Seeing the images of the Iraqi National Museum strewn with smashed antiquities sends a chilling reminder of the irreparable damage caused by lawlessness. And only someone like Salima Ikram who has worked to conserve animal mummies, can deeply empathize with the loss, “It was terrible to see the plundering. Something that would make archaeologists cry”.
Having worked excavating and preserving Egyptian relics Salima knows only too well the cause of this mayhem, “If people were better educated it may not have happened, but wherever there is poverty; looting when given the option seems to be a reality of life”.
Her professional life is all about the study of the Egyptian civilization. She has been working as a zoo archaeologist and a faunal analyst in numerous projects since 1995 which is based on the excavation of mummified animals. Salima’s in-depth knowledge has led her to work in museums across the globe; one of her most recent projects is the conservation and reinstalling of the display of animal mummies in the Egyptian Museum. These rare pieces were deteriorating from pollution and lack of government funds. She is also an associate professor of Egyptology at the American University, Cairo.
The extraordinary culture of the Egyptian kings has remained a topic of never-ending debate for archaeologists. Every year there is something new to learn from studying their lifestyle, says Salima, ‘there is still a great deal left to learn about ancient Egyptians’.
There was no doubt in her mind about what she wanted to become when Salima saw the twin statues of Rahotep and Nofret at the age of nine, ‘I have always dreamt of antiquities, travelling and having fun. And when I visited Egypt and saw these two statues in the Egyptian Museum I decided to be an Egyptologist’.
Born in Lahore, Salima’s early schooling took place in Islamabad at the Islamabad Model School for Girls. Her mother is a lawyer and her father an economist. Later, because of her father’s job, Salima and her brother spent most of their childhood in USA. In 1982 she studied classical archaeology and history at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Afterwards she went to Cambridge to do M. Phil in Egyptian archaeology and museum techniques and a Ph. D in meat production in ancient Egypt.
Since 1985 she has been involved in various archaeological excavations carrying out extensive research on the Egyptian civilization. But the focus of these expeditions for Salima is research on animal life. Like the many seals found in the Indus valley with depictions of animal-like figures, the Egyptian valley too is rife with statues and images of sphinxes and animals carved in concrete or metal. One then wonders whether they were thought to be gods, used for offering devotion. But Salima’s views differ, ‘The Egyptians did not worship animals. They believed that in some instances the spirit of a divine being would enter a specific animal. Otherwise, animals were associated with divinities as symbols. In the same way as the lion is the symbol of a king.’
Nowadays Salima is simultaneously juggling her work at the museum and at the university in Cairo while also doing field work. It is common to see antiquities destroyed smashed or broken physically like the Buddha statues in Afghanistan, but the other much more hazardous forms of deterioration remain unnoticed and unexplored. In Egypt as elsewhere the constant depletion in storing and preserving these antiquities has become a worry for excavators and archaeologists .‘From the growing population, the pollution and the extremes of modern life we face a greater challenge in storing them for the future’.
While the Nile valley is synonymous with the mysterious world of thePharaohs it is also a land with the deep spiritual tradition of theSufis. Salima alongwith her husband, an architect with a special interest in restoring old buildings, organized an exhibition of photographs, Pir and Pilgrims of Pakistan, in 1994 showing the shrines of Lahore and Multan, and at Uchh Sharif. Displayed at the Sony Gallery, Cairo the aim of the exhibition was to trace the similar pilgrimage customs prevalent in Egypt as well.
Salima is also the author of many books and contributes written articles to many journals. Her desire to reach out and discover the hidden traces of the vanished Egyptiancivilization stems from a strong conviction based on understanding the essential characteristics of the human race, ‘All of us are human beings, and as such we have a common history as a people. No matter who we are and where we live, we all essentially have the same needs, wants, desires and emotions. One hopes that by understanding this we can become more open minded and tolerant’.
Seeing the images of the Iraqi National Museum strewn with smashed antiquities sends a chilling reminder of the irreparable damage caused by lawlessness. And only someone like Salima Ikram who has worked to conserve animal mummies, can deeply empathize with the loss, “It was terrible to see the plundering. Something that would make archaeologists cry”.
