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~ This site brings together news stories, articles, photo essays, reviews, publications, conference proceedings, gallery events and exhibitions relating to the fields of Islamic art, architecture and archaeology.

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Category Archives: Museums – Middle East – Egypt

Egyptian Ruins

07 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Museums - Middle East - Egypt

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Museum of Islamic Art Cairo 4

At 6:30 a.m. on an unseasonably warm Friday in late January last year [2014], a parked car filled with high explosives detonated outside Cairo’s famed Museum of Islamic Art. The blast blew out the building’s cathedral-like windows, hurled a streetlight through the thick front doors, and pockmarked the façade with cannonball-sized cracks. Inside the cavernous, smoke-filled space, the devastation was even more jarring. After boring a deep crater into the road at the foot of the adjacent police headquarters, the shock waves had torn through the flimsy aluminum shutters and shattered over 250 displays of ceramic art and glasswork.

Read More: Egyptian Ruins

In Mameluke Lands

06 Saturday Sep 2014

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Museums - Middle East - Egypt

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Museum of Islamic Art Cairo 2

The scene at Bab Al-Khalq in Cairo has almost returned to normal. The January car bomb attack that targeted the Cairo Security Directorate on Port Said Street, where the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) is located, caused heavy damage and killed four people. Now, with the directorate restored, the street is once more buzzing with activity. But the façade of the MIA, which features elaborate decorations in the Islamic style, remains damaged and the shattered glass of the windows has not been replaced. In place of the authentic Mameluke gate, inlaid with silver and iron geometric motifs, stands a temporary mud-brick wall. Ever since the 24 January bombing, the facility has been closed to visitors.

Read More: In Mameluke Lands

The United Arab Emirates is to Restore the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo

28 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Museums - Middle East - Egypt

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Islamic museum after bombing, Cairo, Egypt, 26 January 2014.

After a seven-month hiatus, restoration work of the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) in central Cairo is finally set to begin. The MIA was subjected to severe destruction and damage in January after a car bomb exploded outside the adjacent Cairo Security Directorate. The blast of the bomb destroyed the facade of the building and the nearby Egyptian National Library and Archives building.

Read More: The United Arab Emirates is to Restore the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo

Good Fortune Helps Egypt Recover Its Stolen Heritage

27 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Artworks - Theft, Museums - Middle East - Egypt

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Egypt's stolen heritage

When French Egyptologist Olivier Perdu saw a fragment of a pharaonic statue on display in a Brussels gallery last year, he assumed it was a twin of an ancient masterpiece he had examined in Egypt a quarter of a century earlier. The reality was an even more remarkable coincidence: the fragment was part of the very same artifact — a unique 6th century BC statue hewn from pale green stone — that Perdu had received special permission to study in Cairo in 1989. The statue, a 29 cm-high (11 inches) representation of a man wearing a pharaonic headdress was smashed by looters who broke into the Cairo Museum during the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak. Its top portion had been missing since then.

Read More: Good Fortune Helps Egypt Recover Its Stolen Heritage

Experts Rally to Save Egypt’s Heritage Amid Unrest

07 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Conservation - Egypt, Museums - Middle East - Egypt

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Islamic Museum Cairo 6

In late January, a car bomb targeting the Cairo police headquarters damaged a number of antiquities housed across the street at the Museum of Islamic Art. This was far from the first time that Egypt’s cultural heritage has suffered from the security problems plaguing the country since the revolution. This time around, however, a volunteer brigade of antiquities experts was standing ready to jump in.

Read More: Experts Rally to Save Egypt’s Heritage Amid Unrest

See also: Triage for Treasures After a Bomb Blast

Another Hit on Egypt

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Museums - Middle East - Egypt

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Islamic Museum Cairo 5

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

Triage for Treasures After a Bomb Blast

01 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Museums - Middle East - Egypt

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Islamic Museum Cairo 4

A man in a white lab coat sat alone among piles of blown-off ceiling, mangled metal and splintered wood here on Thursday inside the Museum of Islamic Art — home to a world-renowned collection that covers centuries of art from countries across the Islamic world. He carefully separated ochre-tinted pieces of old glass from the clear shards of modern showcases.

Read More: Triage for Treasures After a Bomb Blast

See also: Art Enthusiasts Mourn Loss of Islamic Artefacts in Cairo Bomb Blast

Art Enthusiasts Mourn Loss of Islamic Artefacts in Cairo Bomb Blast

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Museums - Middle East - Egypt

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Islamic Museum Cairo 3

Art experts and enthusiasts strongly condemned the devastation wreaked last week at the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, which was damaged in a blast aimed at the nearby Cairo security directorate on Friday (January 24th). Two car bombs exploded outside the directorate last week, killing four people and inflicting heavy damage on the building and collections of the Museum of Islamic Art, located opposite the directorate on Port Said Street.

Read More: Art Enthusiasts Mourn Loss of Islamic Artefacts in Cairo Bomb Blast

See also: Cairo Blast Rips into Islamic Art Museum

Cairo Blast Rips into Islamic Art Museum, Damaging Key Global Collection

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Museums - Middle East - Egypt

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Islamic Museum Cairo 2

Cairo’s Museum of Islamic Art — home to almost 100,000 priceless artifacts that comprise one of the world’s most important collections of its kind — was extensively damaged when a car bomb exploded early Friday morning outside police headquarters across the street.

Read More: Cairo Blast Rips into Islamic Art Museum

See also: Islamic Museum in Cairo Seriously Damaged After Bomb Blast

Islamic Museum in Cairo Seriously Damaged After Bomb Blast

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Museums - Middle East - Egypt

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Islamic Museum Cairo

The facade of the Museum of Islamic Art in central Cairo has been completely destroyed by a powerful car bomb that exploded outside the adjacent Cairo Security Directorate early on Friday morning. Four people were killed and at least 76 injured in the bomb last, according to health ministry figures. The blast of the bomb also destroyed the facade of the nearby Egyptian National Library and Archives building.

Read More: Islamic Museum in Cairo Seriously Damaged After Bomb Blast

See also: Bomb Damages Egypt’s National Library and Archives

Bomb Damages Egypt’s National Library and Archives

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Museums - Middle East - Egypt

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National Library and Archives Egypt

The car bomb which gutted Cairo’s central police headquarters early on Friday morning has also caused severe structural damage to Egypt’s National Library and Archives (NLA), located across the street from the security directorate targeted in the blast.

Read More: Bomb Damages Egypt’s National Library and Archives

Egypt Antiquities Ministry Says No Islamic Artefacts are Missing

10 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Museums - Middle East - Egypt

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Egyptian Antiquities Authority

A number of artefacts exhibited at Doha’s Museum of Islamic Arts (MIA) are not from Cairo’s Museum of Islamic Arts (MIA), Egyptian Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said at a press conference on Monday [September 9th, 2013]. Over the weekend, artists and activists wrote on social media sites that 35 objects from Cairo’s MIA had suddenly appeared in the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar.

Read More: Egypt Antiquities Ministry Says No Islamic Artefacts are Missing

Islamic Art Museum’s Wondrous Diversity

08 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Museums - Middle East - Egypt

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Museum of Islamic Art Cairo

The origin of Cairo’s outstanding Museum of Islamic Art dates back to the era of Khedive Ismail era (ruled from 1863-1879), when it was decided to start collecting examples of rare woodwork and plaster artefacts, as well as metal, ceramic, glass, crystal, and textile objects of all periods, from throughout the Islamic world.

Read More: Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo

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