Why Dr Hawass Resigned [ Egyptian Minister For Antiquities !!! ]

"I am leaving because of a variety of important reasons. The first reason is that, during the Revolution of January 25th, the Egyptian Army protected our heritage sites and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. However, in the last 10 days the army has left these posts because it has other tasks to do. The group now in charge of the protection of these sites is the Tourist Police, but there are no Tourist Police to do this either. Therefore, what happens? Egyptian criminals, thieves (you know, in every revolution bad people always appearâ€¦), have begun to destroy tombs. They damaged the tomb of Hetep-ka at Saqqara, the tomb of Petah-Shepses at Abu Sir and the tomb of a person called Em-pi at Giza. They attacked a storage magazine at Saqqara and we do not yet know how many artifacts are missing; they opened two storage magazines at Giza; one tomb dated to the 19th Dynasty, the only one in the Delta in fact, was damaged at IsmaÃ¯lia; and a store at El-Qantara East has been broken into and looted for antiquities... The second reason is that there are two crooks in the Antiquities Department, who have accused me of stealing antiquities and doing other illegal things all of the time. Their files talk about this. A third person started saying similar things, a university professor who was the Antiquities Director for almost 6 years before me, who never accomplished anything in that time. As a corrupt man, he even gave his signed permission to a rich lady from another Arabic country to take manuscripts out of Egypt! These three people encouraged young Egyptians to protest against me personally, to shout outside my office that they needed jobs.

Thank you for the reply. I’d consider myself an armchair archaeologist but one who knows enough to realize I’m ignorant on the subject and there is much that can’t be learned reading Archaeology magazines or watching programs on various digs and new findings.

You’ve confirmed much of what I’ve heard about Hawass. I am friends with a few people in the field as well as others who’ve gone on digs in Egypt and other parts of the Holy Land. Rarely do I hear anything good when it comes to dealing with Hawass or the Egyptian Antiquities Department.

I’ve heard the name Budge but honestly can’t remember if he was the eccentric man who wore ballet costumes (tutu’s) while doing his digging or if he was the curator in England who specialized in ancient text, only to learn later on that many of his translations were worthless.

Archaeology is such a closed field, especially when it comes to biblical archaeology or anything to do with Egypt. It’s hard to judge what is simply the rantings of a disgruntled researcher, a student at the end of their rope over the roadblocks placed in front of them not allowing completion of their work or professionals who are honestly concerned about the direction Hawass was/is taking Egyptian Archaeology.

Two close friends/family of mine are archaeologists, both who had met with Hawass had very strong opinions about him. One who has sadly passed away, Brenda Lazendorf, the only underwater archaeologist in the Florida Keys and our neighbor for many years, and my cousin who specializes in Precolumbian archaeology. She has spent many months in Egypt and Israel on digs with various universities and has told me horror stories about the way Israeli’s and American’s are treated in Egypt. She absolutely loves Israel and Egypt but detests how they are treated when in country. According to her sexism is alive and well in any middle-eastern area aside from Israel and as you mentioned, many women are in the field, yet have a difficult time working with Hawass and most Muslim countries. Not to mention the general hatred that exists for Christians or Jews.

Sadly, Egypt is such a corrupt nation it seems whoever is picked to take over Antiquities will simply follow in that vein. For all of Hawass’s complaints that artifacts were stolen from Egypt, the fact is for centuries curators, archaeologists and government officials were perfectly willing to sell Egypt’s treasures for the right price. Now with the Muslim Brotherhood grabbing a foothold, I personally think the problem will be even worse. Not only is there little care or respect for any pre-Muslim countries, there is little respect for their own countries history prior to Islam taking over.

Thank you for the response. Being as I said an armchair archaeologist, I’m always interested in learning about and hearing about new finds and what is going on in Egypt and elsewhere. I’d love to speak with you more on the subject.

How awful. Hawass is a good man who loves his country and its history.

Thanks arderkrag. He really drives me nuts, and his negatives outweigh any of his positives (and purported positives), but the situation in Egypt will go from bad to worse. At least all my idiot lib relatives won't continue to claim that GWB singlehandedly smashed the entire museum in Baghdad, then laughed as he pissed on the ashes.

Fanatical Muslims hate non-Islamic religions. In Afghanistan, many people first heard of the Taliban when they dynamited the giant Buddha statues early in 2001...

Thanks ClearCase_guy. And there aren't any real Muzzies who aren't fanatical, so, the Egyptian antiquities will probably wind up in private collections throughout the world.

The Islamists will destroy 4000 years of history in a generation.

Thanks Straight Vermonter. Zahi's big thing was to create a Disneyland of antiquities, and to that end ordered a lot of "repair" using concrete. This is going to be a disaster. The Chicago House has been drawing exact copies of all the inscriptions and reliefs and other art for nearly 100 years, in an effort to preserve what still exists today so that they can still be studied after the originals are long gone. And the Aswan High Dam has pushed up the water table, dissolving subsoil salts, and the inscriptions (already damaged by the ravages of time) have been flaking right off the major lowlying monuments for forty years. And that's gov't work. :')

Hawass was as crooked as the rest of them. If you (a university) wanted to conduct a dig, you had better spend half your budget on taking him out for a good time, or you are screwed. He was a backward man in a backward culture in a backward country. When I think of all the things that were returned to egypt, uh! They'll all be destroyed by the muzzies now.

Thanks Born to Conserve. He makes some accusations against his major detractors, but the real reason he's quitting may be to avoid serving a jail term for some eminent-domain style stuff he did, moving hundreds of squatters out of some ancient sites in order to study and conserve the sites.

sad.

Thanks ken21.

These are the dreams of our leader for the US. Destroy our heritage and history and form a new socialistic era.

Thanks vetvetdoug.

Seems like just yesterday Hawass was screaming at the western world to return Egyptian antiques to Egypt. Thank goodness not all listened and in the future to see the real deal may only be outside of Egypt.

Thanks ladyvet, yeah, good luck with that now. He'll be grateful that pieces like the bust of Nefertiti and the Rosetta Stone (which the British stole from the French, who stole it in Egypt) are safely locked up in European museums.

Although I do not have the knowledge you indicated my impression was that he was a bureaucrat appointed because of connections and not ability. It was as if he had to appear in every documentary and he would behave as if he were the discoverer or resident expert. My personal opinion is that you would not acquire access to anything without his permission, based on whatever and his personal aggrandizement. I guess he may be a "bloviator".

That's the best summary of the situation I've ever seen, thanks Tuketu

I always heard the Nazis shot the nose off that critter.

I think it was originally blamed on the Turks; my wild guess is, it fell off in antiquity, or possibly early medieval times. Thanks West Texas Chuck

Don't really care about Dr Hawass, but it's sad to read about the looting. I hope someone steps in to protect these sites.

Thanks nuconvert, and well put.

Dr. Hawass was one of my favorite guys on the History Channel UNTIL I heard him praising Hamas and the PLO and excoriating Israel... I have always loved the art of Ancient Egypt and am deeply distressed by its destruction at the hands of these fanatics. But Dr. Hawass is being a wee bit hypocritical.

Thanks left that other site. Yeah, there are some topics about Zowie's misconduct regarding the "restoration" of an old synagogue or two -- no Egyptian Jews left -- about which he stated there would be no Jews allowed until the "crimes" (which are entirely imaginary) against the Muzzie eyesore on Mt Zion stopped.

Looks like he is a casualty of the "revolution", as is the tourist industry.

Thanks Rome2000. Whatever Hawass may have been or done, whatever follows is going to be much, much worse.

Oh, it's all so depressing. The days of Lord Carnarvon are over.

Of late, Zowie has been backing off his bipolar ragging on Howard Carter and Lord C. I got the BluRay called "Egypt" which is all History Channel shows starring Hawass, but having an English-speaking host and narrators. The captions and menus have some ESL-type mistakes, and Zowie was obviously unscripted, because his intros frequently wander off into incoherence as he seeks over-the-top hyperbolies. Thanks Beowulf9.

Maybe we can finally find out what's under the foot of the Sphinx now.

Thanks AlmaKing. Yeah, I'd like to see that. John Anthony West may have something to say about Hawass' fall -- a couple of years ago he thought that he and Robert Schoch was going to be able to get some tests done that they'd wanted in order to find out how old the Sphinx is and whatnot. They also want to drill down into the cavity to see what's down there. The Dream Stele (which is New Kingdom in date, and still stands between the paws) notes that the Sphinx guards a door.

Thanks JoeProBono.

My wife and I laugh and say "divorce him!" every time we see him on TV.

Thanks dhs12345. Hey, if you say it three times...

All of a sudden the liberal elitists of Europe and America will howl about the revolution in Egypt. Somehow they will compartmentalize it all and forget how 0bama and Hillary supported it.

In a few years Chrissy Matthews will be recounting how all the damage to the Egyptian antiquities happened during the Bush administration. Luckily he'll be telling it to those around him who have already passed out, as he drinks 5 O'Clock out of an old Palmolive bottle. Thanks TigersEye.

Dr. Hawass, if you ever find yourself on this site, thank you for your life's work.

Thanks DustyMoment.

I believe this is old news and I believe Hawass is back.

If so I've spent a lot of time on a topic that's obsolete... but thanks decimon.

I've also heard complaints that he required huge "contributions" in order to work anywhere in Egypt and it was virtually impossible to work at any well known site.

Thanks Brytani. Anyone making any kind of discovery without letting him announce it would (at minimum) get kicked off the site and often right on out of Egypt. That happened to Gantenbrink, and to the French team which (with permission) drilled a peekhole in the Great Pyramid and verified a (sand-filled as it turned out) corridor discerned using microgravimetrics. They may have found a burial chamber, if not though, what is it?

There are also a couple of accounts of him making false accusations of black market antiquities dealings in order to get items back to Egypt.

I kinda assumed that the false accusations against Nick Reeves were made in order to get him out of the way. Zahi made disparaging remarks (without naming Reeves) about the non-invasive survey Reeves used to discover the site of KV-63 and the eventual KV-64 -- and yet the KV-64 site was exactly where Hawass was having his crews dig. 'Nothing is discovered until I find it.' Thanks reaganaut.

About time, IMHO.

Thanks Dryman. It's going to get worse before it gets better. Hawass' projects have resembled the return of the pharaohs to some people, but then, in a patronage-style society, people don't want to work, they just want to be on the payroll.

...it'll be similar, though on a much larger & important scale, to what the Palis did to the greenhouses the Israelis left behind in their last pull out.

We're lucky that anything remains from ancient Egypt (or ancient anywhere); in the Middle Kingdom there were already appropriations from Old Kingdom monuments, and it got worse in the New Kingdom, particularly under Ramses II "the Great". That gold scarab with Nefertiti's cartouche on it that was found on the ancient wreck (Ulu Burun) didn't get there because Bush was president back then. ;') But anyway, yeah, it's going to be bad. Thanks ApplegateRanch.

Kinda bizarre that these socalled criminals, thieves in the ME or Moslem countries, always only destroy pre-Islamic treasures! Why don't they destroy Islamic ones? Why is that?!

' The Saudis destroyed the actual house of Mohammed a few years back; no one had lived there, or even been allowed inside it, for centuries. Some Wahhab wacko concluded that it was some form of idolatry (unlike the Zamzam spring or the Kaaba, or the black stone in the kaaba, eh?) and it was ordered demolished. Thanks odds.

Any such Islamic site dating after Mohammed is "holy”; any site dated to the time of Mohammed (or before) has the possibility of contradicting Mohammed, and thus is anathema and must be destroyed.

Yes, I think, you are correct for strictly non-Islamic or non-Moslem related historical sites. As well as those related to Mohammad, himself, before he became a believer in Allah & Islam himself.

Additionally, any site dating to (or before) Mohammad has the possibility of leading to 'worshiping' Mohammad, himself, or others, which would be considered Polytheism.

In Islam, Mohammad is only viewed as The final prophet, or more accurately The final Messenger ("rasul allah" literally meaning "messenger of allah" in Arabic). But Mohammad, himself, as important as he was in spreading Islam, is/was considered a mere mortal man nonetheless, who can't be worshiped.

SC -- In relation to your comment in post #43, both Spring of Zamzam & the Kaaba are considered much holier than Mohammad, because they date back to the time of Abraham & Ishmael, for moslems, therefore directly represent Allah.

Remember, Moslems view Islam as an Abrahamic religion. The difference there between Jews & Moslems is that of Abraham's son Isaac vs Isaac's half brother Ishmael (both sharing the same father being Abraham). Don't want to start a debate regarding that. Only to state what Moslems believe; whether it is true or not is something for Moslems & Jews to sort out. Since I am neither Jewish nor Moslem.

Also, my understanding is that many moslems actually perform mandatory ablutions before prayers with the water from Zamzam Spring. The water is also believed to have medicinal qualities, so many pilgrims take liters of Zamzam water back home with them to drink from time to time, especially when ill.

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