The institute, made possible with a $5 million grant from the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided through the Ministry of International Cooperation (MIC) will offer MA and PhD programs in museum studies and heritage management.

Ahram Online

The museum is the main abode for the national collection of Islamic art, with 100,000 objects.

In 2003, the Ministry of Culture launched its comprehensive restoration project for the museum.

The MIA is divided into two large wings, one for Islamic objects from monuments in historic Cairo and the second for objects from other countries in the Islamic world.

Three perpetrators have been arrested with 12 of the Egyptian Museum’s missing objects in their possession after spreading videos and pictures of the objects to mobile phones of others trying to find a buyer. The Antiquities police in co-operation with the Armed Forces tracked them and set them a trap with the help of a foreigner who works at the American Embassy in Cairo convening the criminals that he will buy the objects for 50 million dollars. The objects recovered are 7 statues, 5 bronze statues and 1 limestone statue beside 5 necklaces, one is golden and the others are made of faience and colored glass.

Luxor Times

Following years of neglect, the Museum of Islamic Art has undergone comprehensive rehabilitation not only of its building and interior design, but also of its exhibition design and displays.

The MIA was first opened in 1881 with an initial display of 111 objects gathered from mosques and mausoleums across Egypt. Since then the museum has become the main abode for the national collection of Islamic art, which had reached that huge number of 100,000 objects by 2003.

That was when the Ministry of Culture launched its comprehensive restoration project for the museum. The masterplan for the renovation and the new exhibition design was drawn up by French designer and museographer Adrien Gardère in cooperation with the Islamic Department of the Louvre Museum in Paris, which has advised on the reorganisation of the museum’s collections.

The MIA is divided into two large wings; the first is devoted to the chronological exhibition of Islamic artefacts taken in the main from monuments in historic Cairo. This wing follows a broadly chronological approach in its presentation of the collection, progressing through the Umayyad, Abbasid, Tulunid, Fatimid, Ayubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods while also including various thematic displays.

The second wing displays materials from other countries in the Islamic world. These include calligraphy; manuscripts; ceramics; mosaics; textiles; gravestones; mashrabiya (latticed woodwork); wooden objects; metal and glass vessels; incense burners and caskets; pottery; metalwork and glass lamps dating from various periods in Islamic history. These objects are displayed according to both chronology and theme, provenance and material.

The renovated museum has state-of-the-art security and lighting systems, a fully-equipped restoration laboratory, a children’s museum and a library.

Excerpted from an article Nevine El-Aref for Al-Ahram

The small artist colony of Tunis is located at the western end of the Fayoum  oasis on a small elevation overlooking the lake. It is home to a number of writers, painters, and, above all, potters, whose work has made the village famous.

Five years ago, Mohamed Abla opened the Fayoum Art Center. Courses in painting, video art, sculpture, and graphics are regularly offered here.

The 55-year-old artist opened the Caricature Museum in Tunis a year ago, the first such museum in the Middle East.

The idea of the museum specifically took form after the controversy surrounding the Danish Mohammed caricature.

The spacious traditional adobe building, in which the Caricature Museum is housed, currently holds 200 caricatures from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. Most of the drawings are originals with the exception of a few items that come from newspapers and magazines.

The drawings are in color, and they seem daring, direct, and, even for their times, are political and critical of society. The styles of the artists are as various as the topics they choose to draw.

Mohamed Abla’s goal for the future is to establish contacts with caricature museums from all over the world and promote collaboration in order to achieve a greater awareness of Egyptian caricature art abroad.

He is also concerned with the issue of artists being properly paid for their work. In order to change this, the painter would like to start up a publishing house to print books and postcards of the caricatures.

After the Fayoum Art Center, the Caricature Museum, and the already envisaged caricature publishing house, the painter dreams of setting up an additional museum in Tunis devoted to the theme of Egyptian photography.

Excerpted from an article by Amira El Ahl for Qantara.de

Special thanks to Andie Byrnes for the link to the above story.

Barry Stern, 61, admitted he took the nine pieces – each more than 2,000 years old.  A preliminary search of the museum’s collection found other pieces missing.

The stolen artifacts turned up in Christie’s auction catalogue in June, from “the collection of Barry Stern”, 10 months after Stern’s contract was terminated. Eight of the objects sold for a total of $51,500.

A worker at the museum became suspicious after the auction house faxed a purchase offer to Stern at his old office.

After taking the objects, Stern deleted descriptions of the antiquities from the museum’s database, authorities said.

NY Daily News

Nina Simon is a designer of “participatory, interactive, slightly strange museum exhibits all over the place”. She’s currently writing a book called The Participatory Museum: A Practical Guide. Her post on the current state of affairs regarding photography inside museums is a thought provoking one. Here are the opposing sides of the issue in summary, and for her “very opinionated” two cents on the issue, click on the link at the end.

Five reasons why museum and other public institutions ban photography:
1.    Intellectual Property: Museums must respect diverse intellectual property agreements with donors and lenders, and in institutions where some objects are photographable and others not, it’s often easier to use the most restrictive agreements as the basis for institutional policies.
2.    Conservation: Objects may be damaged by flash photography. Some conservators argue that if non-flash photography is permitted, light levels in the galleries may be increased to accommodate visitors’ cameras, which indirectly damage artifacts.
3.    Revenue Streams: Museums want to maintain control of sales of “officially sanctioned” images of objects via catalogues and postcards. If people can take their own photos, they won’t buy them in the gift shop.
4.    Aesthetics of Experience: Photo-taking is distracting for other visitors. Looking at artwork through a lens means you are having a less rich experience. Visitors may make inappropriate gestures in photos with museum content, thus distorting institutional values and intent.
5.    Security: Photographers might take photos with intent to do harm; for example, with plans to rob the museum or stalk another visitor.

Five reasons why an open photography policy is beneficial to museums and visitors:
1.    As long as it does not promote unsafe conditions for artifacts or people or illegal behavior, museums should prioritize providing opportunities for visitors to engage in ways that are familiar and comfortable to them.
2.    Restrictive policies erode staff/visitor relations and overall museum mission statements around inclusion.
3.    Photo-taking allows visitors to memorialize and make meaning from museum experiences.
4.    Visitors use personal photos differently from store-bought ones.
5.    When people share their photos of your museum, they promote and spread your content to new audiences in authentic ways.

Museum 2.0

Ninety-six staff members of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY accepted an offer of voluntary retirement, part of a wider staff reduction that also will cut employees by layoff and attrition and bring the payroll down by 357 positions, to 2,200.

Many had served the museum for decades, and all had been there for at least 15 years and were older than 55. The list includes: Everett Fahy, chairman of the department of European paintings, with 22 years of service; Colta Ives, curator, drawings and prints, 43 years; Christine Lilyquist, curator in Egyptology, 38 years; Susan Allen, associate research curator, Egyptian art, 16 years; Kevin Avery, associate curator, American painting and sculpture, 20 years; Lucy Belloli, conservator of paintings, 27 years; Takemitsu Oba, conservator of Asian Art, 31 years; Sondra Castile, conservator of Asian art, 31 years.

ARTINFO

The sequel to Ben Stiller’s Night at the Museum opens this week, cumbersomely titled Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. In the first film, Larry, a divorced dad played by Stiller, ends up as a night watchmen at the Museum of Natural History. What sets the movie’s plot in motion by magically causing all the museum’s creatures and statues to come to life? Something called the Tablet of Akmenrah from Ancient Egypt.

Let’s face it: there is something about ancient Egypt that fascinates modern man.

And why wouldn’t it? It’s one of the oldest civilizations known to us, yet capable of creating astounding works of art and architecture that survive to this day. The Ancient Egyptians seem exotic to us, almost alien, and yet oddly familiar – they went to school, worked, worshiped their gods, and got drunk, just like we do today. And in that order, too.

For fantasy fans in particular, Egypt holds a special appeal. Mysticism was a way of life in Egypt. There was a strong belief in gods, the afterlife, and magic, and this acceptance of the supernatural, coupled with their infamous practices concerning dead bodies, can create a strong foundation for a great fantasy story.

Excerpted from an article by Tim O’Leary for The Torch Online

Musée de la Civilisacion is located in Quebec, Canada.  Their latest exhibit takes you back to ancient Egypt to learn about the process behind mummification, and the significance of the rituals these desert dwellers engaged in to secure a blissful afterlife.

The exhibit website has a variety of features to engage the user in the learning process.  When you enter, you choose between French of English, and immediately are immersed in a world where organs are placed in jars and ancient gods assist the dead on their journey into the afterlife.

There are three stages of learning that one must go through before entering the “Sarcophagi Chamber” to earn your place in the underworld.  If you successfully complete all three stages, you will be awarded a place in the Sarcophagi Chamber, along with a cartouche of your own name in a customizable wallpaper image.

If you have an interest in Egyptian mythology, or even just a few minutes to kill on some fun, easy games, definitely check it out.

Excerpted from an article by Austin Keenan for inventorspot.com