Why Dr Hawass Resigned

www.drhawass.com...

Q: Dr. Hawass, for many years you have been the image of modern Egyptology. Why are you leaving now?

A: “I am leaving because of a variety of important reasons. The first reason is that, during the Revolution of January 25th, the Egyptian Army protected our heritage sites and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. However, in the last 10 days the army has left these posts because it has other tasks to do. The group now in charge of the protection of these sites is the Tourist Police, but there are no Tourist Police to do this either. Therefore, what happens? Egyptian criminals, thieves (you know, in every revolution bad people always appear…), have begun to destroy tombs. They damaged the tomb of Hetep-ka at Saqqara, the tomb of Petah-Shepses at Abu Sir and the tomb of a person called Em-pi at Giza. They attacked a storage magazine at Saqqara and we do not yet know how many artifacts are missing; they opened two storage magazines at Giza; one tomb dated to the 19th Dynasty, the only one in the Delta in fact, was damaged at Ismaïlia; and a store at El-Qantara East has been broken into and looted for antiquities. People have begun to build houses and to excavate at night, everywhere, putting heritage sites all over the country at risk. I had to write a report and I sent it to the Director of UNESCO. That is why at the meeting of the Egyptian cabinet yesterday I had my speech prepared already and I said: “I cannot stay in Egypt and see antiquities being stolen when I cannot do anything to stop it!” This situation is not for me! I have always fought to return stolen artifacts to Egypt. I did fight Ahmed Ezz as well, the man in the Parliament, who was the most powerful man, because he wanted to allow antiquities to be sold in Egypt again.

So depressing,

ATS threads at times discuss monetary systems. Buy gold, no wait, buy silver wait hold it. Hydrogen yeah thats the ticket.

But then I started thinking. All those are arbitrary. Even land which so many touted as the good investment has crashed. But antiquities.

I started wondering about this when there was no attempt to protect the museum in Bagdad. Remember how we all said oh what a shame. Where could all of those artifacts have gone. Sitting on some Iraqi's coffee table? Who are we kidding. All that stuff was bought up by you know who. And all those billions that went missing? I think exchanged for those priceless( notice the word we all use so lightly?) pieces of history.

So when the Egyptian revolution came along says I to myself, "its only a matter of time before the guard goes down on the museum there. Antiquities.

Totally unreplaceable. Trading antiquities is the upcoming monetary system between the elites.

Why do we think that all these paintings by famous artists are going for sooooo much money and disapearing into someones collection. The money is meaningless to them now. But the Goya??

Or maybe since the Egyptian government was overturned, his US- and UK-backed cronies aren't picking up his tab anymore.

I think he knew his period of Egyptology was coming to an end.

what would really blow me away is if a looter stumbles onto something unknown that changes everything.
something he had hidden..

they should gut his office for files.

This is what is very concerning about these manufactured "revolutions" in the Mid-
East.
After some time, who will they bring into power?
We all know what the Taliban did to the ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan.
Imagine people like that in power in Egypt, who follow the Old Testament's commandment against idols.
Imagine they start blowing all these artifacts up.
Smuggling anything that is possible out won't be looting, it will be saving things.
Let's hope not.
The Sphinx is a bit big to carry.

Methinks people were getting close to some truth.
So now the only way to stop revelations is to leave it to a bunch of fundamentalist numb-skulls.
I hope I'm wrong, and it won't be like the burning of Mayan texts by the retarded Christians of that time.

I feel for him...this man's life work is gutted which I am sure it is how he must feel. He specialized. What is he gonna go study now. Side Note...I wonder if Obama picked out anything for his collection when ever he was there recently? "Boys, I saw this little statue that looked like me. I would like to have that to admire."

reply to post by Stormdancer777


I've never seen a good word said about him and many times I have seen him called a liar..

Why would I believe him now?
Maybe he is leaving, with all the treasures and secrets..
Who knows better than him ???

It seems a shame to me that countries such as UK, USA, France, Germany, Australia etc cant send in forces solely to protect the World Heritage that's being forever damaged and lost

Originally posted by Versa
It seems a shame to me that countries such as UK, USA, France, Germany, Australia etc cant send in forces solely to protect the World Heritage that's being forever damaged and lost

Early on there were reports that the protesters had arranged guards to protect the Egyptian treasures..

Without being there do we know what is really going on??
Do we know who is really stealing these things??

It is sad that this would happening. History being lost is most upsetting. This man is supposed to be a bad man but he seems to have done some awesome things for the area.

One thing though is if they are gunna do things like this I hope they take the time to dig under the pyramids or sphinx as well.

What a load of verbal garbage ,that is no excuse to leave this position , if he truely believes in what he doe's and love's what he is doing it would be a even greater reason to stay .If you have ever met or seen a interview with this man you would find him to be the most nasty ,ignorant ,vile man .He is absolutely hated .This bastard has kept the truth of human history hidden from the world for his masters ! Good riddance to bad rubbish , wonder what scum bag they will replace him with ? As for his claims I doubt them greatly .The locals know what tourism does for them and they are not stupid and tourist opperators would not allow it .You even step of a path over there and you will be shot .Goodbye Hawass we won't miss you at all .As for someones remarks about Heritage site's you are 100% correct , it is the legal obligation of the UN .As a matter of fact they will not let anything happen to them as they actually own them .All world heritage areas are legally sign over to the UN and that is a fact ! Research it !

reply to post by 13th Zodiac


I have to agree with this. I am not sorry to see him go but I question his motives in leaving in the first place. If this man had dedicated his life to 'protecting' Egypts treasures, this seems like a rather lame excuse for leaving office - particularly if he is as fanatical about the subject as he claims to be.

However, whatever the reason, I'm quite pleased to say good riddance to bad rubbish.

Originally posted by Kryties
reply to post by 13th Zodiac

 

I have to agree with this. I am not sorry to see him go but I question his motives in leaving in the first place. If this man had dedicated his life to 'protecting' Egypts treasures, this seems like a rather lame excuse for leaving office - particularly if he is as fanatical about the subject as he claims to be.

However, whatever the reason, I'm quite pleased to say good riddance to bad rubbish.

Im completely with you on this! Is he just going to turn a blind eye to the destruction and theft of the artifacts left in these tombs after all these years?

What is he thinking!?! If was as passionate as him and had given so much of my life to the ancient egyptiansm, I would guard these tombs to my grave!

reply to post by jexmo

Im completely with you on this! Is he just going to turn a blind eye to the destruction and theft of the artifacts left in these tombs after all these years?

Or just a clever lie to cover what HE takes with him ??

reply to post by backinblack


Lol I just had a mental image of him hefting a Pyramid onto his shoulders and toddling off.......

Originally posted by backinblack
reply to post by jexmo

 

Im completely with you on this! Is he just going to turn a blind eye to the destruction and theft of the artifacts left in these tombs after all these years?

Or just a clever lie to cover what HE takes with him ??

In reply to that I have to say I have never really trusted him. Does seem to be strange that he is leaving like this all of a sudden.
I find it hard to believe these are the first problems of this kind he has faced.

All seems a bit suspect to me. You wouldn't just leave your lifes work for others to destroy.

During the first week of the 'revolution' I heard Mr Hawass on npr (I was driving).

He basically called the egyptian people looters and theives.

He read the script very well.

You know an interesting comparative thought is considering how the French removed all of their art and the effort involved before being completely looted by the Nazis. Operation Europa I believe.

What the heck is going on there? There are excavations going with loaders?

A site in Northern Sinai was destroyed when looters arrived with a loader.

· Looters have attacked Abydos nearly every night; illegal excavations and trenches, some as deep as five meters, have damaged the site.

· Reports of illegal construction have been reported near the pyramid of Merenre and the Mastaba Fara’un, near Saqqara.

Many sites, including Alexandria, Ismailia, Saqqara, Behaira, Sharqia, Abusir and Dahshur, have reported illegal excavations, some of which have taken place at night.

This is not good...

Source

Part of me is very excited to hear that Hawass is on the way out, but another part of me knows that Hawass is taking great care of artifacts and sites and stuff and that there will indeed be even more damage to archeological finds as he leaves.

Maybe he'll pull a "no caves under the pyramid" move and say he's leaving when he's really getting promoted