Blahg

4 December 2010

Dr. Zahi Hawass signs my book after his lecture at the Paramount Theatre, Thursday, 2 December 2010

Dr. Hawass' sold out lecture was a barrage of fun, funny stories, anecdotes, adventure, history, preservation, and science. He spoke for a jam-packed 90 minutes, including a little Q&A session that skewed heavily toward questions from the 8-9-year-old set.

I didn't take notes, there was too much to take in to bother trying to write stuff down. Nonetheless, here are a few recollections off the top of my head:

• Many celebrities and political leaders have visited Dr. Hawass at various Egyptian sites, including Presidents Clinton and Obama. The latter famously joked about how a head with big ears in a heiroglyph looked like his own.
• George Lucas asked Dr. Hawass how it is his hat became more famous than Dr. Jones'. His reply: Indiana Jones is fictional, I am real.
• After a pulley system broke, Dr. Hawass was stuck in a narrow crevasse for an hour, dangling above a water source, in pitch blackness. After he was rescued, the Egyptian president asked him what he was thinking about while he was stuck down there. Dr. Hawass replied by saying in a few years he'll write a book about that.
• The new National Museum, located in Old Cairo, will be the world's largest museum. It is scheduled for a "soft opening" in 2012 and will be fully operational in 2014.
• The current, classic Cairo Museum (The Egyptian Museum), will remain open, with more of an emphasis on art and putting it in more of an historical context.
• Dr. Hawass was in Denver years ago, while he was a college student in Philadelphia.
• Early in his career, Dr. Hawass actually hated archaeology. But, while he was working on a project, dusting off a statue, things started to resonate with him and he fell in love with archaeology.
• Do what you love and you will make it big.
• Dr. Hawass is writing a book about how to get into archaeological, it's geared toward gradeschoolers.
• Dr. Hawass estimates only 30% of Egypt's treasures have been unearthed. He is certain there are still tombs to be discovered in the Valley of the Kings.
• Dr. Hawass gave CAT scans of King Tut to American, Egyptian, and French scientists. He didn't tell the Americans who it was and they came back with portraits that looked nothing like King Tut. He told the Egyptians it was King Tut and they came back with profiles that looked nothing like King Tut. He didn't tell the French who it was, but the French were smart. They came back with portraits of a Frenchman. (This is a butchered interpretation of the story; the way Dr. Hawsss told it, it was a funny story.)
• During a video introduction, Omar Sharif talks about how he was the world's most famous Egyptian until Dr. Hawass came along. Shariff compliments Dr. Hawass and calls him a great actor.
• He made a comment about Chasing Mummies, a topic I was particularly curious about since the TV series seemed to mix reality with a large dose of fiction. But, as if part of King Tut's curse, that's the one part where Dr. Hawass spoke quickly and moved on. (Keep in mind Sharif's comment about Dr. Hawass being a great actor.)
• Dr. Hawass doesn't believe in curses. The problem was that the early tomb excavators entered the tombs too quickly. For thousands of years, germs and viruses festered in the tombs and the archaeologists' bodies were simply susceptible to all the illness floating around. Now when a new tomb is discovered it is allowed to air out for a day or so before people enter.
• He did concede one real curse: The curse of Zahi Hawass!

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