GOLDEN MUMMIES
PREVIOUS PAGE: MIKHAIL GALUSTOV/REDUX
ahi Hawass’
ego hasn’t suffered
since protesters
forced him out of his
influential post as
Egypt’s antiquities
steward 18 months
ago, shortly after
Hosni Mubarak was
toppled from the
country’s presidency.
“I am Egyptian antiquities,” he says.
That confidence served him well
when he controlled the pharaohs’
treasures on Mubarak’s behalf, steering Egypt’s economically critical Supreme Council of Antiquities and the
billions it helped reap annually, primarily from tourism and international
exhibitions. The man who calls himself Egypt’s Indiana Jones has fewer
HUFFINGTON
07.22.12
friends these days, now that revolution and a corruption scandal have
forced him from office. Protesters who
picketed Hawass and his Indy-esque
fedora in Tahrir Square shouted that
he should “take it with him and go.”
Though he was briefly restored
to power last year, Hawass, 64, has
yet to find much support among the
Freedom and Justice Party of President-Elect Mohamed Morsi. He may
yet be vindicated, however, if Morsi’s new government finds it can’t
replace his golden touch. The stability of the fledgling democracy may
even depend on it.
Before Mubarak’s fall in February,
2011, Hawass had spent more than
two decades helping Egypt promote
its antiquities to a foreign audience.
He is credited as the man behind the
traveling King Tut exhibit, the discovery of the Valley of the Golden
Mummies and a wide range of other
projects during his nine years as Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. He provided an
agreeable face for the Western world.
Hawass’ aggressive promotion often came on the heels of tragedy, in
what appeared to be a deft strumming
of public sentiment toward his homeland. In 1998, following the murder of
63 tourists in Luxor, he reopened the
Sphinx to the public after its 10-year
closure. From then on, he organized a
near-constant parade of blockbuster