From: "David I. Owen" <dio1@cornell.edu>
Reply-To: dio1@cornell.edu
Subject: Fw: UNESCO says Egypt violating Pyramids site

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From: C-reuters@clarinet.com (Reuter / Jonathan Wright)
Subject: UNESCO says Egypt violating Pyramids site
Copyright: 1994 by Reuters, R
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 94 8:00:31 PST


         CAIRO (Reuter) - Egypt has violated an international
convention on heritage sites by building an eight-lane highway
right across the plateau on which the Pyramids of Giza stand, a
senior UNESCO official said Thursday.
         Said Zulficar, director of operational activities in the
cultural heritage division of UNESCO, said the highway was only
one of many building projects that encroach on a site listed
under the 1972 World Cultural and Natural Heritage Convention.
         The encroachments, including a factory, garbage dumps,
military installations and a new complex to house 15,000 people,
also break the Egyptian law passed in 1983 to win world heritage
status for the Giza plateau, he said.
         ``It's totally illegal, a violation of the convention. And
the Pyramids are the only remaining wonder of the world,'' he
told Reuters by telephone from UNESCO headquarters.
         Zulficar is asking UNESCO director-general Federico Mayor to
write to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to draw his attention
to the violation and ask him to remove the encroachments.
         ``Ways must be found to redress the situation and UNESCO
will offer its help in that,'' he added.
         Zulficar said he discovered the violations on a private
visit to Egypt earlier this month, though much of the building
had in fact started years ago without any protest.
         The listing protects a broad strip of the desert between the
Giza pyramids in the north and the less well-known pyramids of
Dahshour about 17 miles to the south.
         Some of the encroachments, including the unfinished highway,
are inside the archeological site itself, where building is
banned, and others in a buffer zone, where there are strict
limits on the types and heights of buildings, Zulficar said.
         ``The new housing goes right up to the fringe of the
archeological zone. It's a horror -- blocks of flats six storys
high and they are cutting down the palm trees little by little
as they build,'' he said.
         ``Soon it will be completely urbanized and the Pyramids will
be surrounded like the Acropolis in Athens,'' he added.

From: C-reuters@clarinet.com (Reuters)
Subject: Egypt to dig for tombs near controversial highway
Copyright: 1994 by Reuters, R
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 94 5:10:03 PST


         CAIRO (Reuter) - Egyptian archaeologists will resume
excavations around the site of an eight-lane highway that UNESCO
says violates the international convention protecting the Giza
Pyramids plateau, the archaeologist in charge said Wednesday.
         Zahi Hawass, director of antiquities in the pyramids area,
told Reuters he was confident they would find antiquities there.
In that case, the government would have to suspend building the
highway, which is part of a beltway circling Cairo.
         ``We will start some time next week in the immediate area of
the ring road (beltway) and the excavations will continue for
six months to start with,'' he said.
         ``I'm sure there are tombs there from the period between the
26th dynasty (seventh and sixth centuries BC) and the
Greco-Roman period... I have a nose for this,'' he added. ``If
we find something, this road has to be stopped.''
         Egypt's Supreme Antiquities Council, embarrassed by the
recent publicity about encroachments on the plateau, has
allocated an initial sum of $15,000 for the excavation work,
officials said.
         A senior UNESCO official said last week the highway and
other building work on the plateau violate agreements listing
the plateau as a world heritage site, as well as the Egyptian
law that made it possible for the site to obtain this status.
         UNESCO director-general Federico Mayor is expected to write
to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to draw his attention to the
violations and ask him to remove them.