Egypt says historical sites will reopen Sunday Valuable statue of King Tut’s dad, one of 18 stolen antiquities, is recovered

“There have also been many reports of attacks
on archaeological lands through the building
of houses and illegal digging,” it said.

After police and government officials met to
discuss security, Hawass announced that “all
of the Pharaonic, Coptic, Islamic, and modern
sites will reopen to the public” on Sunday,
according to a ministry statement.

The pyramids of Giza are already open, but
most tourists fled Egypt earlier this month. An
outbreak of labor unrest and uncertainty over
a military-supervised political transition
indicate tourism is unlikely to recover in the
short term.

Egyptian officials had said the magnificent
legacy of their ancient civilization emerged
largely intact from the chaos in Cairo and
elsewhere in the country. The spectacle of
civilians forming a human chain to protect the
Egyptian Museum testified to a sense of
national pride in the past that may have
averted more widespread damage.

“Egypt is an outdoor museum,” said Dr. Robert
Littman, a member of the governing board of
the Archaeological Institute of America. “There
are thousands of sites everywhere, and
inevitably when there’s disorder, there’s
always going to be a few who try to take
advantage of the situation.”

The most important object that went missing
from the Egyptian Museum in the upheaval was
the limestone statue of the Akhenaten, father
of the famed King Tutankhamen. It depicts the
standing pharaoh with a blue crown, holding
an offering table in his hands. The table was
found separately inside the museum.

The antiquities ministry said a youth found the
statue, which has an alabaster base, and his
mother contacted her brother, a professor at
the American University of Cairo. He, in turn,
contacted officials to arrange its return on
Wednesday. The statue, about 1-foot tall, will
undergo restoration before being returned to
its display case.

Littman said the statue was “extremely
important” because it is one of the few
surviving depictions of Akhenaten, who built
the city of Amarna and introduced an early
form of monotheism, doing away with the
worship of the chief god, Amun.

The king ruled for nearly two decades, and
after his death ancient Egyptians went back to
worshipping Amun, destroying images and
statues of Akhenaten.