For good reason, the man in charge on the ground sounds profoundly tired, and angry, over the phone. Ahmed Sharaf, the chief of museums at Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry, is taking stock of the latest heritage catastrophe to strike his country, yet another in the region’s tragic tally of such events in recent years. He has strong feelings about the truck bombing that severely damaged Cairo’s Museum of Islamic Art at about 7 a.m. on Jan. 24. Intended for the police headquarters nearby, it killed four people, injured 76 and sent a storm of debris through the museum, shattering windows and glass cases and wrecking priceless objects.
Read More: Another Hit on Egypt
See also: Triage for Treasures After a Bomb Blast