MAY 22, 1999

CONTENTS:

Disturbed visitors

Re: Disturbed visitors

We have been going around and around talking about appropriate ways to handle disturbed visitors -- i.e., those visitors who make others uncomfortable and may or may not be threatening. Can any of you recommend any literature on the subject? There must be guidelines out there somewhere about ways to approach such people and when to call in the police. Thanks for any suggestions -- it's a sticky area for all of us who work in public institutions. Anne Douglas.

Reward Offered In Art Theft

Mummy stolen in '20s is returned to cave in Philippines

NATUBLING, Philippines - Amid chants and tears, a centuries-old mummy of a tribal hunter was returned yesterday to its sacred cave in a northern Philippine mountain from which a Christian pastor stole it in the 1920s.
In a three-day wake that reinforced the pride of tribal Filipinos in their ancient practice of mummifying their dead, villagers in Natubling slaughtered animals, drank rice wine, and chanted prayers to welcome the return of Apo Annu.
So rigid were the local superstitions that the villagers and their hundreds of guests were forbidden from sneezing during the ceremonies, or from having sex for the duration of the wake.
"We have been punished," said Sario Copas, who claimed he is a descendant of Apo Annu. "But the luck that has been lost is now back." Tribesmen have attributed the natural disasters that have hit the mountainous region - from earthquakes to typhoons - to the theft of mummies kept in caves for centuries. National museum officials estimate the mummy is 500 years old. Anthropologist June Brett said this was at best an educated guess, adding that its age could be established only through carbon dating or through genealogy by tracing family descent. Heavily tattooed - the mark of hunters and warriors - the largely intact mummy looks like dried flesh, brownish in color. In a sitting position with arms held up to his face, Apo Annu looks like a man praying to the heavens. Members of the Kankana-ey tribe dressed the mummy in the garments of a tribal ruler and laid it near the mouth of the cave for the final rites.
When the ceremony was over, two priests carried Apo Annu into the cave and laid him in a wooden coffin. Women wept as the cave's steel door fell shut, ensuring the mighty hunter would never leave the mountain again. Museum curator Orlando Abinion said the mummy was stolen by a Christian pastor between 1918 and 1920 from the cave in Natubling in Benguet province, 135 miles north of Manila. It ended up as a sideshow in a circus in Manila and passed from one hand to another until 1984, when an antiques collector donated it to the national museum.
Abinion said mummification among local tribes began in the 13th century but stopped after Spain colonized the Philippines in the 16th century and spread Christianity. Mummification starts by forcing a dying person to drink a briny potion, residents say. The corpse is bathed and set on a chair while a fire glows underneath to remove body fluids. Tobacco smoke is blown through its mouth to dry the organs, and herbs are rubbed over the body. After weeks or months of being smoked, the body is taken to a cave to protect it from animals. Officials said 50 to 80 other mummies had been located in other caves but declined to specify the places. "Maybe it's better if it is not known because then they will be sending tourists and desecrate it," Brett said.
c1999 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.

a security consultant's visit of historic houses in Maryland and Virginia

Lost and found treasures of Egypt

CAIRO, Egypt (May 26, 1999 1:27 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - Papyrus records show Ramses III's foreman professed innocence when accused of stealing a chest belonging to the pharaoh. Some 3,000 years later, archaeologists in Egypt uncovered evidence of his guilt - the gold-plated box was buried under the foreman's home. The tale itself serves as evidence, say national museum curators who have worked with police to assemble a new exhibit tracing the loss and recovery of ancient treasures. The Ramses chest proves Egyptian art has had a powerful allure for generations.
The "Lost and Found" exhibit is due to open later this year at the Egyptian Museum. Museum director Mohammed Shimy said the underlying theme of the exhibit is Egypt's determination to protect its heritage, and its gratitude for international help in that campaign. "These pieces are very important, because they are part of our civilization," Shimy said. "If we lose our civilization, we lose ourselves."
Many of the 155 items in the exhibit were recovered with the help of sharp-eyed experts abroad and foreign police agencies linked by Interpol, as well as by Egypt's own Tourist Police. White-uniformed Tourist Police officers are ubiquitous at the pyramids and other sites, and their department is responsible for recovering stolen antiquities.
A 1993 law effectively bars individuals from owning any Egyptian artifact more than 100 years old. More recent pieces judged to be of historical importance are also protected. Egyptians who registered private collections with the government within six months of the law's passage were allowed to keep them, but they cannot sell them or transfer them outside their families. The law transformed owners into caretakers. Unregistered antiquities can be confiscated. The sale within Egypt or smuggling abroad of antiquities can bring jail terms of up to 15 years.
"It's a very strict, very severe law, because we want to protect our heritage," said Gen. Abdel Khalek Tahawi, head of the Tourist Police. He sees the "Lost and Found" exhibit, which he is co-sponsoring, as a way of sensitizing the public. "If people realize how important it is to protect our heritage, they will help the police in doing our job," he said. A 3-foot-high, pink granite head of the god Amun-re that dominates one wall of the "Lost and Found" gallery is there thanks to a French Egyptologist.
The expert was suspicious when he saw the head, dating from the 19th dynasty (1307-1196 BC), for sale in Paris several years ago. He alerted Egyptian authorities, who determined it had been taken from the country illegally and arranged for its return. It may never be clear how something as large as the Amun-re head was spirited out of Egypt. The first steps of its journey to Paris may have been similar to those of an even larger "Lost and Found" treasure: a 2 1/2-ton sandstone bust.
A gang of thieves had carted the bust - broken into the head, the headdress in two pieces and a fragment of beard - on camel back from a Nubian temple. They were caught in the desert outside Cairo with their booty transferred to truck and cloaked in blankets. "Since we have no inscription, we can only say it is a royal head," said Hassan Said, a curator at the Egyptian Museum. The giant royal head is one of many exhibit pieces ripped out of context by thieves. Much of their history and identities are lost, even though the pieces themselves have been found. One was dubbed the mystery statue when it was unearthed in 1997 by a farmer working his land near the Nile Delta town of Zagazig. The ancient sculptor worked in limestone with astounding detail, delicately carving fingernails, jewelry, hair woven into a braid. A woman sits in a high-backed chair surrounded by four children. Because it was unrelated to the ruins near where it was found, Egyptologists believe the woman-and-children group was buried for safekeeping at Zagazig after being stolen from elsewhere by an ancient grave robber or a modern thief.
A delicate, jeweled amulet and two beautiful daggers are no mystery. They came from just upstairs in the museum. Three years ago, an unemployed Egyptian hid under a display case until closing time, then opened cases to remove the daggers, jewelry and other items from perhaps the most famous of the Egyptian Museum's collections: the three-millennium-old Tutankhamen tomb treasures. The thief was caught as he tried to sneak out of the museum the next morning.
The audacious but failed attempt led to the firing of the museum director and $3 million worth of security improvements at the neoclassical building that houses more than 100,000 artifacts. "Lost and found the same day," say captions on photographs of the amulet and daggers in the ground floor gallery where the new exhibit is housed.
The pieces themselves remain carefully guarded upstairs with the rest of the trove unearthed in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings, outside the southern Egyptian city of Luxor.