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Dear H-Islamart members, As some of you may know, the Islamic monuments of Historic Cairo have recently been struck by a series of damaging thefts. Many unique and precious objects have been looted from mosques and other important monuments. In some instances, it is believed that the larger furnishings and architectural elements were stolen to be sold and used as raw material; while in other cases, mosque furniture was purposefully stripped of carved and decorated pieces, perhaps to be sold off in the international art market. The purpose of this message is to raise the level of awareness of these incidents in the hope of preventing Cairo's monuments from being further compromised. In a few months time, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) will launch a comprehensive website, with regularly updated pages specifically devoted to publicizing artifacts looted from Egypt. These pages will support the work of the Department for the Repatriation of Stolen Antiquities, which works towards their return. We ask that if anyone has information on such cases to please contact Dr. Ahmed Osman Mostafa, Head of the Stolen Antiquities Department, at antiquities.return@yahoo.com (cc. Iman Abdulfattah at i.abdulfattah@gmail.com). n the meantime, PDF files on each monument for which we know objects are missing, with photos and details of the objects in question, will soon follow. The SCA would like to thank the scholars, both in Egypt and abroad, that are contributing to this cause by providing images of the missing pieces and compiling documentation. We encourage you to circulate this message widely to other scholars, museum professionals, art institutions and art dealers! Thank you, Iman Abdulfattah -- Iman R. Abdulfattah Islamic Art Historian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) 3 el-Adel Abu Bakr Street Zamalek, Cairo, Egypt Phone: +2/02 2736-5645 Fax: +2/02 2735-7239 E-mail: i.abdulfattah@gmail.com
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