Sunday, November 05, 2006
Hawass lecture
This afternoon I attended Dr. Zahi Hawass' lecture at the Portland Art Museum, "New Discoveries at the Giza Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings". Hawass was in town to promote the opening of the exhibit of Egyptian art at the Museum.
Anecdotes from Hawass' lecture:
I forgot one item:
Anecdotes from Hawass' lecture:
- Stated at the beginning & at the end of his lecture that only 30% of all of the monuments in Egypt have been recovered; 70% remain to be found.
- When he first came to the US, he would get a number of questions about Aliens from Outer Space building the Pyramids; since he started coming to the US & talking about the adventure of archeology, he's gotten fewer questons about Aliens bulding the Pyramids.
- When Carter opened the tomb of Tutankhamun, & crawled inside, when his assistant asked him what he saw Carter answered "absolutely wonderful". Dr. Hawass tought about this when he crawled into one of the tombs at the Baharia Oasis; there the locals built their houses above the tombs & their sewage would seep into the underground chambers. When his assistant called to him & asked what he saw, Hawass answered "Shit."
- At some point after Carter opened the Tomb of Pharoah Tutankhamun, & various groups had examined the tomb, the penis of the Pharaoh had been lost. After Dr. Hawass had examined the Pharaoh's body, he examined the sand that formed the floor of the room the mummy had been in & found the missing member. Hawass claimed that this made the dead Pharoah "very happy".
I forgot one item:
- Dr Hawass explained that there is/was a rumor that he had a secret tunnel that led from his bathroom to the Great Pyramid of Cheops, which he would use at lunchtime to enter the Pyramid and hide things in. He's told this story before, so I won't repeat it here. However, the URL he offered when he told this story -- www.hawassbathroom.com -- is dead.
