Tutankhamun: Bust Egypt says was 'stolen' sells for £4.7m

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Tutankhamun: Bust Egypt says was 'stolen' sells for £4.7m

Post by DJKeefy »

A 3,000-year-old Tutankhamun bust that Egypt claims was stolen has fetched £4.7m ($6m) at auction.

Egypt earlier called on auction house Christie's to cancel the sale of the relic depicting ancient boy-king Tutankhamun.

The country's foreign ministry says that the bust was probably stolen from an Egyptian temple during the 1970s.

Christie's says Egypt has not expressed concern about the bust in the past, despite it being exhibited publicly.

The brown quartzite, 28cm (11in) relic comes from a private collection of ancient art that Christie's last sold for £3m in 2016.

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In a statement, Christie's said: "The object is not, and has not been, the subject of an investigation." The auction house said it would never auction an object over which there were legitimate concerns.

Christie's also published a chronology of the relic's owners for the past 50 years. The bust is understood to have been acquired from German aristocrat Prinz Wilhelm von Thurn between 1973 and 1974.

The auction house also said that the bust's existence had been known for a considerable time and it had been on display for a number of years.

Egypt's former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass told AFP news agency: "We think it left Egypt after 1970 because in that time other artefacts were stolen from Karnak Temple."

Egypt introduced laws in 1983 banning the removal of artefacts from the country.

Tutankhamun died over 3,000 years ago aged 19. His remains were found in 1922.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-48865336


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Re: Tutankhamun: Bust Egypt says was 'stolen' sells for £4.7m

Post by Who2 »

Good Iv'e been waiting for this post..
Iv'e been a customer of theirs for years, today I had their online & phone in service.
'I mean they know where I live......'if you know what I mean ?

Years ago one could pick up some interesting stuff in old boxes, and I do mean 'pick-up.
Iv'e also sold some stuff through them, if it's worth a bob or two it's all down to lying your back teeth-off.
Or if your not stupid recreating some form of believable provenance.

Quote: A sharp Christie's 'spokesperson...

It's understood to have been in the collection of Prinz Wilhelm von Thurn und Taxis (1919-2004) by the 1960s.
with Josef Messina, Galerie Kokorian & Co, Vienna, acquired from the above in 1973 or 1974.
with Arnulf Rohsmann, Klagenfurt, acquired from the above in 1982 or 1983.
with Heinz Herzer, Munich, acquired from the above in June 1985.
The Resandro collection, Germany, acquired from the above in July 1985.

Well that's not a bad provenance, mind you those pensioners up North conned a lot of people.
But found in Karnak Temple Tutankhamun ? not very likely, £4.7 mill and that's English pounds..

"Tough titty Prat in the Hat!...
Anyhow Iv'e got one in granite, much the same back in the UK. £20 quid Abdul Hag's circa 1995... 8)

Ps: Just chatting to their different experts is fun, trying to get a valuation is more 'difficult.
Pss: Next. Kieth Floyd's Fish Soup with Rouille & Rocket Man with Elton John ?
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Re: Tutankhamun: Bust Egypt says was 'stolen' sells for £4.7m

Post by newcastle »

“Egypt's former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass told AFP news agency: "We think it left Egypt after 1970 because in that time other artefacts were stolen from Karnak Temple."

Egypt introduced laws in 1983 banning the removal of artefacts from the country.”

I submit, your honour, that apart from the total non-sequitur of Mr Hawass’ assertion, the introduction of a law in 1983 has no relevance to an artefact removed earlier.

I respectfully ask that the Egyptian claim be dismissed.

:lol: :lol: :lol:
Last edited by newcastle on Thu Jul 04, 2019 9:54 pm, edited 11 times in total.
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Re: Tutankhamun: Bust Egypt says was 'stolen' sells for £4.7m

Post by newcastle »

The suggestion that an auction house with the international reputation of Christie’s would casually sell an artefact devoid of detailed and verifiable provenance, despite claims raised by a foreign state, is laughable.
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Re: Tutankhamun: Bust Egypt says was 'stolen' sells for £4.7m

Post by Hafiz »

Tut’s Head.

A fine face sculpture is for sale in London - $US5 million plus – and the usual screaming and belching is going on about it being stolen etc. You know the standard story which contains no details and never any evidence just swingeing accusation

Forgotten is what a mere suburban lawyer would tell you do – Stg 200 for the advice – get an injunction to stall/halt the auction then commence a full legal action and produce the evidence and have it tried out by the best courts in the world – Stg 50,000-200,000 total legal costs to get the 5 million object you are so ‘certain’ is stolen. If you win the costs go to the looser – if you loose you pay the entire Stg 400,000 costs. An injunction to stop the auction might cost Stg10,000 which is a low cost option that forces a private negotiation - if you have any evidence its stolen.

The same point about going to the courts to have the facts tested could be made in dozens of other screaming cases or in the case of Nefertiti’s head in Berlin. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-auct ... SKCN1TZ1HE (Nefertiti's bust is not covered by the international treaty - only objects stolen or illegally moved after the signing of the treaty - in Egypt's case about 1966. Proving a theft 100 years ago has real problems with evidence assuming there will be no contemporaneous oral evidence of the alleged theft. Documents are likely to be no more apparent than a standard Egyptian contract in 2019)

Hawass says he ‘knows’ from mere auction house photographs that it was stolen from Karnak in the 70’s even though he is a Giza expert, has never worked at Karnak and was overseas studying at the time. Is this chap capable of telling one truth in his 75 years. https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/newsothe ... ar-AADS2A8

Use the courts – that is what everyone else does. If he is so certain then test the case with his own money.

They asked UNESCO to intervene in this matter but it didn’t – probably because the Egyptian case is little more than incontinent hot wind – as it usually is. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/07/ ... 00985.html

Failure to take legal action at this time would be regarded in an English court in any future litigation as acquiescence or admission of poor legal grounds and make any subsequent legal action much harder to win. Don’t scream murder and then walk home quietly but go to the police in a years time. In addition the object had been well known and exhibited publically for many years without a sound from the fundaments of the Supreme Antiques. If their case is so strong make the accusation at a relevant time not at the last moment.

The use of the law is the last thing the Supreme Antiques or Hawass thinks about probably because they know that their own courts are utterly corrupt and ‘therefore’ assume all others are. They also probably assume that all auctioneers are like those in Egypt and we thank god they are wrong in this matter and that the courts and that most in the rest of the world is utterly unlike Egypt.

Arguing your case on the streets and in the media is a low rent approach to intimidate that indicates poor evidence.

That they rant and rave one day before the auction in this case when the catalogue has been public for months tells you all you need to know about their devotion to hard, systematic work, monitoring the market, positive relations with auctioneers and ability to plan ahead – they have little in all these cases.

It tells you something about the sheer incompetence of the Supreme Antiques that they never ever use the standard legal systems to preserve and protect their antiques. Maybe they are as unbelievably stupid and impetuous.

These matters are carefully monitored in honest countries and the FBI and the Metropolitan have large units watching the situation whereas, as everyone knows, Egypt is a cess pit for the source of theft of its own objects and hardly, maybe never, prosecutes a local for theft. We all know that in 2011-13 there was large-scale pillage – can anyone find a single record of a single prosecution for what went on. At the very least there should have been prosecutions of the Supreme Antiques staff and the 20,000-40,000 Tourist Police who were paid to guard the sites and museums. Obviously everyone did his or her job perfectly – or not. The pillaging of Tahrir was someone’s responsibility but whose.

Next time Hawass or someone else screams in the west – walk up to them and tell them – go to court. Also ask them why Egypt was such a late signatory to the UNESCO convention which set the rules on cultural theft. If you want a contract to work for yourself you need to first sign I and at an early date.

This time the ‘hard working ’Supreme Antiques organized a last minute public demonstration by sign-carrying Egyptian rent-a-crowd nationals outside Christie’s. A pathetic stunt which added no logic and not one fact to the allegation that the object was stolen – standard foaming mouth hysteria 101. Noise not logic.

Getting value out of Tourist Police, stopping employment of interrelated family members, checking staff on and off duty and related matters might stop the daily thefts that seem to occur. Here are some of their recent priorities. Work to prevent a coin from King Farouk’s reign leaving the country and the like. The Supreme Antiques put this in their world-wide internet newsletter featuring their achievements. http://www.egyptologyforum.org/MOA/MoA_ ... nglish.pdf. Maybe they are unhinged. They also have the police searching ships to find 20th century Iraqi coins and an 18th century western walking stick. http://www.egyptologyforum.org/MOA/MoA_ ... nglish.pdf

Total Supreme Antiques staffing is approximately 77,000. One book gives the staff numbers for the West Bank in Luxor in 1998-1999. 196 guards, 115 conservators/restorers, 17 inspectors, 20 administrative staff, 150 engineers, (what would they do) and others. For those who know that administration is chaotic the permanent staff were paid by the Ministry of Finance not SCA – why? Luxorites wanting a job had to go to Cairo for an interview – why? Guards work/worked 24 hour shifts 6 to 6. Source The Modern Neighbors of Tutankhamun: History, Life, and Work in the Villages ...By Kees Van der Spek p224 - incredible detail on the disordered and obsessively detailed pay structures, how some work 1 hour a day and other hard to believe slackness. Its Monty Pythonesque and Luxor’s share out of 77,000 is disproportionately small – it should be 1/5th to 1/10th – not 1/200th

Even the Egyptian Minister said that there were 33,000 objects missing from the Tahrir/Supreme Antiques collection/storage locations. https://aawsat.com/english/home/article ... re-missing Here is a data base of news items of looted Egyptian objects. Overwhelmingly the looting/theft activity is in Egypt, and probably involving Ministry staff, and in the region. The Hawass rants about the decadent thieving West don’t fit the current facts and the local maladministration because Egypt and its brothers are doing most of the dirt. https://news.culturecrime.org/country/egypt.html

If tens of thousands of objects are missing from ‘secure’ facilities that can only mean that staff have been grossly negligent or that staff are criminals. None charged.

Starting with the work that children could do they could develop a single system of all the holdings but attempts at this go back 10-20 years with little or no results. Hawass bears a huge responsibility for this mess as do the wretchedly managed, until now, American Research Center in Egypt. The Mellon Foundation in 2006 gave large amounts (probably in the millions www.gizapyramids.org) to fix this but nothing happened except the hiring of amateur US archaeologists with no relevant experience – like Dr Scott and Dr Kamrin.

As recent as 1996 you could buy minor antiquities stolen from the museum in Khan. http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9606/18/eg ... index.html So a deal of objects on the market got there by choice or negligence.

Who is involved isn’t as unclear as first seems and was surprised to read the following from the Australian Government TV/Radio system which has a very high reputation for integrity – unlike the person they write about.

The quote:
“Egyptian authorities have also been accused of having a hand in the smuggling process, including Dr Hawass. He was taken to court in relation to smuggling and corruption in 2013, but cleared of the charges.
"This is what weak people say, that officials were involved. There is no official involved in smuggling," he says.
A foreign archaeologist, who spoke to the ABC on condition of anonymity, said they suspected inspectors were involved.
Sometimes I'm sure that inspectors are complicit, and the police are frequently complicit and in some cases the military is complicit because they fly things out in military planes," the archaeologist says.’ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-21/ ... m/10388394 October 2018. Walt Curnow is a Cairo-based journalist and former editor at Ahram Online who writes about Egyptian politics and culture.

The reference to military planes is so specific and so unexpected that its unlikely to be an invention. That the military are involved in corrupt money making should surprise no one.

If the above story is untrue Hawass should obtain an injunction to protect his reputation or sue for defamation. I’m waiting.

A joke. Sudan should scream and yell for all objects relating to the Kushitic Pharonic period, or the Greeks and Romans wanting ‘their’ objects ‘back’. Two can play this ranting hysteria. The Turks could ask for all the mosques built in their period to be dismantleD and relocated to Istanbul. The Jews are still waiting for delivery on the Camp David Accords – fair compensation for all assets stolen by Nasser. On the last matter Egypt holds a near world record for recent theft and extortion and with a much broader base than with Jewish assets. Theft is the very base of the wealth of the Nasser period.

Another joke. Because there is no record of the holdings of the Supreme Antiques there should be an ‘inspection’ of the homes of the Supreme Antiques beginning with Hawass. In 2004 Hawass faled to take the most basic steeps to jail one of the biggest looters in the world - Aboutram - an Egyptian national and huge looter out of Syria and Iraq as well. His fault not the west’s and this chap has been on the streets since. Aboutam was also a looter of ancient European objects as part of the network that included a Medici relative and Sotheby’s (Christies is the auction house involved in the auction of King Tut’s head in this matter). http://www.academia.edu/8401380/Phoenix ... ater_Again
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Re: Tutankhamun: Bust Egypt says was 'stolen' sells for £4.7m

Post by Who2 »

Sotheby's New Bond street HQ.

£4.7 million: So how much do you think this little 'gem is worth ?
15445
I plotted to steal it when I was a 'shiner cleaning windows around 5am in the West End.
15446
Obviously 'genuinely (joke) acquired probably due to some fool forgetting about it in Victorian times.

Quote:The black basalt effigy dates to around 1320 BC and was part of a collection of artefacts that came to Sotheby’s for auction in the 1880’s.

The lot was sold for £40, but the buyer never appeared to collect the statue and as such,
has remained 'in care by Sotheby’s ever since.... 8)

Ps: Well if I 'cared for it, I wouldn't leave it out in the acid rain & car fumes....
Pss: Let's face it,
the descendents would have a pretty good case and I'll bet Sotheby's has buyers records from then.
P*ss: I never did get to see how it was attached to it's plinth....'oh well !
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Re: Tutankhamun: Bust Egypt says was 'stolen' sells for £4.7m

Post by Who2 »

I used to clean lots of famous premises around the West End,
one would be surprised at what one sees at pre-dawn and dawn,
Oh! and what can fit into a 'shiners bucket.

We used to do weekly interior display windows, the window-dressers would empty the window the night before.
We would stand in Burberrys or Aquascutum's windows in Regent St, and become manikins, really freaking out the early morning pedestrians when,,,,,,,,, 'we all suddenly! moved.

We even had practised dance moves....
When Charlie married Di I had a beautiful leather belt with Charles Crest on it and it was engraved on the reverse.
£250 quid in the 1980's Burberry's, the security staff where all bigger 'tea-leaves , at least we kept it 'shiny!...

I mean, I used to clean windows where jewlers where working on diamonds,
the inside of banks for god's sake...berry bros & rudge, justerini & brooks, and all those clubs,

I once, got told off for standing on Winston's chair in Boodles, by some old Colonial General,
who was supping brandy at 11am.

The bloody thing was screwed to the floor.ffs..looking out onto St James' St.
"Oh! it's only the window cleaner" you became unnoticeable to most...
Plus, we look down on everybody! get it ?... 8)

We even held The Queens Mothers' Warrant in one company.

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Re: Tutankhamun: Bust Egypt says was 'stolen' sells for £4.7m

Post by newcastle »

It seems Egypt is not giving up on this one. Apparently, a number of businessmen have had a whip round to fund instructing a firm of UK lawyers.

Jolly decent of them. Our legal eagles need all the support they can get. :lol:

“Egypt says it will instruct a law firm in the UK to file a civil suit over the sale last week of a Tutankhamun bust.
The sculpture of the pharaoh was bought for £4.7m ($6m) at Christie's auction house in London, despite Egypt warning it was probably stolen in the 1970s.
Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Enany told the BBC that he would try to repatriate the artefact”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle ... gn=bbcnews
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Re: Tutankhamun: Bust Egypt says was 'stolen' sells for £4.7m

Post by Who2 »

My mate just gave me the next series 5 - 8 of Poirot, this new one's a doozy....
All about the Valley of the Kings and Death....
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0676164/?ref_=ttep_ep1
Ps: Another Clerkenwell blow-in, it happens, 'Clerkenwell is cool.....
"I know, I live there! . Yeh! George, 'You've told us....... 8)
Back to Poirot........
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Re: Tutankhamun: Bust Egypt says was 'stolen' sells for £4.7m

Post by Who2 »

It's a shame, Twickenham is hardly Egypt, 'location location location!
If only the Egyptian government understood that filming in Egypt helps tourism.
They charge a small-fortune to film here, arseh*les... 8)

Quote: Hercule Poirot "The power of superstition is a very great power indeed!"
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Re: Tutankhamun: Bust Egypt says was 'stolen' sells for £4.7m

Post by Horus »

You can get most of the Poirot series on Youtube including this one, but some pillock has recorded the film in mirror image.
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