“Real life tomb raider Joan Howard pictured with a mummy mask she found at Sakkara, the necropolis for the ancient Egyptian capital Memphis.”
Perth woman Joan Howard has been accused by a group of concerned Egyptian archaeologists of looting artefacts from Egypt, Jordan and Palestine. Earlier this month Howard gave an interview to The West Australian in which she proudly detailed her adventures during the 1960s and early 1970s while her husband, Keith, travelled widely in the Middle East. “It was all good fun. Dirty work, of course. But as it turned out, very, very rewarding,” she told the newspaper. The antiquities are said to be worth around $1 million.
Howard used the diplomatic freedom afforded by her husband’s job with the United Nations to travel between Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Israel, where she volunteered on archeological digs with British and American archaeologists. Laws subsequently changed to make it illegal to dig for and remove antiquities.
The story says she now has Neolithic axe heads, pottery and weapons from the Phoenicians and the Romans, coins and seals and jewellery from the time of the pharaohs, and a precious funerary mask from Egypt.
Howard told the newspaper she felt “absolute wonder and astonishment” when she looked at these artifacts. Asked why she had kept quiet about her haul until now, she said: “You don’t go round saying ‘I’ve been in a tomb’.”
However, Monica Hanna, a prominent archaeologist who works closely with the Egyptian government, has accused Howard of outright cultural theft. “I was really appalled by her attitude because she broke the law”, Hanna told Fairfax Media. “This is not something nice or fashionable to do to come and pretend to be Indiana Jones”.
Shaaban Abdel Gawad, the director-general of the Retrieved Antiquities Department at Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said, “We want to investigate how these pieces made it out of Egypt illegally.”
Egypt’s foreign ministry has contacted Australian authorities to open an investigation, Gawad said, and Neil Hawkins, Australia’s ambassador to Egypt, was aware of the case.
Hanna said Howard’s digs were not authorised by any educational institution, nor given permission from Egyptian or other Arab authorities.“I would like the objects to be repatriated to Egypt, Palestine and the other countries” Hanna added.
“Australia implements its obligations under the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970) … this includes the return of foreign cultural property which has been illegally exported from its country of origin and imported into Australia,” the spokesman said.
Egypt and the wider Middle East have been vulnerable sites for rampant illicit trade of important cultural artefacts by transnational criminal networks.
Australia and Egypt are both signatories of the Convention which stipulates that artefacts musts be properly returned to their countries of origin but the enforcement of such international treaties are haphazard and weak.
In May this year, the Egyptian government amended a law raising the maximum sentence for illegal trade of antiquities to life in prison.
“The theft of antiquities and its subsequent sale is not a new phenomenon and we are interested in retrieving those that belong to our country wherever they may be,” Abdel Gawad said.
Good News in the Battle Against White-nose Syndrome
There’s new hope in the battle against white-nose syndrome, a fungal
disease that’s killed over 6 million bats across North America. A
research team from Oregon State University and UC Santa Cruz won our
national prize challenge by conceiving of an aerosol spray to
genetically silence the fungus that causes the disease without harming
bats, the places they hibernate, or other living creatures:
Bats
provide many benefits to people and wildlife, including pest control
services when they eat insects that could otherwise spread disease or
harm crops. By helping bats, we’re safeguarding a balanced natural world
for current and future generations.
Photo: Tri-colored bat with visible signs of white-nose syndrome by NPS
