Monday, March 16, 2009
Uncategorized Speakeasy with Zahi Hawass
Posted by Jonathan Williams on Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:01 PM
Though he's a native Egyptian, Zahi Hawass is no stranger to Atlanta. The city's become a hotbed of Egyptian activity thanks to Emory's Michael C. Carlos Museum's dedication to the subject, as well as the popular exhibit Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs currently on view at the Atlanta Civic Center. As a result, the Egyptologist has likely spent as much time here as on some excavation sites. Hawass, the secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, visits the King Tut exhibit March 19 to give the lecture "Mysteries of Tutankhamun Revealed," and sign books. Here, he discusses his explorations and finds, both Egyptian and Atlantan.
What initially drew you to Egyptian archaeology?
Actually, when I was a young boy ... I wanted to be a lawyer. At 15 I went to study at the Faculty of Law, bought all my assigned books, read one line and realized I hated it. Then I moved to the Faculty of Arts, where I joined the archaeology department quite by accident.
One day I was preparing to go to Cairo, dressed in my best clothes, and the workmen asked me to come and see the new discovery of a tomb. I descended into the tomb, no longer caring that my nice clothes were getting very dirty, and I still remember the Reis (Arabic for the overseer of workmen) [handing] me a brush and saying, "Young man, clean in the middle of the tomb." And while I was cleaning, I saw a statue. It was a statue of Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and beauty. I began to clean the statue with my brush. At that moment, I fell in love with archaeology. It has been the great love of my life ever since.
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