TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/051589/05158900.012

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                                                                                SCIENCE, Page 60

Perilous Times for the Pyramids


Without help soon, Egypt's unique archaeological treasures will
be lost to humanity

By Michael D. Lemonick


    Sitting impassively on the sunbaked Giza Plateau on Cairo's
outskirts, the pyramids look from a distance as though they
have hardly aged in the more than 4 1/2 millenniums since they
were built. But up close they look anything but eternal. Rubble
and rock dust crumbling from the pyramid of Chephren have
accumulated in piles on its lower levels. In the pyramid of
Cheops, encrustations of salt, left by the evaporation of
brackish groundwater, have eaten away at the walls of the burial
chamber. The Sphinx, a few hundred feet away from the pyramids,
has lost a 600-lb. chunk from its right shoulder, and the neck
is so weak that the statue's massive head is in danger of
falling off.

    Throughout Egypt, the story is much the same. The walls of
the Temple of Luxor, some 400 miles upriver from Cairo, are
cracking so badly that President Hosni Mubarak, visiting the
site in February, called for a thorough restoration. Nearly a
fifth of the wall paintings at the tomb of Nefertari, across the
Nile from Luxor in the Valley of the Queens, have been destroyed
by salt deposits. In fact, says Zahi Hawass, who supervises the
Giza Plateau for the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, "all the
monuments are endangered. If we don't do something soon, in 100
years the paintings will be gone, and in 200 years the
architecture will be gone." Such a tragedy would be felt far
beyond Egypt's borders. The country boasts an estimated 10,000
antiquities sites, and, notes British Egyptologist Michael
Jones, "these monuments are a non-renewable resource." The
tombs, temples, paintings and inscriptions add up to an
incomparable record of the lives and beliefs of people in one
of humanity's most ancient civilizations, which influenced the
development of modern cultures throughout the world. "We are the
guardians of a unique heritage," says the EAO's Ali Hassan. Such
guardianship is expensive, though, and calls for far more
expertise than any one nation -- especially a developing one --
can hope to muster. Saving ancient sites that are revered around
the globe requires global cooperation.

    The age of the Egyptian antiquities makes their
preservation difficult enough. The pyramids were ancient when
the Romans invaded Egypt, and the Sphinx, made of soft, easily
eroded limestone, already had a 2,000-year history of
deterioration and attempted repairs. But the ravages of time
pale next to the destruction wrought by man. The burgeoning
Egyptian population, which today tops 53 million, has combined
with the hordes of tourists arriving each year to wreak more
havoc in the past few decades than the effects of thousands of
years of erosion.

    As the number of Egyptians increases, people have spilled
out of the cities in search of housing. The Giza Plateau, once
far from urban sprawl, now lies almost in the shadow of modern
apartment buildings. Nearby factories and old vehicles spew
forth noxious clouds of particulate-laden exhaust, which becomes
corrosive when dissolved by rain. Vibrations from traffic
produce cracks in the monuments. More serious still is the
damage caused by water. An estimated 80% of Cairo's incoming
water supply escapes from leaking pipes into the ground. And the
aging sewerage system, built 75 years ago to serve a population
of half a million, is choking on the wastes of 13 million. Much
of the wastewater overflows into the soil.

    The resulting rise in the water table gradually undermines
the foundations of buildings, causing them to list and even
collapse. In 1987, according to Luis Monreal, director of the
Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, at least one house
fell down in old Cairo every day. "The damage is irretrievable,"
he says.

    Many experts believe the ground-water problems have been
exacerbated by the Aswan High Dam. Completed in 1970, it
stopped the annual flooding of the Nile and made much more land
available for agriculture. But the extensive irrigation used to
make that land arable, along with poor drainage, has helped
cause the rise in the water table's average level.

    As the groundwater rises, it dissolves mineral salts from
the soil and bedrock. Ancient buildings, many made of porous
limestone, act like sponges, sucking this salty water from the
ground. When the water evaporates, the salts are left behind;
when this happens at the stone's surface, these crystallize into
destructive white lesions.

    Then there are the tourists. "The pyramids," laments
Hawass, "are the only monuments in the world where you can drive
up and park your car. Even in Disneyland you have to park a mile
away." Last year alone 1,969,493 visitors came to look at -- and
touch and breathe on -- Egypt's treasures. Just six people
breathing inside a tomb for an hour can raise the humidity by
5 percentage points. And higher humidity provides a hospitable
environment for bacteria, algae and fungi that grow on
paintings. Sighs Hassan: "Three thousand people a day visit King
Tut's tomb. They sweat. I can't prevent that, but it is
destroying the tomb."

    Egyptians are justly proud of their Pharaonic heritage, and
whenever there is a report that monuments are threatened, a
public outcry quickly follows. But in a country that cannot
provide enough housing or food for its people, preserving and
restoring antiquities is far from the top of the domestic
political agenda. The budget this year for archaeological
preservation is a mere $6 million, virtually all of it from the
fees tourists pay to visit the monuments and museums.

    Under the circumstances, the Egyptians have done remarkably
well. Their largest and most visible project is a $17 million
effort to clean up the pyramids' site and restore 15 tombs on
the Giza Plateau. Workers have begun clearing away tons of sand
and rubbish, thus eliminating one source of wind-borne erosion.
They have also begun shoring up about 30 ft. of the crumbling
stones at the base of the pyramid of Cheops.

    Under new regulations, camel drivers and peddlers, who have
hassled tourists since the time of Herodotus, are barred from
the grounds around the pyramids. Cars will be banned too, as
soon as outlying parking lots are completed. Visitors will ride
electric buses to the monuments. The plan also calls for
improving sewage drainage for the growing population of
squatters living a few hundred yards from the pyramids. All
told, the undertaking could take at least five years to
complete.

    In the meantime, the Egyptians plan to have teams of
archaeologists and engineers make annual evaluations of
historic sites throughout the country to learn which are most
in need of attention. Several have been singled out for the
first round of studies. Among them:

    The Sphinx. Its limestone, fragile to begin with, erodes
rapidly when it comes in contact with water. "Even the ancient
Egyptians knew this rock was not in good condition," notes
Sayed Tawfik, chairman of the EAO. Repairs in the early 1980s
used cement, which introduced water to the limestone and
trapped existing water inside. More recently, workers have used
dry limestone powder, similar in composition to the original
rock, to strengthen the base of the Sphinx. One proposal from
the Getty Institute's Monreal: place the entire statue under a
protective canopy for several months at least, while exploring
alternatives. The Ministry of Tourism vetoed that idea.

    The Temple of Luxor. At this 33-century-old complex, it was
discovered two years ago that pillars in the courtyard of
Amenhotep III were leaning ominously. They are now propped up
with wooden scaffolding, while preservation experts decide what
to do next. The temple's limestone walls have cracked, and the
Battle of Kadesh carved on its massive pylons has faded. A
report suggesting ways to stabilize the ground underneath them
from leaning farther is expected soon.

    The Oracle Temple of Siwa Oasis. The walls of this 4th
century B.C. temple, where Alexander the Great was supposedly
crowned King of Egypt, have developed cracks and are in danger
of falling. Egyptian officials hope to save the monument by
moving it piece by piece from its present site on shifting sand
in the Western Desert to firmer ground. The big question is
where to put it.

    Deir al-Bahri. A 3,400-year-old tomb-and-temple complex
near Luxor, it is threatened by landslides from a nearby
mountain. The most likely remedy is a chain-link fence to
protect the monument from falling rocks. Meanwhile, the Polish
Center of Archaeology in Cairo has been doing restoration work
on parts of the temple. One project: using gypsum to patch up
and refinish a statue of the god Osiris.

    But even if major salvage projects could be launched
immediately for all these sites, many more are in urgent need
of attention. In the tomb of Seti I, dating from about 1300
B.C., paintings and reliefs are falling off the walls and
ceilings. At the Greco-Roman Temple of Sobek and Horus at Kom
Ombo, salt buildup has eroded reliefs and inscriptions carved
into the temple's walls and pillars. Even in the Temple of Horus
at Edfu (3rd century B.C. to 2nd century B.C.), one of the
best-preserved temples, inscriptions are endangered by dampness.

    Besides making intensive efforts to restore specific
monuments, EAO officials want to develop general strategies for
keeping sites from deteriorating further. Hawass suggests
creating a zone of protection around each valuable monument.
"Sites in Egypt are not protected at all," he says. "We need to
take away all mechanical activity for at least two to three
miles around them." Tawfik proposes eventually planting trees
around all outdoor monuments to protect them from winds as well
as to absorb moisture. Within monuments, he wants to install
clear plastic shields to prevent tourists from touching
paintings and inscriptions and air-cleaning systems to remove
moisture and dust.

    Egypt has nowhere near enough money to pay for such an
ambitious restoration program by itself. But it could generate
significantly more revenues with one simple move: raising the
laughably low entrance fees charged tourists. Tombs, for
example, are often free, and visitors to the pyramids are
charged only about $1.25. There are plans to double that fee,
but it could be doubled again and still remain a bargain.

    There need to be governmental changes as well. The EAO, now
just a department within the Ministry of Culture, should be
raised to full ministerial status. The agency cannot hold its
own politically against the Ministry of Tourism, which favors
expanded access to ancient sites. At the same time, the standing
of Egypt's poorly paid archaeologists should be elevated.

    Meanwhile, the Egyptians will have to continue depending on
foreign expertise as well as money. That generates suspicion in
a country whose treasures for years have been spirited away by
scholars and souvenir hunters. Such removals have become rare,
but most visitors still have little interest in preservation.
A few foreign groups, however, have made major contributions.
The University of Chicago's Oriental Institute has been
documenting and helping to preserve the temples and tombs at
Luxor since the late 1920s. And perhaps the model project is the
spectacular effort to restore Nefertari's tomb. The
32-century-old mausoleum, discovered in 1904, has been
officially closed since the early 1950s because of its fragile
condition. Beginning in 1986, the Getty Institute, in
partnership with the EAO, started the delicate, painstaking
salvage of the remaining wall paintings.

    First, an international team assessed the damage to the
tomb and surveyed the local geology and climate. Next, restorers
pasted mulberry-bark paper and cotton gauze over the most
precarious wall paintings to ensure that they would not
collapse. Eventually, the covering was removed, and the
paintings were fortified with acrylics and cleaned. To prevent
water damage from recurring, the Getty researchers may install
waterproof insulation. It has taken nearly two years to treat
60% of the tomb; the project may be completed by mid-1991.

    Such efforts will not keep pace with the inexorable
deterioration of the monuments unless the Egyptians can speed
up their preservation drive. That is why Mubarak's visit to
Luxor, the first since he took office in 1981, was so
significant. He not only called for a restoration of the Luxor
Temple but also a halt to urban encroachments on all
archaeological sites. If Mubarak does throw his power behind
preservation, he may encourage the Egyptians to take charge of
their own priceless heritage and other nations to lend a hand
as well. After all, if the monuments of the Pharaonic
civilization are allowed to crumble, the whole world will share
the loss.


-- Andrea Dorfman/New York and Dean Fischer and David S.
Jackson/Cairo