Woe is Zahi Hawass...chased in the streets

"It was a matter of being caught between groups of angry archeologists, since Hawass was chased through the street on Sunday by those who really, really dislike him before his bodyguards could get him into a cab."

Here is the latest saga of Zahi Hawass...

Mohamed Azouz [Al Masry Al Youm]...

Ambiguity has surrounded the destiny of Egypt's new Ministry of Antiquities, following a recent cabinet reshuffle approved on Thursday.

No one has been named to replace the previous and only minister to ever run the ministry, Zahi Hawass. Before the January uprising, the Supreme Council of Antiquities, which Hawass also headed, functioned as Egypt's highest antiquities body and stationed under the Ministry of Culture.

The current secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud, supports abolishing the ministry and turning it into a council controlled by the cabinet.

"Antiquities do not need a minister. Egypt's antiquity sector's policies are regulated by the Law 117/1983, which grants it sovereignty," Abdel Maqsoud told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

He explained that the antiquities sector funds itself independently and does not need government allocations, noting that its revenue covers expenditures.

The head of the Central Administration of Middle Egypt Antiquities, Abdel Rahman al-Aidy, though, is against the idea. He admitted, though, the sector's return to the Ministry of Culture is unlikely, especially with antiquities employees rejecting the idea.

Linda S. Carbonell [Lezget]...

So, last Sunday, Egyptian Minister of Antiquities and television star Zahi Hawass was escorted out the back door of “his” Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square in Cairo. He was removed from office in a sweeping change in the cabinet demanded by new protesters gathered in that famous Square. Today, he got his job back.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf had appointed Abdel Fatah El Banna of Cairo University to replace Dr. Hawass, but the appointment met with vociferous objections from the antiquities staff and archeologists around the world. It was a matter of being caught between groups of angry archeologists, since Hawass was chased through the street on Sunday by those who really, really dislike him before his bodyguards could get him into a cab. But other archeologist demanded his return.

Dr. Hawass is a controversial figure, to put it mildly. He has been criticized for being too dictatorial, for not doing enough to make his nation’s antiquities and history accessible to Egyptians, for grandstanding in front of the cameras all the time, for accepting bribes for digging permits (very old practice, by the way, dating back to both French and English control of the sites), not paying interns, giving favors to friends, making himself filthy rich because of television and book contracts, trying to destroy the reputations of any scholar who disagrees with him, and exploiting female staffers, as well as using the services of hookers and escorts during overseas trips.

Amro Hassan [Los Angeles Times]...

Nominating new ministers turned out to be an ordeal for Sharaf after his initial choices were opposed by either activists or ministries’ officials. The prime minister announced earlier in the week that Zahi Hawass, the archaeologist known for his National Geographic documentaries and close ties to the Mubarak family, was to be replaced by Abdel Fattah el Banna as minister of antiquities. But Sharaf reversed himself and decided to temporarily keep Hawass in his post.

“Dr. El Banna has accused several of the antiquities employees of corruption and thus triggered much rejection against him holding the position. Essam Sharaf consequently believed that it wouldn’t be appropriate atmosphere for him to work,” the government announced in a statement.

Hawass told MENA on Wednesday that he was asked by Sharaf to carry on his duties but wasn’t mentioned in Thursday’s list of ministers. A Cabinet spokesman later announced that the ministry of antiquities would be downgraded to a Cabinet-affiliated office and not be its own ministry.

Xinhuanet...

Egypt's new ministers took the oath of office in front of Hussein Tantawi, head of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, on Thursday, official MENA news agency reported.

There were 14 new members in the cabinet. Ministers of foreign affairs, finance, health, industry and trade, religious endowment, civil aviation, military production, higher education, communications, transport, agriculture, irrigation, local development and public enterprises were newly appointed.

The Antiquities Ministry was annulled in the reshuffle. The ministers of interior and justice, whom some youth groups urged to be sacked, were not changed.


He's out...he's in...who knows--Zahi Hawass

Zahi Hawass' glow may be fading

Classic Egyptology

James Henry Breasted

The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) represents the efforts of an international group of Assyriologists, museum curators and historians of science to make available through the internet the form and content of cuneiform tablets dating from the beginning of writing, ca. 3350 BC, until the end of the pre-Christian era. We estimate the number of these documents currently kept in public and private collections to exceed 500,000 exemplars, of which now more than 200,000 have been catalogued in electronic form by the CDLI.

DIGITAL LIBRARY COLLECTIONS

Vorderasiatisches Museum
Hermitage Cuneiform Collection
Institut Catholique de Paris
Ashmolean Museum
Hearst Museum of Anthropology
New York Public Library
Kelsey Museum of Archaeology
Horn Museum
Cornell University Kroch Library
Walters Art Museum Cuneiform
Oriental Institute
Iraq Museum
Musées royaux d'Art et d'Histoire
USC Archaeological Collection

Cuneiform Digital Library


ETANA Core Texts

"The civilizations of the ancient Near East produced the world's earliest written texts -- in hieroglyphs, cuneiform, and alphabets-- with which they described the first empires, recorded the first legal codifications, preserved the first love songs, and registered the first contracts, among states or individuals. Not surprisingly, these cultures elicited broad curiosity among later civilizations, our own not excepted, resulting in a flood of evaluation, scholarly or otherwise. While the discovery of new texts always leads to new evaluation, it is remarkable how assessments arrived at decades ago continue to be of much value, not only because they often carry editions of original documents, but because they contain insights minted freshly after first exposure to major documents.

ETANA has digitized, and continues to digitize texts selected as valuable for teaching and research relating to Ancient Near Eastern studies. We have selected primarily editions that are outside of copyright, or with the permission of copyright holders. While the new electronic editions we have produced are under copyright, the ETANA project chooses to make these freely available for non-commercial teaching and research purposes."

ETANA Core Texts


And this cannot be overlooked if you wish detailed information on Howard Carter's discovery and exploration of King Tutankhamunin's tomb.

Tutankhamun: Anatomy of an Excavation

This is quite a detailed website on Howard Carter's excavation of the tomb of King Tutankhamunin in the early 1920's. There is contextual material, diaries, and hundreds of photographs. Hours could be spent here.

"Tutankhamun: Anatomy of an Excavation is ambitious in its scope but simple in its aims: to make the complete records of Howard Carter's excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun available on these web pages. It is astonishing, but no longer acceptable, that some eighty years and thousands of articles, hundreds of books, and dozens of exhibitions after the discovery of the tomb, this most famous event in the history of Egyptian archaeology has not yet been fully published. The documentation is presented in its original form and all, scholars, interested members of the public and school students, can consult it. We hope that this will help bring the knowledge and love of ancient Egypt to everybody."

Tutankhamun: Anatomy of an Excavation


The Oriental Institute is making more and more scholarly publications available online--a task too daunting to be listed here even though many are listed. Thus, it would be better to check their website for full listings.

The Oriental Institute


Here Are Other Individual Listings:

Allen, Thomas George

Egyptian Stelae in Field Museum of Natural History

Banks, Edgar James

Bismya or The Lost City of Adab

Breasted, James Henry

Ancient Records of Egypt: Historical Documents from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest

British Museum. Dept. of Egyptian Antiquities

Hieroglyphic Texts from Egyptian Stelae, etc.

Brown, Brian [translator]

Includes the Ptah-Hotep and the Ke'gemini, the Wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus, and the Story of the Book of Thoth.

The Wisdom of the Egyptians

Budge, E. A Wallis [translator]

Babylonian Life and History

Budge, E. A Wallis [translator]

The Book of the Bee

Budge, E. A. Wallis

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

Budge, E. A. Wallis

The Egyptian Heaven and Hell

Budge, E. A. Wallis

Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life

Budge, E. A. Wallis

Egyptian Magic

Budge, E. A Wallis [translator]

The History of. Rabban Sāwmā and Mār Yahbh-Allāhā

Budge, E. A. Wallis

Includes De Iside et Osiride by Plutarch.

Legends of the Gods: The Egyptian Texts

Budge, E. A. Wallis [translator]

The Liturgy of Funerary Offerings

Budge, E. A Wallis [translator]

The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek

Budge, E. A. Wallis

The Rosetta Stone

Budge, E. A. Wallis

Tutankhamen: Amenism, Atenism and Egyptian Monotheism

Cory, Alexander Turner [translator]

The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo

Dawkins, R. M.

The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta

Dennis, James Teackle [translator]

The Burden of Isis

Griffith, F.Ll. and Thompson, Herbert [translators]

The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden

King, Leonard W.

Legends of Babylonia and Egypt

Larson, John A.

Lost Nubia: A Centennial Exhibit of Photographs from the 1905-1907 Egyptian Expedition of the University of Chicago

MacAlister, R. A. S.

Excavations on the Hill of Ophel, Jerusalem 1923-1925

Mackenzie, Donald A.

Egyptian Myth and Legend

Mercer, Samuel A. B. [translator]

The Pyramid Texts

Petrie, W. M. Flinders

Illahun, Kahun and Gurob

Petrie, W. M. Flinders

Naukratis

Sharpe, Samuel

Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christianity

von der Osten, Hans Henning

Ancient Oriental Seals in the Collection of Mr. Edward T. Newell

Wake, C. Staniland

The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid [1882]

Wooley, C. Leonard

The Wilderness of Zin (Archaeological Report)


I also suggest that you visit Andie Byrnes's websites:

Egyptology News [Blog]

Egyptian Hieroglyph Portal

Predynastic Faiyum, S. Cairo and Western Delta

Prehistoric and Predynastic Egypt

The Archaeology of the Eastern Desert

The Origins & Spread of Agriculture

And...

See current Egyptology material by Dr. Peter J. Brand [Associate Professor in the History Department at the University of Memphis] specializing in ancient Egyptian history.

Peter J. Brand