Profile: Dr. Zahi Hawass
By STAN PARCHIN
December 11, 2009
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| Dr. Zahi Hawass emerges from a tomb with a lantern. Photograph courtesy of Zahi Hawass and University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. |
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| Dr. Zahi Hawass stands over Pharaoh Tutankhamun's mummy in the ruler's tomb in the Valley of the Kings while monitoring the body's CT scan. Photograph courtesy of Zahi Hawass and University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. |
Zahi Hawass (b. 1947), a native of Damietta, Egypt, has served as his country's Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities since 2002. The award-winning Director of Excavations at the Giza Pyramids, Saqqara and Bahariya Oasis became a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence in July 2001. One of Time magazine's Top 100 Most Influential People in 2005, the world-renowned archaeologist and Egyptologist was appointed Deputy Minister of Culture in November 2009.
Education and Teaching
Having studied law, Hawass turned his attentions to Greek and Roman archaeology at Alexandria University, where he received his bachelor's degree. With a diploma in Egyptology from the University of Cairo, the Fulbright Fellow eagerly pursued his doctorate in the same subject at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned the advanced degree in 1987.
After 1988, Dr. Hawass taught at the American University in Cairo and the University of California-Los Angeles. Involved tirelessly in the construction of 19 new museums, he currently supervises programs that train a fresh generation of Egyptians in the modern methods of systematic excavation, conservation, preservation, restoration and site management.
Discoveries and Conservation
Many chapters in Egyptology's history have been written with Hawass' discoveries of the tombs of Giza's pyramid builders and the Valley of the Golden Mummies in the Western Desert's Bahariya Oasis. He uncovered four previously unknown Old Kingdom pyramids in Giza and Saqqara. And he led the successful conservation efforts of the Great Sphinx, the Step Pyramid and the Serapeum.
Dr. Hawass is supervising the development and implementation of site management plans for Giza, the Saqqara necropolis and Luxor's West Bank. In November 2009, he approved plans by the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) to preserve the tomb of New Kingdom Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
Ongoing Projects
Hawass is actively searching for the tombs of the 18th Dynasty's queens, that of Pharaoh Ramesses VIII and those of Ptolemaic ruler Cleopatra and Roman statesman Mark Antony near Alexandria. He's also occupied with locating obelisks and statuary submerged in the Nile River. Having used robotic technology, he will soon reveal what lies behind the Great Pyramid's interior hidden doors.
As head of the Egyptian Mummy Project (EMP), Hawass continues to authorize the CT (computerized thermography) scanning and DNA analysis of royal and private remains to gain valuable insight into the lives and health of Egyptians in antiquity. He most likely identified Queen Hatshepsut's mummy using state-of-the-art forensic techniques. The scholar's landmark examination of Pharaoh Tutankhamun has led to the EMP's intrepid investigation into the boy-king's lineage.
Special Exhibitions
Responsible for the loan of numerous Egyptian artifacts to museums worldwide (e.g., The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt), Dr. Hawass organized with National Geographic two special exhibitions, Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs and Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Pharaohs. Each installation of 130 works contains some 50 objects from the tomb of the 18th Dynasty's most famous monarch. He recently approved the five-city North American tour of Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt.
Object Repatriation
An outspoken advocate of looted artifacts' repatriation, Dr. Hawass has been instrumental in the return of more than 5,000 Egyptian antiquities to his homeland. He avidly seeks the restoration of six important works in time for the projected 2013 opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza: the Rosetta Stone (British Museum); the Bust of Nefertiti (Berlin's Neues Museum); the Zodiac Ceiling Painting from the Dendera Temple (Musée du Louvre); the Seated Statue of Hemiunu, nephew and vizier of Pharaoh Khufu, the builder of Giza's largest pyramid (Hildesheim's Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum); the Bust of Anchhaf, architect of Pharaoh Khafre's pyramid (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston); and the Statue of Ramesses II (Turin Museum).
Media Presence
Distinguished by many academic accolades, prolific author Zahi Hawass is Egypt's most recognizable living face on the international airwaves. Promoting his country's ancient heritage and its preservation, he has appeared on the BBC, CNN, Discovery, History, Learning and National Geographic Channels, FOX, NOVA and PBS in documentaries and on talk shows produced in the United States, Europe and Japan. Hawass won the American television industry's prestigious Emmy Award in 2006. He also maintains a Web site.
Publications
Zahi Hawass' impressive roster of publications includes: Silent Images: Women in Ancient Egypt (2000); Valley of the Golden Mummies: The Greatest Egyptian Discovery Since Tutankhamun (2000); Hidden Treasures of Ancient Egypt: Unearthing the Masterpieces of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (2004); Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs (2005); Mountains of the Pharaohs: The Untold Story of the Pyramid Builders (2006); The Royal Tombs of Egypt: The Art of Thebes Revealed (2006); and King Tutankhamun: The Treasures of the Tomb (2008). He is the co-author of Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs (2008). Hawass, who writes regularly for Al-Ahram Weekly, contributes to journals and magazines.
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