Will Egypt sell its artifacts to boost economy?

[Zooropa]

I don't decry you arguments Zooropa...indeed, there's a lot to be said for touring Egyptian artifacts.

What I'm saying is that the idea is unlikely to gain much traction with the Egyptians. who are not renowned for thinking outside of the box.

Agreed!

[newcastle]

I don't decry you arguments Zooropa...indeed, there's a lot to be said for touring Egyptian artifacts.

What I'm saying is that the idea is unlikely to gain much traction with the Egyptians. who are not renowned for thinking outside of the box.

Agreed!

And when they do "think outside the box", the results are often.....hilarious

[Zooropa]

I don't decry you arguments Zooropa...indeed, there's a lot to be said for touring Egyptian artifacts.

What I'm saying is that the idea is unlikely to gain much traction with the Egyptians. who are not renowned for thinking outside of the box.

Agreed!

And when they do "think outside the box", the results are often.....hilarious

Like when an Egyptian told me to come back in five days because he didnt have something in his shop that he had done previously.

I told him i flew home in 4 days.

He told me to ask the airport to delay the flight!

And he wasnt joking!

[newcastle]

Snowy Flower Egypt
9 June 2016 ·
Think outside the box .. Break the tradition!
Snowy flower offers you the unusual gifts for your Ramadan gatherings
Happy Ramadan everyone!

[Dusak]

There must by literally millions of pieces of antiquity that have little or no historical or intrinsic value, so place adds world wide offering the tourist a small, genuine piece of history to take home with them, free of charge. How many mummified cats did they discover buried some time back? How many tourists would this persuade to visit? I would love an air dried pussy on my mantelpiece.

[newcastle]

I would love an air dried pussy on my mantelpiece.

Mrs Slocombe would be proud of you

phpBB [video]

[A-Four]

I hear that their hiking the fees to the archaeological teams just when they were getting over Zahi robbing them blind.
They will probably be concentrating more on South America next year, so I hear.
which is just another 'nail in the sarcophagus.

But can you expect anything else ?....

Although no one has commented on here, you make a very interesting point my dear Dr,. I hear that the new concession system is even crazier now that in the days of you know who.

I can imagine you got your info from the end of season gathering, which has always been a annual event at the old Marsem, though they should be careful, even there I understand the authorities have 'ears', much more so than ever before.

In by gone times, the old Doctors, if requiring a 'council' would gather for a late night meeting at an old Christian hotel known as the Merryland, a fab place in its time, but like most things in Luxor these days, a thing of the past, along with such meetings.

I only wish one day, one of the old guard will be brave enough to write up the true dynamite story, of the shite they had to put up with, though the local officials way back to the days of old Ali Asfer, or yellow Ali as he was known by the old school were wonderful. I wonder if he's still alive, he was the old chief inspector of the West Bank,.........God bless him. .

[Hafiz]

I think its untrue that the Hawass exhibitions made a penny for Egypt. I think it all went elsewhere.

For those with more time than sense here is something (long and rambling - I apologize in advance) I wrote with another purpose in mind a while ago on the whole issue of the tours and Hawass's self funding. It covers the various claims about international revenues and identifies that the promoters of the tour were unknowns (except to Hawass) and made a quick buck. About half way through it looks at the claims about international revenues. For those who now yearn for the return to pre-2011 its a salutary story, if my story is accurate, of how things were run for the few. It suggests a whole culture of exaggeration and misrepresentation characteristic of the time. At a minimum it questions whether anything about the tours can be believed or whether the tours were to Egypt's touristic benefit. The story begins with the claims/accusations about Hawass and how he allegedly gave vast sums connected with the tours and his celebrity to Egyptian charities.

“The sales of copies of Dr. Zahi Hawass’s famous explorer hat have contributed a remarkable sum to the $17m fundraising pot for the Children’s Museum in Cairo, Egypt.”
http://www.sc-exhibitions.com/the-hat/

Its only a web site but the author or his company would know. First they are personal acquaintances and second they were his business partners, sorry the Government of Egypt’s business partners, in the various western mega archaeological exhibitions, and therefore had access to the accounts. Its also more likely than not (according to the New York Times – see below) that they were the company which marketed his hat so they would therefore know the financial details. It appears that another (probably related) company, One, Arts and Exhibitions, International were selling a whole line of Hawass clothing.

If he gave the profits to the museum they are keeping quiet about it. There was no news report of this in Egypt. In any case it’s a very odd museum (previously known as the Suzanne Mubarak Museum) with a web site featuring photographs of only fair haired (with one exception) and all fair skinned children. The museum isn’t very active nowadays and have been no planned events for the past few years, there is also no info on their opening hours and whilst they offer info on their Board, its (wisely) not available. On the other hand it is quite clear that the Children’s Museum was once a pet project of Madame Mubarak which might account for the fact that it does little nowadays. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/world ... awass.html

$US17 million doesn’t easily go astray in Egypt so it’s a bit odd that there is no record of it ending up in the Children’s museum. Knowing the hatted one as we do, if he was a donor of a dollar he would milk the publicity for all it was worth. But not in this case. Wonder why?

What we do know, because Hawass said it in public is that: “that the renovations (to the children’s museum) were carried out by the projects agency affiliated with the armed forces, with a budget of $US17 million donated from several countries.” http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... ember.aspx.

Its significant that those generous countries are not mentioned. Why would generous donors to such a soft and fluffy project not want to be mentioned? Why would the done not want to give them credit? If he gave the money why did he not claim credit?

It becomes a bit clearer when you know that $US2 million of the $US17 million was ‘donated’ by the company that managed the western Tut tours (NYT article). So it was never his money and it was never $US17 million and there is no record of him having given a penny but somehow stories have got conflated and he turns out to be a hero and a $US17 million overall budget becomes his donation.

However he has changed his story over the years and claimed at one time that the hat money (or was it the clothing money) went to the Children’s Cancer Hospital in Cairo. He has also claimed (when he was on the defensive) that the “the hats have raised about $500,000 for charity.” Which charity?

That leaves unaccounted $US15 or $US17 million or is it $US500,000. Wonder where it went?

At this point, about 2010/11 it gets confused. He launches a whole line of men’s clothing which is sold in an Egyptian store, Harrods’s, and he is then attacked for using state antiquities in the photo shoot promoting the clothing. He responds by stating that all profits will go to the Cairo Children’s Cancer Hospital, “though Dr. Sharif Abul Naga, the hospital’s director, said that there is no written agreement yet.” https://www.care2.com/causes/egyptian-m ... -term.html. Hawass in a public statement said that he had sent him a letter making a promise to make a payment. The Dr didn’t seem to have got it. His supporters at The Luxor Times then ran a story on this at the time which was very sympathetic to Hawass and contained his detailed assertions that the Hospital had been advised from the start that it was to benefit. The problem is that his story is inconsistent with the hospital’s. In this article he also asserts that the money was to be given to the US foundation associated with the Cairo hospital and he states that he was invited onto its board. Unfortunately, Egypt Cancer Network 57357 USA, which is the US arm of the Cairo hospital (which seems a very progressive and well-run organization) has no record of any of this. If he was ever on their Board, he is not now and I doubt he ever was because their Boards are composed mainly of medical professionals and respectable heavy hitters and billionaires. http://egyptcancernetwork.org/

If he was ever appointed then it was never reported in any Egyptian or US newspaper which would seem odd given his need to draw attention to himself for every achievement. So the Luxor Times story seems all rot.

A photograph of the unmemorable clothing is:
http://hyperallergic.com/wp-content/upl ... ad-600.jpg

Even if he wanted to it seems he allegedly (according to a blog) didn’t own, or had already sold, the rights to the clothing: “the Zahi Hawass trademark is owned by Andres Numhauser. Numhauser is international vice president of Arts and Exhibitions International.” https://hyperallergic.com/22932/egypt-m ... n-fashion/. Normally I don’t believe blogs but this story fits neatly into the larger one and contains telling specific detail. Therefore maybe there was nothing to donate from any future sales because he had already sold his interest in them.

So, in the absence of any independent public record to the contrary, it seems likely he gave no money to either of these charities and may have lied and covered up to make it seem he did. But that’s not the whole story because some of his US friends appear elsewhere in his life.

For example the fraud charges laid against him in 2010/11 in relation to the Museum shop contract involved him giving a benefit to the same US company which organized the tours and marketed the hat (Exhibit Merchandising (now known as Premier Exhibitions) a specialist in Las Vegas and US sport tickets http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/2 ... Subsidiary). He denied that their previous business relationship had corrupted his decision in this case although he ignored the fact that they sold touring exhibition junk and had never previously run a store – let alone one in a prestigious museum.

There is also the question of how much Egypt benefited from the overseas exhibitions organized by his private business partners and where it ended up. Hawass’s claims that the overseas exhibits earned Egypt $US100 million seem unlikely given that the yearly gross revenues of the organizing company, for all of its activities, were $US32 and $US39 million in 2012 and 2013 (admittedly a period after the Tut tours). We will never know what it earned because no accounts were ever published but their own advertising states 7 million visitors which at $US25 per visitor (on average) produces a total gross revenue of $US175 million which might, on a very good day, produce a 10% payment to Egypt of $US17.5 million. This doesn’t seem much for 5 years of travelling and disappointed visitors to the Cairo museum and, maybe, reduced revenues in Cairo. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/coup- ... 177hl.html

Its always been a mystery to me why this Hawass exhibition was not at the 3 most important museums in the world: the Met, the British and the Louvre but hosted by loads of 3rd raters. The Met had, however, had huge success in 1979 with the previous King Tut exhibition which raises the question on why it did not participate on the latter one. Instead in 2009 or 10 the NYC exhibition was housed in some down-market venue in squalid Times Square. Similarly in London where the previous exhibition (1972) had been held in the British Museum, in 2008 it was the O2 dome. Maybe this time he didn’t want to deal with formal structures and formal accounting systems but felt more comfortable with the business practices of people who otherwise organized pop concerts. Maybe his partners weren’t used to dealing with proper museums?

There were also claims that Egypt made money from merchandising (not the hat or the clothes) via a US company, Exhibit Merchandising.

Exhibit Merchandising was established in Ohio in 2004 (immediately prior to the US exhibitions kicking off) with only one bullet in the breach – King Tut. This previously unprofitable firm owned by Joe Marsh and Lee Marshall became instantly profitable with the Tut exhibitions and almost at once sold itself for considerably more than $US24 million. However, its gross figures on merchandising of King Tut could not have produced much benefit to Egypt ($US1.4 million a month). http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zht ... highlight= By 2011 the King Tut merchandising game was loosing money which may have been connected with the fact that it was booked into third rate locations and was selling Chinese crap. http://www.sfvbj.com/news/2012/may/11/t ... vision-sa/. Its legal documents, filed with the SEC, go even further and state the business: “was formed to handle the affiliated merchandising opportunities that its principals created in Arts & Exhibitions, a partner in the successful King Tutankhamen museum exhibition currently touring many of the world’s top museums. Exhibit Merchandising was able to successfully negotiate exclusive merchandising rights for the King Tut tour, which immediately made the company both profitable and highly visible in the museum market.” This implies that they formed the business knowing they already had/would certainly get the exclusive Tut merchandising contract and there were no competitors. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data ... ex99-1.htm. From this it seems that the previously unprofitable Marsh and Marshall handled both the exhibition and the merchandising and it also seems likely that they initially did this with a $US1 company and no previous track record in this field although they quickly sold their Tut company for $US24 million+.

A point worth considering is that the whole roadshow, including the awful trinkets, third rate venues and amateur promoters, gave Egyptology a low rent, tacky image that may have actually damaged Egypt’s brand where highlights included a lifesize "mummy" that opened to reveal a set of CD shelves (£1,500), and a Tutankahumun tissue box where hankies were dispensed from the pharaoh’s nostrils.

Marshall and Marsh took the money and moved on. They now run a (surprisingly humble) company in Salt Lake City promoting Broadway musicals and a tasteful touring exhibition (Princess) “Diana – A Celebration”. http://www.magicspace.net/about-us/offices. Unexpectedly, his friends are still at the Tut thing and are planning a “The Discovery of King Tut. His Tomb – His Treasures. The Breathtaking Recreation” which doesn’t have Egyptian government backing and also run ‘Titanic”, “Pirates” and “Creatures of the Deep” which yet might. http://www.premierexhibitions.com/exhibitions/all. Even though the Exhibition is yet to open, or even announce where it will open, they have a full King Tut store of Chinese and ‘King Tut Made in Egypt” crap at bargain prices. For $US10 or $US20 you can even get a King Tut headdress. http://www.thekingtutstore.com/?utm_sou ... ebsiteLogo Clearly someone in Egypt has slipped up on international copyright/trademark. Their website implies that their years after Tut have been less successful which confirms my view that they only ever had one big deal.

How they got these initial exhibition and trinkets contracts from Egypt based on no financial backing or track record is as remarkable as the amount of money they made from insider running and a couple of years work.

So my guess is that the exhibitions and trinkets made very much less for Egypt that stated by Hawass and the money ended up god knows where. The only thing we know for certain is that $US2 million from the tour went to Suzanne Mubarak’s charity which now lies idle – although I suspect that the rest of the $US17 million for the museum neatly fits with the size of possible overseas proceeds of the tours and that this would have been an organized thing. The Egyptian Attorney General looked into this allegation but it came to nothing. I am reasonably certain that none of the proceeds from the hat or clothes ended up in a charity: although this might depend on your definition of charity. Meanwhile Hawass basks in an image which is based on no fact. We also know for certain that Marshall and Marsh got rich quick and there is the remote possibility that they had silent partners who also profited.

What is also clear is that the international Tut exhibitions made Hawass famous. The five or six years of openings involved him travelling around the world to launches – one in the US involved a 13 foot high cardboard cutout of Hawass. http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/21 ... ian-museum. There were also endless media events associated with Tut. This in turn gave him organized opportunities to sell his books (and Suzanne’s) at the exhibitions and, following all the free publicity, a media image which could be leveraged to sell hats and clothing. The tour and the launches also gave him opportunities to solicit ‘donations’ with one famous magazine witnessing a $US1 million solicitation in San Francisco for a Hawass Chair in Archaeology at the AUC. No such chair exists.

Maybe the lesson in all this its that some people can’t help exaggerating and that most are taken in by this. In any event the often stated claim that Hawass hyperbole/showmanship drove tourism in Egypt is contradicted by the facts. The overwhelming growth in tourism in this period went to the coast and only showed passing, if any, interest in the antiquities. It was the beaches and sun – stupid – and they sold themselves. Furthermore look at where the exhibitions went and where the growth in tourism has come from – they aren’t the same. I sometimes think that many come to Egypt in ignorance of the marketing, or in spite of it.

[newcastle]

Hafiz writes

I think its untrue that the Hawass exhibitions made a penny for Egypt. I think it all went elsewhere.

.

It's certainly hard to find any reliable facts on this subject. I tried when considering my response to Zooropa's comments but came up with zilch....apart from a general comment (from Hawass himself!) that the Tut Tours of the 1970's produced little for Egypt.

The 1972 exhibition at the BM...attended by 1.7 million....produced nothing more than a modest contribution to restoration work on the temple of Isis at Philae.

The laws of libel and possible consequences deter me from commenting on Hawass' "activities"...but there is a disturbing article at https://sites.google.com/site/naomiastr ... ahi-hawass with an index of "further reading" for anyone interested.

Fishing an eel out of the Nile with one's bare hands would be easier than pinning anything on this "doyen" of egyptology. Many have tried - and, so far, failed. He has a fair number of enthusiastic acolytes - some in the current hierarchy of the Ministry of Antiquities.

It's arguable that the one positive thing that has come out of the Egyptian revolutions has been the demise of the career of Hawass.

[FarleyFlavors]

Nice bit of research there Hafiz. Well played.

Its always been a mystery to me why this Hawass exhibition was not at the 3 most important museums in the world: the Met, the British and the Louvre but hosted by loads of 3rd raters. The Met had, however, had huge success in 1979 with the previous King Tut exhibition which raises the question on why it did not participate on the latter one. Instead in 2009 or 10 the NYC exhibition was housed in some down-market venue in squalid Times Square. Similarly in London where the previous exhibition (1972) had been held in the British Museum, in 2008 it was the O2 dome. Maybe this time he didn’t want to deal with formal structures and formal accounting systems but felt more comfortable with the business practices of people who otherwise organized pop concerts. Maybe his partners weren’t used to dealing with proper museums?

As far as the Met is concerned it appears to have been an issue of principle. In 1987 they adopted a policy of "not charging for individual exhibitions". http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/02/arts/ ... rules.html The Met's then director also stated that they liked "to have a certain degree of control and curatorial oversight" which they were unable to negotiate. http://www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/ ... ckbus.html

The British Museum had another blockbuster exhibition running at the same time as the Tut one at the O2 - The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army. Is it possible they were simply double booked? The NYT article above also suggests that the Tut exhibition was "almost two and a half times" the size of the 1970s one. Is it possible the British Museum simply didn't have the space? The Terracotta Army exhibition fitted into the reading room area of the BM; the Tut one wouldn't have.

In any case, the British Museum appeared to be happy enough to work with the Tut promoters as consultants on the O2 leg of the exhibition: http://www.standard.co.uk/arts/treasure ... 09310.html.

A point worth considering is that the whole roadshow, including the awful trinkets, third rate venues and amateur promoters, gave Egyptology a low rent, tacky image that may have actually damaged Egypt’s brand where highlights included a lifesize "mummy" that opened to reveal a set of CD shelves (£1,500), and a Tutankahumun tissue box where hankies were dispensed from the pharaoh’s nostrils.

As far as the tat for sale is concerned, you're probably right. I didn't linger long enough in the gift shop to notice.

I'd disagree with the "third rate venues and amateur promoters" claim, though.

You've written at length about Exhibition Merchandising and the (possibly related) company Arts & Exhibitions but these would have been minor players. The main promoters were Anschutz Entertainment Group who according to Wiki are the world's second largest presenters of live music and entertainment events. Hardly amateurs.

As for the venues, here's a list of where it was exhibited: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, Field Museum of Natural History, Franklin Institute, The O2, Dallas Museum of Art, De Young Museum San Francisco, Discovery Times Square Exposition and Melbourne Museum.

Of those, I'd argue that only the Times Square venue (and possibly the O2) could in any way be described as "third rate".

Besides, this was an exhibition which was pretty much identical no matter which venue was housing it. Unless it was sent to a complete dump of a building I'm not sure it was absolutely necessary to house it in prestigious museums.

I visited both the Tut exhibition at the O2 and the Terracotta Army one on the same day. The Tut exhibition was highly professional and very expensive looking. The artefacts were very well displayed and the lighting was superb.

(Some critics complained that it was too "glossy"; I'd disagree).

The Terracotta Army one at the British Museum was laughably amateurish by comparison. Cramped and badly laid out. Most of the Army figures turned out to be replicas.

I'll take a professional exhibition over leaving it in the hands of a bunch of museum curators any day.

[FarleyFlavors]

The 1972 exhibition at the BM...attended by 1.7 million....produced nothing more than a modest contribution to restoration work on the temple of Isis at Philae.

Here's a snippet from the New York Times article I mentioned above:

"Egypt saw no profit from the first show, Dr. Hawass said. But Thomas Hoving, director of the Met at the time of the first King Tut show, said in an interview yesterday that Egypt made $11 million from the sale of products related to the exhibition -- mainly reproductions -- at the museum stores and through catalogs. "The department of antiquities got the money," Mr. Hoving said.

"He added that the sum was invested in Eurobonds and kept in an account on the Greek island of Rhodes. "It was called the Tut fund," he said. "The money was never spent." He said he had been told by contacts in the Egyptian government that the fund now held $35 million."

It's arguable that the one positive thing that has come out of the Egyptian revolutions has been the demise of the career of Hawass.

True dat.

[Hafiz]

FarleyFlavors. Thanks

Hadn't heard about Anschutz. All I know is that Arts and Entertainment made a formal filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that "Arts & Exhibitions, a partner in the successful King Tutankhamen museum exhibition currently touring many of the world’s top museums". Maybe they had Anschutz as a partner, maybe Anschutz was a sub-contractor.

What seems clear was that Arts and Entertainment went from being/doing little to worth $24 million, that this happened quickly and it seems to be all/principally based on one deal. Given that their value was principally based on the Tut exhibitions and given the relatively small revenues from the exhibition (when you spread them over 5 or 6 years) I had assumed that they had most of the action if they were worth $US24+ million.

The Rhodes story is bizarre - except when you consider the context. Given that the Supreme Antiques are now bust why haven't they got it - maybe they have but you would expect a big announcement? Rhodes is an odd place to conduct official business and a deposit around 1972 would have been in the disrupted period of the Colonel's dictatorship when maybe anything went. Why would any sane person have wanted their money in a Greek bank in this period?

The Met is famous for its mid-range/expensive and well made reproductions and has always produced Egyptian objects.

I might have overstated the status of the venues. However none of them are first rate. In addition the Franklin is a science museum, as is Melbourne and the Los Angeles doesn't attract a lot of visitors. Fort Lauderdale seems an odd place to stage a blockbuster.

Newcastle thanks for the tip. I read somewhere that the BM payments from the Tut exhibition for the Philae restoration were not small.

Who knows what happened but its clear from multiple press reports in Egypt that by 2011 they had run out of money - including any money they had from the Tut tours.

[newcastle]

Newcastle thanks for the tip. I read somewhere that the BM payments from the Tut exhibition for the Philae restoration were not small.

Ok....maybe not that small'

A spokeswoman for the museum confirmed that ¨654,474 went to Philae in the 1970s

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2007 ... ritage.htm

[FarleyFlavors]

Hadn't heard about Anschutz. All I know is that Arts and Entertainment made a formal filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that "Arts & Exhibitions, a partner in the successful King Tutankhamen museum exhibition currently touring many of the world’s top museums". Maybe they had Anschutz as a partner, maybe Anschutz was a sub-contractor.

What seems clear was that Arts and Entertainment went from being/doing little to worth $24 million, that this happened quickly and it seems to be all/principally based on one deal. Given that their value was principally based on the Tut exhibitions and given the relatively small revenues from the exhibition (when you spread them over 5 or 6 years) I had assumed that they had most of the action if they were worth $US24+ million.

I don't doubt there were some shady dealings involved, the details of which we'll be unlikely to hear about.

And not that it matters much but you're confusing the two companies. Arts and Entertainment were involved (along with AEG) with the promotion and production of the tour. Exhibit Merchandising had the exclusive contract for the merchandising. It's the latter company that was sold for $24m to Tix Corp in 2007. Arts and Entertainment became a wholly owned subsidiary of AEG in the same year. One John Norman seems to be the link between these two companies. https://www.efin.com/executive/John+Norman/36515 I can't find any reference to Marsh and Marshall being involved in Arts and Entertainment, so their involvement would have been with the merchandising alone.

If Exhibit Merchandising were grossing $1.4m per month in Tut memorabilia alone (and by the time they were sold, they had other irons in the fire) it's hardly surprising that the company was valued at $24m.

I can't find any reference to how much AEG paid for Arts and Entertainment but given that the latter were swallowed whole by the former, it seems unlikely that AEG were the minor player in the Tut tour.

The Rhodes story is bizarre - except when you consider the context. Given that the Supreme Antiques are now bust why haven't they got it - maybe they have but you would expect a big announcement? Rhodes is an odd place to conduct official business and a deposit around 1972 would have been in the disrupted period of the Colonel's dictatorship when maybe anything went. Why would any sane person have wanted their money in a Greek bank in this period?

I agree, it's a completely bizarre claim, although I'm more inclined to believe the ex-director of the Metropolitan than Hawass!

I might have overstated the status of the venues. However none of them are first rate. In addition the Franklin is a science museum, as is Melbourne and the Los Angeles doesn't attract a lot of visitors. Fort Lauderdale seems an odd place to stage a blockbuster.

I think my point that an exhibition like this didn't have to be in first-rate art museums stands - indeed, some critics argued that it shouldn't have appeared in museums at all.

"Critics like Knight say they don't object when the Tut shows stop at spaces like London's O2 arena and the Atlanta Civic Center. They just don't want museums "to sell out to corporate interests," Knight said." http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas ... 705627.php

In any case, I disagree with your assertion that the exhibition itself "gave Egyptology a low rent, tacky image that may have actually damaged Egypt’s brand". I'd suggest that such a highly professional, sleek and expensive show did the opposite.