Saturday, December 24, 2011

Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities opens hotline.

Via Egyptology News, it looks like the new Minister of Antiquities is already pushing out the memory of Hawass and doing his best to get the Egyptian people involved in preserving their region's history. Ahram Online reports:
The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) is to operate a hotline service to receive complaints, ideas and suggestions to help the council develop its archaeological work.
Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim announced the hotline would open on Monday. It will be operated five days per week from Sunday to Thursday from 10:00 am until 2:00 pm until its full operation in January when it will be operated 24 hours per day, seven days per week. 
I have high hopes for this guy. He's already emphasized his intent to better develop the skills and knowledge of Egypt's archaeologists and his plan to involve youth and junior archaeologists in a much bigger way. It seems Ibrahim has a thorough understanding of the weaknesses and failures in the SCA left over from Hawass's reign, and a much needed perspective on how to fix them. My only complaint is that I think there should also be an emphasis on revamping Egypt's museums; cataloguing their confusing collections under one system, upping security, making new efforts to do outreach education, etc. Can Americans call the hotline? Is that allowed?

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