Sunday, November 27, 2011

Egyptian Museum No Longer Accepting Cultural Object Inquiries (For Now)

The Egyptian Museum, Cairo
Source: Bs0u10e01, Creative Commons
According to an email by the General Director of The Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the museum will not be in a position to respond to inquiries regarding any artifacts until June 2012. This information is important to anyone conducting provenance research relating to Egyptian cultural objects. The email appears below:


To whom it may concern,

Due to the current situation in Egypt, I regret to say that the
Registration, Collections Management and Documentation
Department (RCMDD) and the curatorial staff of the Egyptian
Museum, Cairo will not be accepting any new requests for
object information and images starting from 1 December, 2011
until 30 May, 2012. This is due to the huge backlog that was
created following the events of January 28th, as well as the
renovations that are currently happening in the Museum.
Information on objects from our collection can still be obtained by
accessing the intranet version of the Museum Database on the
computers dedicated to scholars in the RCMDD office, located in
the museum basement.  The department is open to scholars from
9:30 am until 2:00 pm, Sunday-Thursday.

Sincerely,
Dr. Tarek El Awady
General Director,
The Egyptian Museum, Cairo

Source: Egyptologists' Electronic Forum, forwarded by Dr. Yasmin El Shazly.