Word: hawass
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...That is about to change, according to the world's most flamboyant Egyptologist. Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced earlier this week that his team of archaeologists was readying for the final approach toward what could be the tomb of Cleopatra. The site is at Abusir, some 30 miles from the port city of Alexandria, among the ruins of an ancient temple to the Egyptian god Osiris. Nearly two dozen coins unearthed there bear Cleopatra's profile and inscription, and carvings in the temple enclosure show two lovers in an embrace. A ceramic fragment...
...Hawass is no stranger to hyperbole. Known for sporting an Indiana Jones style hat and his habit of ending up in front of cameras, the 61-year-old native of the Nile Delta town of Damietta is the government-appointed custodian of Egypt's monuments and the greatest promoter of its mysteries. Archaeological expeditions don't take place without his agency's sanction (and more than a few foreign Egyptologists have been frozen out of work as a result); any sensational discovery is invariably announced by him. "In Egypt," Hawass writes on his personal website, "archaeologists are bigger than movie...
...seeing a legend turn real. It's hard to divine what could be buried by Cleopatra's side, let alone how the storied queen's body itself may be preserved. Could there be treasures? The coiled skin of a snake? "A diary," offers Tyldesley, "would be fantastic." But Hawass and his team must hurry. The dig abuts the summer residence of President Hosni Mubarak, which may force the dozens-strong team of archaeologists to abandon work from May to November. The security concerns of Egypt's current ruler, after all, still outweigh the mystique of its past...
...idea of cultural property is a way to assert their sovereignty against those great powers that once picked through their treasures. It's also a defense against the suction of the present-day free market, which could easily vacuum up whatever the colonial powers haven't carted away. Zahi Hawass is the very vocal head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. "While I believe that Egyptian monuments are the shared heritage of mankind," he told TIME by e-mail, "I also believe that as a sovereign state and the home of this great civilization, Egypt has a right...
...masses do not write history.' ZAHI HAWASS, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, on the "New 7 Wonders of the World." Egyptian authorities are angry that the Great Pyramids of Giza did not make the list of winners, which were tallied in a global online vote...