HUFFINGTON
07.22.12
GOLDEN MUMMIES
ANA NANCE
A fort in the desert near Intercontinental Hotels’ Palace Port Ghalib Resort in Marsa Alam, Egypt.
“We need the money brought in by
tourists who visit our sites and museums to fund these things and, at the
moment, there are no tourists,” Hawass wrote in an email to several media outlets confirming his departure.
Hawass’ resignation didn’t last
long. The interim government persuaded him to take up the newly created post of Antiquities Minister. This
is when, as Hawass describes it, “The
thieves I stopped before the revolution targeted me.” Not long after he
assumed his new post, Atiya filed
suit against him again, this time citing a law under which civil servants
who failed to implement court rul-
ings must be fired and jailed. Though
a court decree allowed him to maintain his position and avoid imprisonment, Hawass lost the case and, with
it, his bid to dissociate himself from
Mubarak’s cabal of profiteers. He had
been found guilty of corruption.
If his relationship with the Egyptian
people had been tenuous before, it
was now downright hostile.
In early July, the Egyptian government pushed out Hawass along with
11 other Ministers unpopular with
protesters. Hawass had just returned
from an international tour promoting
post-revolutionary tourism and resigned his position as a National Geo-