"Egypt's gift to the 21st century world". In a video published on January 26 on his Facebook account, the much-publicized head of Egyptian Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, filmed at the foot of the Mykerinos pyramid, proudly announces the first renovation work carried out on the lowest of the three pyramids of Giza. Five rows of gray granite blocks will be installed on the base of the building, to restore it, he explains, to its original appearance. More than 4,500 years old, the structure was covered with 16 rows of granite blocks.
This “renovation” will last “three years”, indicates Mostafa Waziri, assuring that it “will allow us to see for the first time the pyramid of Mykerinos as it was built by the ancient Egyptians”.
But this renovation project is not to the taste of Egyptologists. A number of them, horrified, denounced on social networks an attack on heritage, calling on UNESCO and academics to mobilize against what they consider to be an aberration.
“All that was missing was to tile the pyramid of Mykerinos! When are we going to stop the absurdity in the management of Egyptian heritage?”, reacted the Egyptian Egyptologist Monica Hanna on renovations prohibit such interventions, all archaeologists must mobilize immediately,” she says.
مش ممكن، فعلاً اللي ناقص ترميم الاثار هو تبليط هرم منقاورع، هو العب ث بأثار مصر مش هينتهي؟
كل المواثيق الدولية في الترميم بترفض هذا التدخل بكل اشكاله، اتمنى م ن كل اساتذة الجامعات في الاثار والترميم الوقوف ضد هذا المشروع بشكل وري… https://t.co/rDYOEFRpvB
— Monica Hanna (@monznomad) January 26, 2024
“What is shocking about this video is that we see workers digging without any archaeological precautions. The area is not even demarcated!”, adds a French Egyptologist who wishes to remain anonymous, for feared that the Egyptian authorities would hinder his research work by depriving him of authorizations to work there. "If we dig in this way, we destroy archaeological layers and strata. However, it is precious to know what could have been around these pyramids. There, we risk losing very precious information! The problem is that their project is not clear,” he takes offense.
Fears also expressed by Egyptologist and former Minister of Antiquities Zahy Hawas. "The blocks around the pyramid are all rough and incomplete. They are completely unsuitable to be reconstructed on the surface of the pyramid," the Egyptologist who chairs an ad hoc evaluation committee formed to decide the fate told ABC News of the project.
Backpedaling by Egyptian authorities
Faced with media outcry, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism ended up announcing on Saturday February 3 that it had formed a study committee "chaired by Zahi Hawas", accompanied by "experts in Egyptian, American, Czech and Germans. “A decision will be taken to decide whether or not to carry out this project” of renovation, affirms the ministry, specifying that the committee will also have to take care of the “necessary procedures for coordination with Unesco”.
Except that the damage is done. At the foot of the Mykerinos pyramid, AFP journalists have already noted that work was underway over the past week.
A crane lifts a block of granite as part of the project to renovate the base of the Mykerinos pyramid in Giza, January 29, 2024. © AFP, Khaled Desouki
"It's a bit of Egypt's problem at the moment. There are astonishing, even crude, restorations, like in Luxor. On the facade of the temple, a colossus of Ramses has been reassembled, but it is not in the right position and his face is not faithful to the original", testifies the Egyptologist interviewed. “We should put more resources into preserving what is weakened. But the country's antiquity services seem above all to want to attract tourists.”
“We’re going towards an amusement park side”
Certain sites, he warns, "are threatened by tourist overcrowding", such as the tomb of Nefertari, the wife of Pharaoh Ramses II, in the Valley of the Queens, which sees pieces of its ceiling coming off. A deterioration which may however have been caused by climate change.
An observation shared by the research director at the CNRS, Marc Lavergne: "We are moving towards an amusement park side, with very flashy things", notes this specialist in Egypt, for whom the aim of these major renovation work is above all commercial. In this heavily indebted country, tourism represents 10% of GDP.
Read alsoEgypt: drones, infrared and cosmic particles to understand the mystery of the pyramids
With AFP
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