The official complaint presented by three young Latin American women to the Egyptian authorities for alleged fraud and labor exploitation in the Spanish project of Vizier Amen-hotep Huy, directed by Francisco Martín Valentín and Teresa Bedman, has encouraged other members of previous defrauded campaigns to raise their voice. voice. “I think all of us who were in that project were waiting for something like this for a long time,” Colombian anthropologist Danna Munevar, who participated in the failed 2021 “excavation” campaign, told ABC. From that year alone, several people They have contacted this newspaper to share their experience, which the majority defines as “sadness and helplessness” in the face of what they consider “a scam.” «The worst was not the discomfort, nor the lies, nor even the contempt. The worst thing was how they played with our illusion. For those of us who love history, Egypt is a dream and they exploited it, twisted it, leaving only disappointment in return,” says another participant who prefers to remain anonymous. The excited archaeologists then paid 1,950 euros, plus flights, insurance, visa and maintenance ( this year it amounted to 2,100 euros), for participating for the first time in that ‘Field School’ or ‘Field School’ announced by the Institute of Ancient Egyptian Studies (at that time it was not yet foundation). “It’s strange to be called an intern when you’re really paying to work, but in the end the desire to go to Egypt was stronger,” admits a third member. The participants’ stories agree on the first point that surprised them: after a first payment of 650 euros per transfer, through a message to a WhatsApp group they were required that each new member take the rest of the money in cash to Luxor. . They claim that they were not given any receipt and anyone who cordially tried to get some type of document signed was met with an intimidating refusal. Before arriving in Egypt, they received what one of them called “strange requests”, which in some cases were pillows, insecticides or cleaning products (apparently due to the hygienic conditions of the house) and in others, whiskey or chocolates. . «Remember that you must bring some liquor purchased at the Duty. Two bottles per person that we will all drink together later,” reads one of the emails sent by Bedman to the participants of the 2016 campaign. “Liquors that they kept at home,” recall several former members of the project from different years. .Unsanitary housing Once settled in a housing that everyone describes as unhealthy, their complaints coincide in that the breakfast promised at the site was never administered to them, the water that was provided to them in it was scarce or non-existent, they had to provide their own computers or masks and did not carry out the promised practices. “Everything we supposedly had included in the price was false,” they say. This was added to “terrible” personal treatment, with insults and humiliation that, for example, Munevar says he suffered because of his skin tone, his weight or his Latin origin. They also indicate that they had no contact with other Spanish missions in Egypt and they felt they were being watched. Several participants in the 2021 campaign claim that they were “practically locked in the house” and were prohibited from cultural outings to monuments in their free time for alleged security reasons. Instead, they say they were charged on one of the only two excursions they took to have a police officer accompany them, who did not show up, and they were allowed to travel alone. Always according to his story, three years ago no excavation was carried out in the Theban necropolis of Asasif, because, as in the recent campaign, the tomb remained closed due to lack of permits that never arrived. They dedicated themselves to doing other documentation and cataloging work. Munevar says that she was in charge of taking inventory of the mummies, which were in a cave, “without any type of protection, one against another, piled up on the ground, lying there.” On one occasion, she says that “they had to hide the mummies” in another cave so that the inspectors would not see how they were stored. ‘Malpractice’ The ‘malpractice’ was “more than evident,” in the opinion of another member of the group. As described, the archaeological materials that had been accumulated from previous campaigns were waiting in one of the secondary tombs used as a warehouse to be cataloged and a multitude of ceramics were piled up in fragments in the open. “I learned what not to do as an archaeologist,” says another testimony from previous years, which considers that Valentín and Bedman lack archaeological methodology. “They are treasure hunters, they are looking for the photo with the Ministry of Antiquities, the informative bombshell.” And he adds: “Ptolemaic ceramics have been thrown into the trash because they were not pretty.” In her year they did have permits to excavate and she remembers that “a panel of bees was found, which could have provided historical information about the paleoclimate, but Teresa stomped on it. “It was quite shocking.” “They promise you the experience of your life, you think it’s going to be a leap in your working life and in reality you go there to carry stones,” summarizes this Spanish participant who, despite the years that have passed, speaks anonymously, although he contributes his identity to ABC, like the rest of those consulted. “These girls who filed the complaint have been very brave because there are many people who, out of fear, have not said anything,” she says. The case of the standard ‘Valentines of Luxor’ Yes ’Valentines of Luxor’ The “abusive” letter they made sign the young women of the Spanish archaeological mission in Egypt Mónica Arrizabalaga standard Yes False Spanish archaeologists The ‘Valentines of Luxor’: the alleged fraud dates back to a complaint from 2011 Mónica ArrizabalagaThe fear of possible consequences in his professional career advises this and other archaeologists, anthropologists or restorers to remain silent, not to give their name and to hide that diploma and certificate of 300 hours of internship that they claim did not even arrive by mail in a personalized way. “It is supposedly signed by the director, but since it is a digital signature it has no validity whatsoever for calls for competitions, scholarships, according to the lawyer who handled my case after having filed a complaint with Consumer Affairs,” says another of those consulted.Teresa Bedman and Francisco Martín Valentín, in an ABC archive image Teresa Bedman, in a WhatsApp message “We are going to report the harassment to which we are being subjected” ABC has tried, so far without success, to have Francisco Martín Valentín and Teresa Bedman gave their version of the events in this newspaper. In a WhatsApp message from Bedman to members of the campaign, which is circulating among Egyptologists, project co-director Visir Amen-Hotep Huy claims that the complaint filed against her “is defaming us.” He maintains that “what has really happened, and there are witnesses,” is that, by having the permits “that we are waiting for from one day to the next,” they have been “doing office work: we have been drawing, making statistics of mummies, mummy files, investigating the ceramics and other objects that have appeared in the 2022 and 2023 campaigns. But their idea had to be different, like a vacation at the Foundation’s expense. In the letter, he blames a former member of the project for having orchestrated the complaint to “do harm and stop the project” in order to “stay with him” and calls her a “bug” and “manipulative.” They announce that they are going to send another complaint to the Egyptian authorities “so that they know the harassment to which they are subjecting us” and ask for signatures. Danna Munevar, as well as Daniella Betancourt or Vianey Durán, two of the young women who have filed the formal complaint, They don’t mind showing their faces. At the time, the first one kept quiet and tried to forget, but now she believes it is time to react so that it doesn’t happen to other people again and her dream doesn’t end up becoming a nightmare. «Luckily the place was unique and the colleagues even more so and thanks to that we were able to enjoy part of the experience. Finally, our month in Luxor ended and as we arrived we left: alone and with money invested that we don’t really know where it ended,” says one of her 2021 classmates.
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