In Egypt, the Pharaohs' outspoken defender kicks up a dust storm - Jack Epstein, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, June 14, 2006
06-14) 04:00 PDT Giza, Egypt -- Zahi Hawass, the man selected to preserve Egypt's magnificent monuments, has never been timid about protecting his nation's heritage.
At a preview of a King Tut display at Chicago's Field Museum last month, Hawass, whose critics call him "the Show-Biz Pharaoh," a "media whore" and "part P.T. Barnum, part Indiana Jones," asked museum officials to remove one of the exhibition's corporate sponsors after learning its chief executive owned a 2,600-year-old Egyptian coffin. "Antiquities should be in museums, not in people's homes," he told those in attendance, referring to John W. Rowe, of Exelon, a Chicago energy company. Rowe immediately offered to send the sarcophagus to the museum on indefinite loan.
Also last month, Hawass gave St. Louis Art Museum director Brent Benjamin a May 15 deadline to return a 3,200-old funerary mask that Hawass says was illegally taken in the early 1990s from a storage facility near the site of its excavation. In April, he fired off a letter to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, asking him to return a 71-foot-high Egyptian obelisk in Central Park if he didn't start taking care of it. The pillar, which is in poor condition because of neglect, has been in the park since 1881 -- a gift from the Egyptian government in return for American aid in constructing the Suez Canal. Bloomberg has yet to reply, Hawass says.
Since Hawass became director of Egypt's 34,000-member Supreme Council of Antiquities in 2002, many Egyptologists agree that the feisty 59-year-old archaeologist has done more than anyone yet to bring Egyptian civilization to the world stage, appearing on cable television, writing newspaper articles, traveling the world giving lectures and launching exhibits of Egyptian treasures. Last month, Time magazine named him as one of the planet's "100 most influential people."
"He is the leader of an enormous organization that is faced with many challenges," says Willeke Wendrich, associate professor of Egyptian archaeology at UCLA. "He has taken significant steps to safeguard (Egypt's) cultural heritage."
Hawass is one of the Arab world's most recognized faces. Whether explaining ancient history on the Discovery or History channels or dispelling theories that aliens built the pyramids, the stodgy, silver-haired Hawass has become a familiar figure clad in blue jeans, blue work shirt and Indiana Jones-style hat. A National Geographic explorer-in-residence, he has several discoveries under his belt, including a cemetery for pyramid workmen at Giza and the Valley of the Golden Mummies in Bahariya.
When Hawass dined last year in Los Angeles with fellow Egyptian Omar Sharif -- the star of such epic films as "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Dr. Zhivago" -- a beautiful woman approached their table. Sharif, expecting her to ask for an autograph, rose to greet her. But the woman strode right past him to question Hawass about Egyptian antiquities, according to a friend of both men, who asked not to be named for fear of angering Sharif.
"Zahi was born to be a star," says Nasser Kamel, chairman of Egypt's State Information Service. "He is very flashy."
Hawass' critics, however, say his celebrity has turned him into an autocrat who rules the Supreme Council as if it were his personal fiefdom.
Last year, he allowed the mummy of King Tutankhamen to be removed from its tomb for the first time in 80 years to learn how the boy king died, using state-of-the-art scanning equipment. Computer images determined Tut's appearance. Critics decried the event as more of a media circus than science, and Hawass later docked the pay of a Supreme Council member who criticized the re-creation of Tut's face, disputing the computer image's Caucasian look.
Hawass has also barred foreign scientists who break his rules. In 2003, he banned English archaeologist Joann Fletcher from Egypt after she announced on the Discovery Channel -- without consulting him -- that a previously discovered mummy was Queen Nefertiti, a hypothesis few scholars took seriously. "Nobody crosses Zahi Hawass and gets away with it," the Sunday Times Magazine in London wrote last year.
As Hawass describes it, his zeal is necessary to help modern Egyptians value their heritage. His goal, he says, is for them to "look at the pyramids as a living soul and help me take care of it and protect it."
Hawass, who has a doctorate degree in Egyptology from the University of Pennsylvania, is currently overseeing the construction of more than a dozen museums across Egypt, including what he calls "the world's biggest museum," near the Giza pyramids, that will house all of King Tut's artifacts and 60 percent of objects now found in Cairo's renowned Egyptian Museum. He is pressuring the Egyptian parliament this year to increase the penalty for stealing antiquities from five years to 25 years in prison. He is campaigning to stem the damage of an encroaching population on the nation's archaeological sites, insisting on zoning laws to curb development. The famous pyramids outside Cairo at Giza -- the largest of which is the sole survivor of the Seven Wonders of the World -- now overlook a golf course on one side and a KFC outlet on the other.
"All over Egypt, there are modern towns built over antiquities," says Hawass.
Most recently, Hawass publicly objected to a fatwa, or religious edict, issued by Ali Gomaa, Cairo's Grand Mufti -- the nation's highest official of Islamic law. In April, Ali Gomaa forbade the production and display of ancient sculptures, causing some Egyptians to fear Islamic militants would use the ruling to destroy statues depicting the pharaohs. In interviews last month with visiting U.S. editors, both Hawass and the Grand Mufti said they were now on the same page. "Even though we know statues are forbidden, we would never destroy our pharaonic monuments," says Ali Gomaa.
And even as he has challenged American private collections and museums, Hawass has made Egyptian artifacts more accessible to Americans by successfully lobbying the Egyptian parliament to allow a King Tut exhibit of some 120 objects to tour four U.S. cities between 2005 and 2007. The lawmakers reversed a policy set in the 1980s that confined most of the objects to Egypt, after a scorpion atop a statue of the goddess Selket broke during an international tour in the 1970s. "King Tut and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" has already been shown in Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale and began late last month in Chicago and will open in Philadelphia in February.
Hawass has also asked five foreign museums to return Egyptian artifacts. He has singled out: the Rosetta Stone, the tablet in the British Museum that was key to deciphering hieroglyphs; a bust of Queen Nefertiti at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, which he says Adolf Hitler stopped from being returned to Egypt; a bust of Prince Ankhhaf in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; a Zodiac taken from a ceiling at Dendera Temple that is in the Louvre in Paris; and a statue of Hemiunnu, the architect of the Great Pyramid, in the Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany.
"I am not asking for everything to come back," says Hawass. "I am asking museums not to buy stolen goods at auctions in San Francisco, London and elsewhere. And if they are bought, I'm asking them to send them back."
But most of his wrath these says is saved for St. Louis Art Museum director Benjamin, who he calls "crazy" for not returning a funerary mask after a May 15 deadline. In his defense, Benjamin says Hawass hasn't offered enough proof to convince him that the object the museum bought for $499,000 in 1998 from a Swiss art dealer was stolen. Hawass says he will not only sue Benjamin, but contact the U.S. State Department and the international police organization, Interpol.
"I will," he says, "make his life miserable."
Chronicle Staff Writer Jack Epstein recently visited Egypt on a fellowship sponsored by the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. E-mail him at jepstein@sfchronicle.com.
Posts: 116 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
As Hawass describes it, his zeal is necessary to help modern Egyptians value their heritage. His goal, he says, is for them to "look at the pyramids as a living soul and help me take care of it and protect it." __________________________________________________
Spoken like a True Dictator
__________________________________________________ Quote: Modern Egyptians ? __________________________________________________
I hope he's not talking about Arabs protecting Kemet culture, that's a joke ?
What's worse the few Arabs who do know the Truth well they can expect to be silenced.
__________________________________________________ Quote: Hawass later docked the pay of a Supreme Council member who criticized the re-creation of Tut's face, disputing the computer image's Caucasian look. __________________________________________________
__________________________________________________ Quote: "He is the leader of an enormous organization that is faced with many challenges," __________________________________________________
Yes one of the challages of Hawass and his organization is to tell the truth about Kemet and it original African (Black) Rulers, but that would require true scholarship from the "Show-Biz Pharaoh aka media whore"
Posts: 567 | From: USA | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
How can any sane person believe in this egomaniac ?
Hawass has denied permission to many serious geologists/archeologists attempts to really date the Sphinx,Great pyramid ,etc..find out by non intrusive means(radar,etc..) if secret passages exist,...
ALL queries must pass his office and as corruption is rampant in the Dept of Antiquity..
Do not be fooled by this buffoon- if serious investigations were ever made he would be considered one of the main suspect...
Remember- Hawass is part of the "dog and pony show"..when his utility is over he will simply be replaced by another joker..
As for the FATWA-he cannot have it overuled; it- it is a religious decree.He is fully aware of this.
In fact it has NOT been recalled as far as I can determine it.So it means that it is STILL ACTIVE..
If any Egyptian on this board can look into this...
And in EGYPT if your denounce ISLAM or criticise the Qu'ran etc-DEATH AWAITS YOU..
I hope peeople will not be fooled by the above article,of one JAck EPSTEIN with a grant from the John Hopkins University School of advanced International studies- a big title that boils down to this- you do NOT GET the $$$ unless you aew PART of the ESTABLISHMENT.
Why do you think they chose a JEW to go to Egypt as an "unbiased reporter "?!
Thus, that article was simply DAMAGE CONTROL on order from the US government to help their friend in Egypt,Moubarak and prop up his recent son's visit to Bush-as he is the next President of Egypt,after the passing of his father..
This is alled anticipatory democracy..
Posts: 305 | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by margarita: Last year, he allowed the mummy of King Tutankhamen to be removed from its tomb for the first time in 80 years to learn how the boy king died, using state-of-the-art scanning equipment. Computer images determined Tut's appearance. Critics decried the event as more of a media circus than science, and Hawass later docked the pay of a Supreme Council member who criticized the re-creation of Tut's face, disputing the computer image's Caucasian look.
I have no doubt that the member being referred to here is Ahmed Saleh, who made an excellent page concerning mummies and exposing the biases behind the reconstruction of Tut's face.
I recently tried going back to his site only to find it was down, I could not even recover a webarchive of it.
Now I know why.
He was likely pressured to shut it down along with a deduction in pay. It is disgusting to see truthseeking scholars silenced by propagandists like Hawass.
posted
Well at least we KNOW now that Hawass is Eurocentric. It is funny too because the reconstruction doesnt even look ANYTHING like most MODERN Egyptians, let alone ancient Egyptians. Either way, Hawass is a joke and a tool being used by Europeans to push Eurocentrism. They know that most "Arabs" (people with descent outside of Egypt) dont identify with ancient Egyptian culture because they identify ancient Egyptian culture with the original black Africans of Egypt. Therefore, Hawass is making it clear that he will make an image of ancient Egypt that is MORE appealing to modern Egyptians. How is that? Well of course that MUST mean that he has to EMPHASIZE the similarities of ancient Egyptians to modern Egyptians, especially those with the LEAST amount of Egyptian blood or interest in Egypt. If that is not a BLATANT policy of distortion and historical inaccuracy, I dont know what is. Of course, Europeans will publicly sit on the fence or criticize this endeavor, while at the same time using this to push their own agenda, making the ancient Egyptians more European than Egyptian. One need look no further than King Tut's reconstruction to see that. I think that this actually makes it EASIER to prove that Egyptology is nothing but a FRAUD designed to appeal to Europeans and others who are the LEAST connected to the ancient Egyptians and REMOVE Egypt from its TRUE African perspective and background.
I am sure that soon ALL pharoahs will be pushed as looking like Tut and that the South of Egypt was as "white" as the North of Egypt, where even the Medjay and other siginificant "Nubians" were white and the only "black" Africans involved in ancient Egypt were lowly subjects and laborers. But actually, the next step is to PUSH "Nubia" as the TRUE "black" civilization in Africa and try and put a buffer between Egypt and Africa, so that "Nubia" will be pushed as "black", while Egypt, which is RIGHT NEXT DOOR, can be pushed as "white". Funny how Egypt can be right next to Nubia and have no similarities in features and culture, but Egypt which is far away from Europe and just as far from the Levant as "Nubia" can have closer ties and features.
Posts: 8889 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:They know that most "Arabs" (people with descent outside of Egypt) dont identify with ancient Egyptian culture because they identify ancient Egyptian culture with the original black Africans of Egypt.
They do? I know we don't have a lot of Egyptians here, but from the few that have visited here, I never got the impression that most modern Egyptians associated Kemet with blacks.
posted
__________________________________________________ Quote: Nubians" were white and the only "black" Africans involved in ancient Egypt were lowly subjects and laborers. But actually, the next step is to PUSH "Nubia" as the TRUE "black" civilization in Africa and try and put a buffer between Egypt and Africa, so that "Nubia" will be pushed as "black", while Egypt, which is RIGHT NEXT DOOR __________________________________________________
They got no shot thank to the new Information about Ta-Seti Posts: 567 | From: USA | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:How is that? Well of course that MUST mean that he has to EMPHASIZE the similarities of ancient Egyptians to modern Egyptians, especially those with the LEAST amount of Egyptian blood or interest in Egypt
There are similarities between ancient Egypt and modern Egypt in the folk customs of the rural Egyptians in both Lower and Upper Egypt. Actually, Hawass in a interview said the following about connections between ancient and modern Egyptians:
NOVA: Do most Egyptians today feel an ancestral link to the ancient Egyptians?
Hawass: Of course, because we are the descendants of the pharaohs. If you look at the faces of the people of Upper Egypt, the relationship between modern and ancient Egypt is very clear. Habits in the villages, our celebrations when we finish a project, are similar to what they had in ancient Egypt. After someone dies, we make a celebration after 40 days, just like the ancient Egyptians did during the mummification process. Everything in our lives is like ancient Egypt.
Not that I endorce everything Hawass does or says but he sometimes gets things right. He is definately wrong when he said that ancient Egypt did not have an African origin or was distinct from Africa.
In terms of phenotype I agree that most modern Egyptians are quite different than the ancient Egyptians. Modern Egyptians are comprised of many mixtures of people that came in and out of ancient Kmt. Most people tend to focus primiarly on the Arab elements being the most common but the truth is modern Egyptians probably have more Mameluke,Turkish,Greek,Berber and Armenian ancestry than Arabic.
Remember Hawass is just giving his opinions on the matters and his job is simply to safeguard the pyramids and the antiquities of ancient Egypt.
The following article mentions that Omar Sharif is an ethnic Egyptian when in reality he is a ethnic transplant from Lebanon. His family is of Lebanese origin not Egyptian.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
__________________________________________________ Quote: Hawass: Of course, because we are the descendants of the pharaohs __________________________________________________
Ausar Quote: Remember Hawass is just giving his opinions on the matters and his job is simply to safeguard the pyramids and the antiquities of ancient Egypt. __________________________________________________
If that's so then Hawass is doing a horrible job, who behind the Nose Job Gone Bad reconstruction on some of the Kemet statues ?
Posts: 567 | From: USA | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
in a way it's good that egyptian peices are all over the world...what if they all returned to egypt then the muslims all go taliban, and start destroying them, like they did to the pryrimids, or the library of alex, or st. sophias,or the buddist statues, or what they have done to the temple mount...
-------------------- The ground at Calvary's Cross is level Posts: 1172 | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
That Hawass has one of the best jobs in the world...
I think he should focus his energy on makeing museums in egypt to store all this anceit egypt stuff...and make them tourist frendly..not such cattle shutes..
and so people can take pictures of things..like tut's mask, ect...
-------------------- The ground at Calvary's Cross is level Posts: 1172 | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Masonic Rebel, you can roll your eyes at that comment all you wish but modern Egyptians are desendants of the ancient Egyptians. Just because many might not look like their ancestors does not mean they are not ancestral to each other. Most Mexicans are mixed with Spainard ancestry as Puerto Ricans with Africans and Spainard but both have ancestry from pre-columbian people and populations.
Like I mentioned before, I don't think Hawass is necessarily the best person to protect the ancient Egyptian antiquities. My personal choice would be to Ahmed Saleh.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by ausar: Masonic Rebel, you can roll your eyes at that comment all you wish but modern Egyptians are desendants of the ancient Egyptians. Just because many might not look like their ancestors does not mean they are not ancestral to each other. Most Mexicans are mixed with Spainard ancestry as Puerto Ricans with Africans and Spainard but both have ancestry from pre-columbian people and populations.
Like I mentioned before, I don't think Hawass is necessarily the best person to protect the ancient Egyptian antiquities. My personal choice would be to Ahmed Saleh.
Ausar, have you heard anything from Ahmed Saleh about what this article is talking about regarding Hawass's punishment of a CSA member, for critisizing the "North African Caucasoid" reconstuction of Tut?
His webpage just seemed to drop out of sight, I've tried to find a webarchive that restored it but most of the pictures on them are messed up.
I did recover his email from it though.
ahmed saleh@mummyspeaks.net
I agree that he is likely better for the job Hawass has. He seems like a more unbiased person. I was impressed by his comments on forensic reconstructions which are referenced on this webpage.
"Masonic Rebel, you can roll your eyes at that comment all you wish but modern Egyptians are desendants of the ancient Egyptians"
Egyptians Yes
Quote:
"descendants of the pharaohs "
NO WAY
I've heard that some Pharaohs such as Ramses II had upwards to about 100 children.
If their descendants survived they likely melded into the overall Egytian population, their descendants could be anywhere from the elite in modern Egyptian society to a rural citizen.
Whether they look it or not many modern Egytians are descendants of the Pharonic period.
I have no problem with that, I have a problem with people like Hawass promoting a certain look in modern Egypt as representative of the ancients or promoting the divorcing of Ancient Egypt from the rest of Africa.
Ancient Egypt is a Modern Egyptian heritage just as Ancient Greece is a Modern Greek heritage but it is also an AFRICAN civilization.
Posts: 1203 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
__________________________________________________ Quote: I've heard that some Pharaohs such as Ramses II had upwards to about 100 children __________________________________________________
oh I never thought about that
ok now I understand
Thanks
Posts: 567 | From: USA | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
One of the problems with aruging that modern Egyptians are largely foreigners and desendants of Arab invaders is that only about 20,000 Arabs migrated into Egypt along with Amr Ibn Alas'. No way such a small population can displace a population that reached three million. More foreigners from the Late Dyanstic Period like Jews,Syrians,Phonecians,Greeks,Armenians and Carians came into Egypt than just Arabs. Lots of intermarriage occured and probably did produce the people you see in modern day Egypt. How do you expect a civilization that expanded during the New Kingdom to incorporate foreigners to remain homogenous?
I will emphasize this again to most of the posters here. I do believe that pre-dyanstic Egypt was a intra-African melting pot incorpotating people from the Upper Nile,the Sahara and parts of eastern Africa. What I don't agree with is that modern Egyptians are completely Arab foreigners that invaded Egypt. Plenty of the elite in modern day Egypt do trace themselves back to Circassian and Turkish people. Many of the Muslims and Christians in modern Egypt have foreign ancestry.
With the following said, the foreigners can say what they will about my people but we know we are desendants of the ancient Egyptians. Our customs speak for themselves. My people are rural Saidi people[many of which would be considered ''black'' in modern day America]
Mansa Musa, I don't know what happened to Dr. Saleh's website. I only emailed him once and he sent me back a responce about the modern Egyptians he believed best represented the ancient Egyptians. Mentioned also the mixing of bedouin tribes in parts of Middle Egypt. If you have his article I recommend you save them. Also email him if you can get a responce back.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
With the following said, the foreigners can say what they will about my people but we know we are descendants of the ancient Egyptians. Our customs speak for themselves. My people are rural Saidi people [many of which would be considered ''black'' in modern day America] __________________________________________________
Cool
Still in America we would get the chance to learn much about the Saidi people, if Dr Hawess and some others have their version of History
Instead
We will learn about the" Ancient North African Caucasoids who ruled Kemet "
Sorry Ausar every time Hawass makes a comment on Kemet my attitude will still be the same, unless He starts promoting the facts.
Posts: 567 | From: USA | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Actually, it was not Zahi Hawass that made the ''North African caucasoid'' claim but actually the French forensic anthropologist that examined the crania of Tut-ankh-amun. Dr. Susan Anton was not told she had Tut-ankh-amun but did say the person she looked at was an Africa. She declined to give it a specific racial classification.
The French anthropologist erroneously classified him because of his nasal opening was not like a Western or Central Africa.
I don't blame you for being skeptical of Zahi Hawass. I don't trust him either nor take his opinions on the origins of the ancient Egyptians seriously but I will read his information on general Egyptology.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by ausar: One of the problems with aruging that modern Egyptians are largely foreigners and desendants of Arab invaders is that only about 20,000 Arabs migrated into Egypt along with Amr Ibn Alas'.
Indeed, the paternal lineage of most Upper Egyptians along the Nile Valley is overwhelmingly Black African....not Arab [Asian].
It's odd that so many reject hard science, which in certain cases can provide objective verifiable answers, to arguments which otherwise merely amount to moot-point tradings of ad hoc opinion.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Zahi HawASS is a pompous ass. He is a media whore...I don't want to see him every time I watch a special on the Discovery Channel!!
Posts: 1219 | From: North Carolina, USA | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
My biggest problem with Hawass is that he continues to promote the White-washed Euro-fabricated version of Egyptian history. How can any serious/truth seeking scholar take him seriously?? I do believe that many of the modern day egyptians are descendant from the ancients, especially in the south
Posts: 142 | From: University Height, NJ, USA | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
ausar, The idea that southern egyptians would be considered black in America is not the point. American public attitudes are hardly the standard. Obviously Hawass is not an Afrocentric, that much we can say.
-------------------- God Bless President Bush Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:One of the problems with aruging that modern Egyptians are largely foreigners and desendants of Arab invaders is that only about 20,000 Arabs migrated into Egypt along with Amr Ibn Alas'. No way such a small population can displace a population that reached three million.
There were others, not just arabs who came to egypt. When you think about it, most arabs are a mix of various peoples, correct, so since Egypt is mixed, Arab generalizations are not totally off.
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
oh I never thought about that ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic