Last March, the museum world shut down. Closing to the public, many museums laid off staff and shifted into survival mode. It was a scary prospect for students in the museum programs at Tufts—would there be jobs when we graduate? Even more immediately—how could we …
The Egyptian National Museum is still not entirely safe, unfortunately. Turns out that it’s right next door to the national headquarters for Egypt’s ruling party, the focus of much of the protesters’ ire. Said building is still on fire, and firefighters worry that if the …
Breaking news from Cairo, where government protesters have been filling the streets for several days now: fires are breaking out near the Egyptian National Museum.
The whole country is in a communications lockdown, so reporting is very much in flux. Reuters has confirmed however that the Egyptian army has been called out to secure the museum.
The Egyptian National Museum is home to the greatest ancient Egyptian treasures in the world, including King Tut’s mask. The next few hours should offer more complete information about exactly how much danger the museum’s artifacts (and staffers) are in. We’ll have updates here when we know anything for sure.
For more about the Egyptian protests, check out the New York Times. Their front page is entirely given over to covering various aspects of the crisis.