Three Latin American scholarship recipients who paid up to 2,100 euros to participate in archaeological excavations in Egypt with the Spanish project Vizier Amen-Hotep-Huy have presented a formal complaint to the Egyptian authorities for alleged “fraudulent” collection and labor exploitation by those responsible for the investigations, Francisco Martín Valentín and Teresa Bedman. ABC has tried without success to obtain the opinion of both researchers, who have been excavating since 2009 in the Theban necropolis of Asasif with the Institute of Ancient Egyptian Studieswhich they both lead as president and secretary.
To participate in Campaign XVI of this Spanish mission, scheduled for the period from September 28 to December 22, 2024, they had to contribute 2,100 euros, in the case of being new members of the project, and 500 euros, if they had participated in campaigns. above, to meet the costs of developing the project and staying in Luxor, in addition to paying for his plane ticket to Luxor. According to them, the campaign has not been carried out due to lack of permits and these payments have not been refunded. “The use of this money is unknown,” they say in their statement, “therefore “We think its collection is fraudulent.”
In the complaint, which they claim to have sent to official organizations, embassies and universities involved with this project, the complainants report that they have also collected up to 15,926 euros through a patronage page (GoFundMe) that “have been withdrawn”, when “to date there are no permits for the Visir Amen-hotep-Huy Project and therefore, Campaign XVI is not being executed».
They point out that They were “constantly” lied to regarding the status of the permitsciting internal problems with the Egyptian committee in charge of granting it and stating that “no foreign campaign had permits in the area (which we knew was false).”
Personal projects
They also claim that during the time they were in Luxor waiting for said permits to arrive to begin the campaign, instead of carrying out academic training activitiesAs promised, they were required to perform “administrative and personal tasks of Teresa and Francisco” every day, “without respecting the day of rest on Friday, November 1, from 10 am to 1 pm”, using “our laptops and the use of personal mobile data, despite the constant request for the Wi-Fi connection of the house.”
«During our stay, despite requesting it, we are not accompanied or guided to any place of archaeological interest. There are also no study sessions, teaching, training courses or internships. Nor are spaces opened to pursue our professional careers,” they denounce. They only made one excursion on November 8 to Esna, which the young women paid for entirely.
In response to their complaints about these situations and working conditions contrary to what they had agreed upon, Martín Valentín’s response “was negative and aggressive“, urging them in the following days to leave the house, “without caring that we are young women, foreigners, very far from home and without time or possibilities to modify our return dates due to costs,” they say in their complaint.
They still had weeks left of a stay whose lodging expenses they had previously paid and they stayed until a message from Valentín to the project’s shared WhatsApp group made it clear to them that the campaign had been definitively cancelled.
Always according to her story, “due to their lack of honesty and clarity” regarding the permits and the money paid for a campaign that was not carried out, the three interns complained to the project directors and refused to continue carrying out the “unfair, fraudulent and personal” activities that they asked for.
Pressures
Given this, they assure that Francisco and Teresa They demanded that they leave the house and sign a document, threatening them with reporting them to the police if they refused. One of them refused to sign and requested the drafting of her own document under legal advice “which is flatly rejected by Francisco, since he mentions that he does not have any right to do so,” they say.
The three moved to a new accommodation, in the vicinity of which they were «addressed in a surprising way by Francisco and Teresa’s hard-working staff on the street, which makes us feel watched and insecure. For all this, they decided to go to the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities considering that “There are multiple irregularities” in the operation of the Visir Amen-Hotep Huy Project, in which the universities of Malaga and Seville collaborate and are sponsored, among others, by the María Cristina Masaveu Peterson Foundation.
“They are currently making posts on Facebook and Instagram simulating documentation activities for the campaign, while uploading photographs of the 2023 campaign as if it were Campaign XVI 2024,” they add.
More testimonials
As a result of the complaint by these young women of Colombian, Argentine and Mexican nationality, other testimonies are becoming known, which support their complaint. «I share everything written by the three affected people. What’s more, they did something similar to me to a certain extent.», Luis del Palacio, who participated in two campaigns, in 2010 and 2011, tells ABC after his first contact with Martín Valentín and Bedman in the first campaign of 2009. «My experience, at first, was positive» because «they are professional cajolers, it should not be forgotten”, but remember that “later, everything changed and they showed their flaws.”
According to Del Palacio, a philologist and journalist, who completed a degree in Egyptology in the 1980s at the University of Stirling (Scotland), he was left in charge of the excavations for one morning, when he was not qualified. And it ended up being «expelled» of the Casa del Sicomoro where the members of the project were staying «because it was quite poorly managed», after a «boycott» of those responsible for the mission which, as he explains, arose as a result of him disgracing them for publicizing his trips to Egypt in a conference organized by him at the Pedro Salinas library in Madrid.
In the hotel where he stayed after his expulsion in 2011, he wrote a critical article in the digital newspaper Siglo XXI titled ‘The slow agony of the Amenhotep Huy project in Luxor‘ in which he denounced that the minimum security requirements at the site were not met due to lack of budget. Francisco Martín Valentín responded with an open letter, denying these allegations and ensuring that the origin of the complaint was based on the fact that those responsible for the project did not accept a series of demands related to the personal status of this member within the team.
«These people are very mafia-like, they threaten and as these girls have written, they send henchmen to scare you. “They are a sect,” says Del Palacio.
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