WATANI International
8 May 2011
Cache found under Museum of Egyptian Civilisation
It was a restorer’s dream come true.
Workers carrying out restoration work at the New Gezira Museum in Cairo—once the Museum of Egyptian Civilisation founded by King Farouk and officially opened in 1949—came upon a secret tunnel behind a diorama representing the River Nile course from source to mouth. The narrow entrance to the eight-metre-deep tunnel led into a wide vault in which were buried rare documents and art works which date back to the first half of the 20th century.
The hoard
Some 400 cardboard boxes lay hidden, containing a hoard of 222 artefacts. Among them were oil paintings by the famous 20th century artists Ragheb Ayad, Hussein Fawzy, Kamel Mustafa, Mufid Gayed and Naguib Fanous, as well as maps and architectural drawings of the original Museum of Egyptian Civilisation. The paintings included one depicting Egypt’s first president Mohamed Naguib—who ruled from 1953 to 1954—riding through cheering crowds, and another of him with the 1952 Revolution Council. Also found were 4000 copies of the museum catalogue printed in 1949 and reprinted in 1950.
The restorers directly informed Ashraf Reda, the head of the Fine Arts Sector at the Egyptian Culture Ministry which was carrying on the restoration work. Reda immediately ordered the formation of a special committee under Ahmed Abdel-Fattah, the head of the central administration for museums and exhibitions, to document the discovery and hand over the precious pieces to the Restoration Department. Culture Minister Emad Abu-Ghazi ordered an exhibition to display the newly-discovered items once documentation was completed, a task expected to take a month or two.
Sobhy al-Sharouni, head of the committee now in charge of the newly-discovered cache, said that most items were in a very good condition. They comprised 18 panoramic oil paintings which require restoration, 85 sketches in water colours, 19 maps, 65 architectural drawings of the museum, 32 diagrams, and three old photographs in black and white. They were largely concerned with depicting the daily life of Egyptians in markets, fields and houses, during private and public events and even wars.
Largest in Middle East
The renovation work currently conducted at the Gezira Museum and owing to which the recent find was unearthed aims at restructuring the museum altogether. According to Dr Reda, the architectural element exhibits, including the dioramas that had formed part of the old Museum of Egyptian Civilisation, will be moved to the present-day Museum of Civilisation in Fustat, Old Cairo. The museum building in Gezira will then be joined to that of the adjacent International Gezira Museum, to host more than 4,000 Egyptian and international art works. The exhibits will include, besides the art works today housed in the Museum of Egyptian Civilisation, the acquisitions of the royal palaces in Egypt, paintings by world masters among whom are Renoir and Monet, as well as Coptic textiles and icons, Fatimid glass, Islamic ceramics, and others. The museum, expected to open in 2013, will be the largest museum for fine arts in the Middle East.
Educating Egyptians
Among the most significant items in the recent find is the foundation document of the museum. This came in the form of a memorandum signed by King Farouk in 1936 calling for the establishment of a museum to cover the full history of Egypt.
“Egypt is unique among nations in that it possesses a wealth of relics and monuments dating back to the various eras of its civilisation through the stream of time, since the dawn of history and until today. Museums scattered throughout the land from north to south testify to that rich civilisation: the ancient Egyptian, the Greco-Roman, the Coptic, the military, the Napoleonic; to say nothing of other museums among which are those concerned with agriculture, irrigation, railways, and education. These scattered edifices of culture, however, render the tracking of the evolution of Egyptian civilisation a difficult task. Hence the idea of establishing a museum that would host samples of the full length of Egypt’s history and consecutive civilisations, to be a great service to members of the Egyptian public, to raise their awareness and knowledge of their history. The museum should include sample relics from the uninterrupted sequence of Egypt’s history: the prehistoric, the Pharaonic, the Persian conquest, Alexander the Great and the Ptolemies; the Roman age and the advent of Christianity, the successive Islamic dynasties, the Ottoman age, Napoleon’s invasion, and the renaissance of Mohammed Ali Pasha until the present day.”
Walking through history
Thus it was that, with the aim of educating the Egyptian people and promoting a spirit of belonging, the museum took ten years to establish.
Designed by Mustafa Pasha Fahmy the museum included for every phase in Egypt’s history dioramas, maps, and paintings illustrating the more important events and scenes. Single items of antiquity that existed in double or more and were in the possession of Egypt’s other museums were handed over to the new museum. Otherwise, artists were assigned to create replicas of unique pieces for the new museum. The exhibits rendered a final, comprehensive image of what life in Egypt was like during the various periods in history: what the people believed in, what they wore, how they travelled, worked, lived or battled.
The first thing that met the visitor to the museum was a life-size statue of the Neanderthal man at the entrance. The visitor then walked through Egypt’s history from antiquity to modern times—proudly shown off with models of Egypt’s 20th century universities, its first industrial projects, the Aswan dam, and others. Special interest was given to Sudan which was then, and until 1954, under Egyptian rule.
Those magnificent men
The committee that managed the establishment of the museum included among its members all the heads of the museums in Egypt. Interestingly, the influential Royal Agricultural Society—it must be noted that Egypt was then a primarily agricultural country—headed by Mohamed Taher contributed a great part towards the execution of the project, offering the premises to house the museum, as well as workmanship, tools and materials. In 1943, the education ministry assigned Hussein Youssef Fawzy, a professor of interior design at the School of Fine Arts, with the job of managing the museum. He followed up on the lighting and aeration, as well as the colour scheme employed to highlight each historical phase.
The museum catalogue included acknowledgements and appreciation of all who willingly offered their unsparing efforts to bring the museum into being, with special thanks offered to Prince Omar Tosson, a member of the royal family; and Markus Simaika Pasha, the founder and first curator of the Coptic Museum.
Finally, in 1949, the museum was finally opened by a proud King Farouk.
In 1989, the museum closed for restoration and renovation.
To the rescue
The obvious question that begs an answer today is why the recently-discovered items were hidden so long ago. Especially given that, according to Dr Reda, the hoard had never been displayed in the original museum and was not included in the original catalogue. In all probability, the items had remained in their cardboard boxes. Dr Sharouni attempted a reply though, he warned, no actual reason was known for sure, which left the matter wide to conjecture. Possibly, he said, the museum catalogue and documents strongly applauded the role and achievements of the royal Egyptian family, an attitude which was unacceptable during the years following the 1952 Revolution and the downfall of the monarchy. The years 1954 and 1955 in fact witnessed a large movement of ‘purging’ all public posts of those who were seen to have been part of the previous regime or known to have been sympathetic to the monarchy. Those in charge of the museum then in all likelihood resorted to concealing some precious pieces of Egypt’s history and culture, to preserve them for future generations.