The ever-ambitious Dr. Zahi Hawass is a colorful man whose enthusiasm for his job as the secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities gives the good doctor full liberties as to Egypt's monuments and how they are to be interpreted during his reign. I say reign as the doctor has a habit of acting more like Egypt's dictator Hosni Mubarak than the man of science he is supposed to be.
A few years ago, I watched as Dr. Hawass did a TV show in which he had a stone sarcophagus opened and, in front of the cameras, began rifling the contents for something to show the camera. It was very unscientific and hardly professional.
Last year, in 2007, Dr. Hawass made another TV show, "Secrets of Egypt's lost Queen," in which several obvious errors in judgment and material occurred. It was a minor error that Dr. Hawass as well as the staff at the Cairo Egyptian museum were unable to recognize that one of the mummies in the show was not who they were claiming she was while a graphic displaying two female mummies with a box inscribed for Hatshepsut laying between them in the tomb DB320 was a little more devious as a mistake (there is no record recording the position of these objects in the tomb).
In this show, which should have been called "Secrets of Egypt's lost King," as was Hatshepsut's most important title, the female pharaoh was identified by Dr. Hawass by a broken tooth, and several publications followed, all extolling the new discovery.
More than a year later, Dr. Hawass's discovery of the mummy of Hatshepsut has not had its results independently verified. Dr. Hawass should not make claims that he cannot or does not want to back up. The Egyptian antiquities protocol is probably being used not to verify, as Egypt's mummies are to be examined now by Egyptians only.
In the fall 2008 issue of KMT, a letter to the editor points out that the so-called tooth evidence is more than likely wrong. The tooth displayed has two roots, but being the upper molar, it should have three. If he did find the mummy of Egypt's greatest female King, then he should be more than proud to prove it; otherwise, he is wasting his new lab's time and misleading the Egyptological community.
Dr. Hawass's most recent "no free lunch" campaign has the doctor telling everyone who will listen that Egypt received no money for its 1976 tour of King Tutankhamen's treasures. This is not true, as Egypt made millions of dollars from the revenues of the show.
The Secretary General is a sincere scholar who colors his words and sees what supports his view of things, and hopefully, in the future, will stop saying untrue things and have his discoveries properly verified, even if he feels his discoveries are above common scholars and scientists to doubt.
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