The man with the mummies

posted on: Oct 22, 2015

Zahi Hawass, the controversial archaeologist and History Channel superstar, gave a talk in Houston on Monday. I was not disappointed.

I’d heard about him for years. From 2002 until 2011, Hawass was both a star of documentary shows and the supreme controller of Egypt’s antiquities. Wearing his trademark Indiana Jones fedora, he appeared on shows with names like “Mysteries of the Pyramids,” and guided President Barack Obama’s tour of the pyramids and the Sphinx. As secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, he supervised 30,000 people, and gave or denied access to the country’s mummies, pyramids, tombs and temples.

As Ian Parker wrote in the New Yorker: “It’s as if Jacques Cousteau, in his heyday, had taken on the task of approving everyone else’s scuba-diving permit.”

Hawass is a showman, given to grand pronouncements. He was said to be the second-most powerful man in Egypt, after the country’s president, Hosni Mubarak — and it wasn’t just Hawass who said that. Some people thought he was an egomaniac. Others thought that the fame and power he cultivated were being used on Egypt’s behalf.

In 2011, the Tahrir Square revolutionaries deposed Mubarak, and eventually, Hawass followed. No longer Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities Affairs, and even investigated for corruption, he entered a kind of netherworld. In 2013, writing for Smithsonian, Joshua Hammer compared him to Osiris, the legendary king who was murdered, fought for revenge, was resurrected, and reclaimed his kingdom.

It seems unlikely, though, that Hawass will ever rise again to his old heights — that he’ll ever again control Egypt’s antiquities. But the fame is still his. He and Egypt still need each other. And I was dying to see him in person.

Photo: Sarah Raslan
My selfie with Hawass.
“I’M HERE on behalf of the Ministry of Tourism to let Americans know that Egypt is completely safe,” Hawass said before his speech at Houston’s Arab American Cultural Center.

His U.S. tour — basically, a roadshow to lure tourists and their money back to Egypt — had begun October 13 with a lecture for United Nations staff at the Metropolitan Museum.  “If we don’t have tourists coming,” he explained, “we will never have the money to restore the monuments.”

We’d just met — one of the event’s hosts, the Egyptian American Society, had invited me — but Hawass was friendly, almost fatherly, not like some descriptions I’d read. “You must join me for the lunch and lecture I am hosting at Hotel Zaza Wednesday,” he said. “And call me when you come to Cairo. I have some books and things to share with you. We could even go to the pyramids. They are my home.”

Before his speech began, I took a selfie with him.

A five-minute video introduced Hawass. It showed him excavating sites. We saw archeologists, movie stars, writers and public figures — some of whom spoke fondly of him, some not so much.

In the video, wearing his trademark wide-brimmed excavation hat, Hawass said he sometimes hates fame because he is “always in the public eye.”

Also in the video, the late actor Omar Sharif described Hawass as the best actor he has ever seen. “I was the most famous Egyptian,” Sharif said, “until Zahi Hawass became the most famous Egyptian.”

When the video ended, the crowd applauded and Hawass walked to the podium.

“You better turn your cell phones off,” he said, “or I will send a small pharaoh with a curse to you tonight.” He looked pleased at the joke.

Hawas, 68, spoke of mummies, pyramids, and Cleopatra with eyes full of a young boy’s wonder.

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He said that he hopes 2016 is the year he can uncover the secrets of the pyramids and locate the tomb of Cleopatra and Marc Antony, which he believes is in Alexandria — a theory he attributed to a woman from the Dominican Republic.

“If the tomb of Cleopatra and Marc Antony is discovered, it will be the greatest discovery of the 21st century,” he said.

Asked about British archaeologist Nicholas Reeve’s claim of finding the tomb of Nefertiti, Hawass laughed it off as nonsense. “The Kings of Amon would not allow her to be buried there,” he said. “She didn’t have the same beliefs.”

“Would a Jewish person or Christian be buried in Mecca? It’s the same thing.”

He spoke of foreign dignitaries he has hosted in Egypt, including American Presidents Obama and George W. Bush. He added that he’d just sent Bush a replica of his famous hat — at Laura Bush’s request.

He drew oohs and aahs from the crowd as he spoke of curses and the mystery of the Sphinx.

“People seem to think that something is hidden under the Sphinx — like aliens,” he said. “I drilled under the Sphinx and found nothing. No aliens. But I did find secret tunnels hidden in the Sphinx.”

An inscription warns that whoever enters the tunnel would be cursed. “I told President Clinton when he came to visit,” he said. “But he said there isn’t a curse like the one he had in his life.” Hawass chuckled: “I think you know what he means by that.”

Asked about political life, Hawass said he has no intentions of returning to the Ministry of Antiquities. He praised Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, comparing him to the ancient Egyptian god Horas.

“Horas saved Egypt from the devil,” he said. “That is what I believe Sisi did when he rid us of [the Muslim Brotherhood].”

Hawass ended the night with photographs and autographs, eagerly inviting the audience to visit Egypt.

“You never know what the sands of Egypt may hide,” he said. “But you should come see for yourselves.”

Source: www.houstonchronicle.com