Absurd story in Egypt: they create a fake tomb to fool tourists and fans

An absurd story comes fromEgypt, where a completely fake Egyptian tomb has been discovered, built specifically to scam fans and tourists. Telling the incredible story is Al-Arabiya, one of the Arab world’s leading television stations, in its online Egypt edition. Confirming the news to Al-Arabiya was the secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, who revealed the details: the tomb was located in the governorate of Beni Suef, a city on the left bank of the Nile about a hundred kilometers from Cairo, and it summarily and amateurishly recreated the appearance of an ancient tomb, however with unthinkable materials. In fact, the statues were shoddy plastic imitations, the sarcophagi were made of plaster, and the walls of plywood. All copying the subjects from books on ancient Egypt. The objects, when they had not been created from scratch, had been purchased from markets selling souvenirs to tourists.

So much for an ancient tomb: Waziri let it be known that all the artifacts were no older than... one year old. And moreover, that the fake inscriptions had nothing to do with ancient Egyptian civilization. The discovery was made from a complaint to the Beni Suef Public Prosecutor’s Office, which decided to form a technical committee of experts, headed by Beni Suef’s director of antiquities, Omar Zaki, to inspect the site, located inside a mountain, where the impromptu forgers had dug a 10-meter-long tunnel carving out three rooms, where they placed statues, sarcophagi and colored walls to imitate ancient Egyptian decorations.

But that’s not all: the forgers in fact also sold gold-plated plaster ingots and had established a scheme to trade fake antiquities. The Beni Suef Prosecutor’s Office has already identified a group of suspects, who are currently fugitives and wanted, and is further investigating the matter. The entire area has been seized.

Absurd story in Egypt: they create a fake tomb to fool tourists and fans

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