English
Français
Deutsch
Italiano
Русский
Español
Dr. Zahi Hawass has been called the real-life Indiana Jones and the Pharaoh of Egyptian archaeology — and not always with affection.
Arrogant, passionate and relentlessly driven, Hawass, the former Minister of Antiquities of Egypt, has spent decades commanding excavation sites and delivering fiery public lectures with the confidence of a man who’s been proven right one too many times.
His recent lecture tour across the US drew large crowds. But it also came on the heels of a controversial interview with Joe Rogan, who called it “the worst podcast I’ve ever done,” dismissing the famed archaeologist as a “close-minded fellow who’s been in charge of gatekeeping all the knowledge.”
But it’s hard to argue with the résumé. Hawass has led or overseen many of the most significant Egyptian discoveries of the modern era: the Lost Golden City near Luxor, new tombs at Saqqara, the mummy identification of Queen Hatshepsut, and recent scans inside the Great Pyramid of Giza that revealed mysterious hidden chambers. He also spearheaded efforts to repatriate stolen antiquities and reframe Egyptology with Egyptians at the center.
The Post spoke with this bombastic, unfiltered character who wears his larger-than-life reputation like a tailored khaki jacket.
New York Post: You’re wrapping up your US lecture tour. Was it everything you’d hoped for?
Dr. Zahi Hawass: It was fantastic … I haven’t seen an audience love a lecturer like this before. In every city, when I enter the room, there’s a standing ovation. And when I finish the lecture, there’s another standing ovation. It’s quite remarkable. I don’t think that happened when Dr. Howard Carter found Tutankhamun’s tomb 100 years ago. He never had this kind of fame.
NYP: Do you ever get tired of talking about your discoveries?
ZH: Never! … Every discovery I’ve made in my life has its own story. The last discovery I made, the Lost Golden City in Luxor, is a major, important discovery. It’s the largest city ever found in Egypt, and for the first time we have a glimpse into the artisans who made the temples and the tools they used during the Golden Age. Inside the city, we found seven large royal workshops where they made the statues, jewelry, textiles and clothing for the palace. One of the most important things we found — and it’s not published yet, I’ve only announced it during my lectures — is the name Smenkhkare.
NYP: Found? Like, it was written in the hieroglyphics?
ZH: That’s right! It was everywhere! And I really believe that Smenkhkare is a throne name for Queen Nefertiti. I’m currently searching for her mummy so I can test her DNA and prove this theory. We start in September to search for her tomb.
NYP: Out on the road, did you run into people eager to refute your research? There’s a growing fringe movement that believes aliens were involved in building the pyramids.
ZH: Oh yes! They’re everywhere! And they like to dream. Listen, I am not against any new discovery. Just show me the evidence. I get angry emails every day from people who think I’m hiding the evidence … I get where they’re coming from. If you stood in front of the Great Pyramid for the first time, I’m sure you’d find it hard to believe that it was built by human beings. Who would hire 10,000 workers a day to work for 28 years to build such a thing? It seems ridiculous even to imagine it! But this was a national project of the whole nation.
NYP: So you’d be willing to consider aliens as co-architects, you just want proof?
ZH: I want anything … If aliens built the pyramids, there would be something in the ground. I have been excavating in Egypt for decades, and I’ve found nothing to indicate anything but human activity. But you have someone like Joe Rogan. Did you hear my interview with him?
NYP: I did. It was tense.
ZH: Because he wouldn’t listen to the evidence I was giving him! He said it was the worst interview he ever did in his life. Well, I’m telling you this. I want you to print this. It was the worst interview I’ve ever done in my life.
NYP: What went wrong?
ZH: I’ll tell you what went wrong. When you do an interview with a person, you expect this person to do their homework. When I talked to Piers Morgan, he did his homework. Joe Rogan did not do his homework.
NYP: Is it also possible that he just disagreed with you about what the evidence suggested?
ZH: He was talking about these Italians [who] found eight pillars 600 feet under the Khafre pyramid. [A group of researchers claimed this spring that they had discovered “vertical cylinders” 2,000 feet below ground.] The techniques they used, Synthetic Aperture Radar tomography, can only show 15 meters under the ground, about 60 feet. It will never be able to show 600 feet. Never!
And if these theories are correct, why have they never come to discuss it with us? Why did they decide to announce their discovery by publishing in a magazine where you have to pay a fee to publish? How
does that make sense?
NYP: What if Rogan was willing to tour the pyramids with you?
ZH: Oh, absolutely. I told him as much. But he rejected my invitation. It’s his problem now, because for him to see the pyramids without me is useless. He said on the podcast that he wanted to go with… what’s his name, the guy in England?
NYP: Graham Hancock. [Hancock, who hosted “Ancient Apocalypse” on Netflix, believes the pyramids were built by a lost-to-time civilization some 12,000 years ago.]
ZH: Hancock, right! He asked me to be on his Netflix show, but I’m not sure I want to do it. I also got a call from Piers Morgan’s assistant, asking if I’d be available to do a show in November in Cairo, with me showing him some of my latest discoveries. I promise you, if we do it, we will beat Joe Rogan’s ratings a hundred percent.
NYP: You’ve been in the orbit of many celebrities and politicians over the years. Who surprised you most, for better or worse?
ZH: I cannot forget Princess Diana. She was intellectual, beautiful, just incredible.
NYP: Anybody you couldn’t stand?
ZH: Beyoncé came in 2008, and it did not end well. She was a very nice lady, but she had a very bad bodyguard. I have a camera lady who follows me during these tours, to record everything — and Beyonce’s bodyguard … snatched the camera right out of her hand. I wouldn’t stand for it! I told her and her bodyguard to get out, and banned her from the pyramids. Katy Perry came once, and I don’t think she was very happy. I didn’t recognize her, and didn’t realize she was a singer. I only knew that the guy next to her was Orlando Bloom. I think that upset her.
NYP: You’re claimed to be the inspiration for Indiana Jones. Is that true?
ZH: It’s absolutely true.
NYP: Like George Lucas said, “Tell me about your life,” and then turned it into a script?
ZH: Yes. That is entirely true. We had dinner in Cairo, and he jokingly told me that my hat is more famous than Harrison Ford’s hat from the movie, and I reminded him that my hat is a real archaeological hat and Harrison’s is a fake one.
NYP: Have you ever watched one of the Indiana Jones movies and thought, “Yep, that happened to me?”
ZH: Of course. All of them … I have seen some real danger. Sometimes when I’m on an excavation, I think, “This may be it.” There’s a great amount of danger. I’ve scaled ropes down into shafts that haven’t been entered in thousands of years, and it isn’t lost on me that this isn’t entirely safe. I often think, “Well, if this rope snaps, that’s the end of me.”
NYP: What about Pharaoh curses? The curse of Tutankhamun apparently killed a few archaeologists.
ZH: This is the real story about the curse. When you close a tomb for 3,000 years, and this tomb has mummies in it, there are going to be germs. When you open this tomb, the germs have to come out. There’s radiation! In the past, archaeologists would be in a hurry to look inside these tombs. And they
would ingest all of this unhealthy air. I realized this just a few months ago, you need to let a new discovery breath. I found a sealed sarcophagus 60 feet under the ground, and when the workmen opened it, I waited for three hours until the bad air was released. And then I put my head inside to investigate.
NYP: I’m surprised you haven’t made a cameo in any of the Indiana Jones movies.
ZH: Well, hopefully Harrison Ford and I will have our moment soon. Leslie Greif, a big Hollywood producer, wants me to do a show with Mr. Beast, but I told him I need Harrison Ford. Can you imagine that? Dr. Zahi Hawass and Mr. Harrison Ford revealing the secrets of the Great Pyramid together. Billions of people would tune in. Who wouldn’t want to watch that?
Read the full article here
