a door; there is nothing behind it." The President of the Supreme Council for Antiquities, Dr. Muhamad Bakr, went as far as claiming a 'hoax'. "The orifice of the shaft is too small for the robot to go through" and accused the "German scientist" of not having the correct 'approvals' from the SCA to carry out the exploration.
Dr. Bakr fired the Chief Inspector of the Giza Pyramid Plateau, Dr. Zahi Hawass, although the official reason given was that a valuable ancient 'statue' under the custody of Hawass was stolen from Giza. Three months later, in June 1993, Dr. Bakr himself was fired and replaced by Dr. Nur El Din. Amid accusations of malpractice and fraud, Dr. Bakr spoke of a "Mafia" which had been involved with the Pyramids for the "last twenty years" . Refusing to give names, Dr. Bakr said, "I wanted the whole matter investigated by the prosecution authorities, but my request was refused."
Meanwhile, Dr. Hawass, who went to the USA, claimed that the discovery of the 'door' was "THE discovery in Egypt," and speculated that there are important artifacts behind it. In early 1994, Dr. Hawass was reinstalled at his post at the Giza Pyramids. Meanwhile, Gantenbrink offered his robot to the Egyptians and also offered to train an Egyptian technician to man the equipment and open the door. The Egyptians rejected the offer; "We are very busy at the moment," replied Dr. Nur El Din.
Source?
here's an interview with Hawass in 1997:
Guardian: What about the German discovery of a new door in the Queen's Chamber air vent of the Great Pyramid? Why aren't they being allowed to continue their research and open that door?
Dr. Hawass: Much of the comments about this have come from Mr. Gantenbrink (a German robotics expert) and Mr. Bauval, who is a friend of Mr. Gantenbrink. Mr. Gantenbrink was a member of a team of researchers under the recognized leadership of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo. The German Institute has the concession [note: a concession is a permit to investigate a certain area], not Mr. Gantenbrink. As of today, no application for further research has been submitted by the German Institute. Apparently there is some difference of opinion between Mr. Gantenbrink and the German Institute.
The discovery, by the way, is hardly a door in the usual sense. The so-called "air-shaft" is smaller than 20 cm square. The robot-mounted camera came to a blocking stone with two copper pins embedded in its face. This stopped further progress of the robot. If this is a door, it is only big enough for a rat! The plug is many meters up in the solid masonry of the pyramid, how should this so-called "door" be opened without damaging the pyramid?
Guardian: Is it true that a Canadian research team is going to pick up where the German researchers left off?
Dr. Hawass: As of today, we have received no proposal from Canadians to work in the Khufu Pyramid.
Continued.
[edit on 9/11/2008 by Harte]
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