We spent the day wandering the labyrinthine displays of the Egyptian National Museum in Cairo.
The text book introduction to the museum is being way-laid by a friendly Egyptian sort, called George, and his brother Yusef, who together invite you into their ‘home’ for tea on the pretext of selling whatever tour or souvenir is their business. Any attempt to demur is theatrically taken as a rejection of famous Egyptian hospitality and the hurt looks alone are enough to weaken the strongest resolve. The coins are genuine Roman. The statuettes came from a tomb undiscovered by the grasping government.
The only defence is a clear and early statement of intent.
To the initial invitation, you must respond that there is to be no shopping today, so as to disarm the obligation to purchase that will inevitably descend upon you with the offer of complimentary refreshment.
To the enticement of tea must come the reply that you have only momentarily finished breakfast and so must sadly decline.
Despite the clear condition of entry set out at the initial engagement, the hard sell will come and when it does, obligation or no, you must be prepared with cast iron rebuttals.
The offers will entail a tour to which you must already be booked; some perfume or oil – an allergy is best; a souvenir for you or friends back home – be wary as attempts to fend this off with complaints of carrying weight or lack of bag space will be met with offers of free home delivery anywhere in the world. You must have shopped and acquired one of each of everything tendered.
Even then, be prepared for the emotional blackmail, the perceived insult at the rejection of his offering, the head in hands, the mouths to feed, the ridiculous bargains offered to open the negotiations. The token purchase is the thin end of the wedge. Buy if you want to buy. Otherwise, be strong and walk away. The sad eyes are the last line of resistance. Overcome these and you are home-free to continue with your day, unladen by the kitsch churned out by the Chinese economic mega-miracle.
And we did.
The museum is a curious confusion. I visited as a child in 1982 and to the best of my recollections, not a thing has changed in the intervening period. The displays labour under the same dust and the octogenarian cabinets remain unmoved. The mummies have spent almost as long in their airless boxes as they did in their tombs. The labelling is non-existent and the curation is more in keeping with a village hall display than the world’s foremost collection.
But there is light on the horizon. As Athens has built a state of the art Acropolis Museum to lobby hard for the return of its stolen treasures from British Museum, so Egypt has plans afoot. The need has become more pressing as of late because the 15 storey government building next door was gutted by fire in the Revolution and the west wing of the museum was damaged in the process.
In the meantime, the corridors remain stuffed with treasures older than antiquity, from exquisite stone mega-statues to sensitive and incredibly preserved wooden manquettes, complete with inlaid eyes and delicately painted complexions. Some were allegedly rifled by highly placed officials during the chaos that followed the uprising and have disappeared onto the black market.
But wonder overload is inevitable and as we staggered out of the museum, having gazed, speechless at the death mask and associated golden bric-a-brac from the tomb of Tutankhamen, a beautiful symmetry played itself out.
Dr Rasul, apparent museum conservator and expert in the mummification of Pharonic pets, fell into conversation with us. After a long and colourfully embroidered pitch, the fabric of his story began to fray and the cash-call came. By now we were ready and his resolve was clearly not up to the job.
I told him George was in the market.
Off he wandered, to find easier prey.
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