SCA chief Waziry meets host of foreign officials

Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), Mostafa Waziry, has met a host of international antiquities officials to discuss cooperation.

The officials meeting the SCA chief included Vito Cecere, director for research and academic relations policy, education and research policy and cultural relations policy at the German Federal Foreign Office.

They discussed ways of enhancing archaeological cooperation, especially in the light of fruitful cooperation between Egypt and Germany in a number of archaeological projects in the past period, including the Aten Museum in Minya.

Several German archaeological missions also work in Egypt at present.

Waziry and Cecere also discussed the exchange of scientific expertise and cadres in the fields of archaeological work and museums.

Tilman Hochmüller, deputy head of the German Mission; Felix Haala, the head of culture and education at the German embassy in Cairo; Dietrich Raue, director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, and Hisham el-Leithy, head of the Central Administration for Recording Egyptian Antiquities attended the meeting which took place late on Wednesday.

Secretary-General Waziry held another meeting on the same day with Corrado Basile, founder of the Papyrus Museum in Siracusa, Italy, and Mrs Ana Di Natale, director of the Papyrus Museum in Siracusa, to discuss cooperation in antiquities’ preservation.

Following the meeting, the Italian delegation visited the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir to see the Papyrus Waziry One, which was unearthed in Saqqara last May by the Egyptian archaeological mission led by Waziry.

This papyrus has been on display in the museum since last month after the completion of its restoration, in conjunction with the opening of the first phase of the development of the museum.

Waziry also met Ms Tamara Rastovac Siamashvili, chairperson of the Executive Board of UNESCO, and Dr Nuria Sanz, the regional director of UNESCO, to discuss progress on projects implemented in cooperation with the United Nations body in the field of preserving antiquities and heritage.

Siamashvili expressed satisfaction with the efforts made by the SCA in the field of excavations and heritage preservation.

Waziry, for his part, reviewed the latest developments in the excavation and restoration works in various archaeological sites, including the restoration of the statues of Luxor temple and the project to remove the dirt to reveal the inscriptions and the bright colours of Karnak temples.

The UNESCO delegation then visited the Giza Plateau and Historic Cairo, which are registered on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The members of the delegation also toured the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation in Fustat, southern Cairo.

Egypt and UNESCO have been working together for many years now. Egypt is one of the founding countries of this UN body. UNESCO’s office in Cairo was the first regional office to be established by the organisation outside Paris.