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Until the mid-19th century, there was no
regulation of the antiquities trade in Egypt.
Thousands of artifacts, from jewelry and
statuettes to reliefs and even entire monuments,
were taken from their ancient contexts and
shipped to private and museum collections around
the world. The Western demand for pharaonic
artifacts was intensified by the Napoleonic
Expedition (1798-1801) and the subsequent
publication of the multi-volume Description de
l’Egypte, which stimulated global interest in
Egypt and its ancient monuments.
The first step toward the control of Egyptian
antiquities was taken on 15 August 1835, when
the ruler of Egypt, Mohamed Ali issued a decree
banning the unauthorized removal of antiquities
from the country. This decree also designated a
building in the Ezbekiah Gardens, Cairo, to
serve as a storehouse for artifacts.
Unfortunately, these antiquities were often
given by Egyptian rulers to foreign dignitaries
as gifts, and by the mid-1800s, the collection
was so small that it could be housed in a single
room at the Citadel. In 1855 what remained of
the collection was presented by Abbas Pasha as a
gift to the Austrian Archduke Maximilian.
In 1858 Said Pasha, then Viceroy of Egypt,
approved the creation of the Antiquities Service
(officially the Service des Antiquités) to stem
the continuing illicit trade in Egyptian
artifacts, and appointed French scholar Auguste
Mariette as its director. This new governmental
department was responsible for carrying out its
own excavations, and also for approving and
supervising foreign archaeological missions.
Mariette created the first national museum in
the Near East, which opened in 1863 in an old
City Transit Authority building in the Boulaq
section of Cairo.
For almost a century, the Antiquities Service
was headed by French scholars. In the early
1950s, when British colonial troops finally left
Egypt, the Antiquities Service truly became an
Egyptian-run organization.. The first Egyptian
director, Mostafa Amer, was appointed in 1953
and held the post for three years. For many
years, the Antiquities Service was under the
direction of the Ministry of Education; in 1960,
it was transferred to the Ministry of Culture.
In 1971, during the tenure of Gamal Mokhtar, the
Antiquities Service was renamed the Egyptian
Antiquities Organization (EAO).
In 1994, the name of the department was changed
to the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) by
Presidential Decree Number 82. The first
Secretary General of the SCA was Mohammed Abdel
Halim Nur el-Din.
In january 2011 the SCA became an independent ministry and the name was changed to Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA).
The current Secretary General of the SCA is Mohammad Ibrahim.
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Antiquities Service |
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French
Directors |
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Auguste
Mariette |
(1858-1881) |
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Gaston
Maspero |
(1881-1886) |
|
Eugène
Grébaut |
(1886-1892) |
|
Jacques de
Morgan |
(1892-1897) |
|
Victor Loret |
(1897-1899) |
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Gaston
Maspero |
(1899-1914) |
|
Pierre Lacau |
(1914-1936) |
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Étienne
Drioton |
(1936-1952) |
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Egyptian
Directors |
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|
Mostafa
Amer |
(1953-1956) |
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Abbas
Bayoumi |
(1956-1957) |
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Moharram
Kamal |
(1957-1959) |
|
Abd
el-Fattah Hilmy |
(1959) |
|
Mohammed
Anwar Shoukry |
(1960-1964) |
|
Mohammed
Mahdi |
(1964-1966) |
|
Gamal
Mokhtar |
(1967-1971) |
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Egyptian Antiquities Organization |
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|
Gamal
Mokhtar |
(1971-1977) |
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Mohammed Abd
el-Qader Mohammed |
(1977-1978) |
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Shehata
Adam |
(1978-1981) |
|
Fuad
el-Oraby |
(1981) |
| Ahmed Khadry |
(1982-1988) |
|
Mohammed
Abdel Halim Nur el-Din |
(1988) |
|
Sayed
Tawfik |
(1989-1990) |
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Mohammed
Ibrahim Bakr |
(1990-1993) |
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Supreme Council of Antiquities |
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Mohammed
Abdel Halim Nur el-Din |
(1993-1996) |
|
Ali Hassan |
(1996-1997) |
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Gaballa
Ali Gaballa |
(1997-2002) |
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Zahi
Hawass |
(2002-2011) |
| Mohamed Abdel Fattah |
(2011) |
| Moustapha Amine |
(2011–2013) |
| Mohammad Ibrahim |
(present) |
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Belzoni removing a statue of Ramses II
from the Ramesseum (unknown) |
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Auguste
Mariette (unknown) |
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The Boulaq
Museum (SCA Archives) |
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Ahmed Pasha Kamal (1851-1923), the first
Egyptian scholar of Egyptology. (SCA
Archives) |
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Dr. Zahi Hawass,
Former Secretary General of the SCA
(Ken Garrett) |
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