I see your point in hoping that a copyright law would prevent the production of fakes, but unfortunately I believe that since the entire process is both illegal and highly lucrative, such a law would do little to discourage the activity. The reproductions that are generally produced and sold to the public are never quite high enough in quality or convincingly ancient to be sold as ‘fakes’. Fakes are made with the intention of fooling people and if it is a good enough fake, no one would know that the copyright law had been broken, since it would be a ‘genuine original artifact’!

I personally would never want to harass anyone, I’d just be interested in having the concept and its aims clarified since it is an incredibly complex issue.

There is no doubt that replicas are capable of fooling important people. See, for instance, see the many BBC reports(e.g.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7090795.stm) on the ‘Amarna Princess’, said to have been “knocked up in three weeks in a garden shed” by a poor local family, and for which Bolton Council was induced to pay some £440,000 in 2003.

At that time, Councillor Laurie Williamson, Bolton Council’s Executive Member for Culture, said: “This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to secure an important Egyptian treasure.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/3152176.stm)

In October of the same year, Angela Robson, the Keeper of Egyptology at Bolton Museum, was interviewed on BBC ‘Woman’s Hour’. The blurb for the broadcast was:

“She’s over 3,300 years old and only 52 cm tall and she’s worth over a million pounds. Until now she’s never been seen in public. Recently Bolton Museum, with the help of a National Lottery grant, have been able to purchase a unique headless statuette of what is believed to be one of the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti’s daughters.”

See http://search.bbc.co.uk/click/p/3/ds/autonomy/t/Radio%25204%2520%252D%2520Woman%2527s%2520Hour%2520%252DNefertiti%2527s%2520Daughter/id/17231391119145120652147020749401000/-/http%253A%252F%252Fwww%252Ebbc%252Eco%252Euk%252Fradio4%252Fwomanshour%252F2003%255F41%255Fsat%255F01%252Eshtml

On 29th January 2008, Stephanie Crossley, Assistant Director for Adult Services at Bolton Council, is quoted by the BBC as actually welcoming a judicial decision not to have the object destroyed. Presumably Bolton’s embarrassment has added value to the wretched piece. (The same museum, apparently undeterred, has also hit the headlines recently in connection with the much-hyped ‘Bolton Mummy’, a classic case of what Margaret criticised in July 2007 as ‘Egyptological Theories Magically Become Fact In News Stories’)

http://www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/site/tv_guide/listings/ and http://www.dnaindia.http//www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1156159

In their book ‘The Medici Conspiracy’ (2007, Ch. 22, page 330), Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini, referring to research by Dr. Christopher Chippindale of the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and Dr. David Gill of the University of Swansea, have this to say:

“Another aspect of the trade that Chippindale and Gill highlight is the close link between illegally excavated and smuggled goods, on the one hand, and widespread faking, on the other. According to the thermoluminescence laboratory in Oxford, some 40 percent of antiquities sent in for testing “are found to be of modern manufacture.””

It seems to me, therefore, that the Egyptian government is right to explore legislation to prevent such artefacts from being made in the first place. Even if nine tenths of this law were unworkable, the remaining tenth would discourage the copying of antiquities, either with criminal intent or even ‘in good faith’, given the danger of their being passed on to others who might use them as part of a lucrative criminal conspiracy.

I do hope that when Dr. Hawass comes to speak at the O2 exhibition on 19th August he will not be in any way harrassed about this matter, particularly by anyone associated with the weird sisterhood from Bolton.

I’m of a similar opinion about the copyright issue, that it’ll ultimately backfire on Egypt. I’ve got a post here and a short article here at iCommons, site of an international organization promoting copyright liberalization.

I think it is unbelievably ridiculous. How far will Zahi go? I get the feeling he will go too far. Should we all remove our holiday pics from the net? Will the mythologies of the ancient gods and the stories and names of pharaohs and other famous ancient Egyptians be copyrighted? Will the hieroglyphic script be copyrighted? Will no one ever be able to do Egyptian art, write novels on ancient Egypt, make movies inspired by it, or even blog about it? How far does this law go?
What of all the art of ancient Egypt (ie the art from colonial times), the mummy movies, the countless novels (even the really old texts) and old photos and websites? Will they be banned? What of my collection of replicas, figurines, papyri, postcards etc from museums and from Egypt-will they have to be handed over to Hawass?

I love drawing Egyptian inspired pictures, taking pictures of the art at the British Museum, and sketching the art there, writing stories based on ancient Egypt…but now I’m too scared to do so. This law terrifies me and I know that if it passes (which it seems like it will, in Egypt anyway) it will ultimately be detrimental to Egypt, and also art, culture, science and Egyptology as a whole. Proud as they were of their own culture, I don’t think this is something even the ancients would have approved of.

Ancient Egypt belongs to the public domain, and to the whole world. It has inspired us for millennia and I really hope it can continued to do so without some ludicrous legislations getting in the way.

Now if only there was an online petition against this law that we could all sign…it probably won’t work to change the outcome, but at least it’ll get our opinions seen…