SCIENCE, Page 60Perilous Times for the PyramidsWithout help soon, Egypt's unique archaeological treasureswill be lost to humanityBy 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.
