Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (42.2001)

In 1964 the excavations began at a new site - Nea Paphos - the Capital of
Cyprus in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. This site proved to be very
fruitful with lots of sculpture and mosaics, and fieldwork continues to bring
rich finds every year. But according to the antiąuities law, the discoverers can
only choose the equivalent of their finds from the Stores of the Museum in
Nicosia. In this way, thanks to the generous attitude of the Cyprian authorities,
the National Museum in Warsaw built up a fine collection of early, beautifully
shaped and painted pottery as well as specimens of early sculpture. But new
exhibits came to Warsaw not only from the ancient sites: in 1960 through the
good offices of his friends in Paris, Michałowski arranged for a long-term loan
of about 150 ancient monuments from the reserves of the Louvre to enrich the
Gallery of Ancient Art in Warsaw. Among them are examples of monumental
sculpture lacking in the Polish collections.

In 1959 Michałowski began excavating in the famous desert city of Palmyra
in Syria. In 1960 he was invited to work in the centre of Alexandria, at Kom
el-Dikka, and soon he started restoration work on the tempie of Hatshepsut
at Deir el-Bahari, in the close yicinity of which, another tempie (of Thutmose
III) was soon found ruined, but with wonderfully preserved parts of the wali
reliefs.5 At all these sites, teams of specialists from the National Museum
in Warsaw took part - archaeologists, restorers, photographers, draftsmen.
Unfortunately it was impossible to obtain any of the finds from these sites.

But both for himself and for the National Museum in Warsaw, the greatest
discovery was madę far to the south, in a Sudanese village named Faras. Before
the waters of the artificial Lakę Nasser covered the vast area of the Nubian
desert in 1964, the governments of Egypt and the Sudan madę great efforts to
attract as many foreign missions as possible to help in saving the ancient
monuments. Egypt generously promised to donate some of the dismantled,
smaller Nubian temples to the countries which contributed significant funds
to support the UNESCO project of saving the famous rock temples of Abu
Simbel. Poland, too poor for such a financial effort, nevertheless took part in
that enormous task: Professor Michałowski served as a chairman of the
International Committee of Experts created by UNESCO to supervise the
removal and reconstruction of the temples on a new, higher site, beyond the
rangę of the rising waters. It is worth also mentioning here that Michałowski
was elected a chairman of the ICOM International Committee of Historical
and Archaeological Museums (1965-1971), served as a UNESCO expert for
museums and excavations in Algiers (1966), and was a member of the
UNESCO Committee for Mohenjo-Daro (1969).

Returning to the matter of the Nubian campaign, the Sudanese government
temporarily lifted the antiąuities law which forbade the transferring of uniąue
cultural goods away from the country. Instead, to attract archaeologists, 50%
of all finds were to be granted to their discoverers. This was a chance for
Michałowski to enrich the possessions of the National Museum in Warsaw.

5 Cf. 50 lat polskich wykopalisk w Egipcie i na Bliskim Wschodzie, Warsaw 1986; Od Nilu do
Eufratu. Polska archeologia śródziemnomorska 1981-1994, Warsaw 1995.

12