46 Facts About Zahi Hawass

Zahi Abass Hawass is an Egyptian archaeologist, Egyptologist, and former Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, a position he held twice.

Zahi Hawass has worked at archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, the Western Desert and the Upper Nile Valley.

In 1979, Zahi Hawass earned a diploma in Egyptology from Cairo University.

From 1969 to 1975, Zahi Hawass was Inspector of Antiquities for a multitude of archaeological expeditions, for instance the Yale Expedition at Abydos, Egypt in 1969, and Abu Simbel between 1972 and 1974.

Zahi Hawass sporadically taught Egyptian archaeology and history and culture at universities in Egypt and the USA between 1988 and 2001, most notably at the American University in Cairo, the University of California, Los Angeles and Alexandria University.

Zahi Hawass has described his efforts as trying to help institute a systematic program for the preservation and restoration of historical monuments, while training Egyptians to improve their expertise on methods of excavation, retrieval and preservation.

Zahi Hawass was promoted to Undersecretary of the State for the Giza Monuments in 1998.

Zahi Hawass continues to be involved in archaeological projects at Giza and other sites in Egypt.

In 2002, Zahi Hawass was appointed as the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

When US President Barack Obama visited Cairo in June 2009, Zahi Hawass gave him personal tours of ancient Egyptian archaeological sites.

On January 29,2011, in the midst of the Egyptian protests of that year, Zahi Hawass arrived at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to find that a number of cases had been broken into and a number of antiquities damaged, so police were brought in to secure the museum.

Zahi Hawass later told The New York Times that thieves looking for gold broke 70 objects, including two sculptures of the pharaoh Tutankhamun and took two skulls from a research lab, before being stopped as they left the museum.

Zahi Hawass was appointed to the position of Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, a newly created cabinet post, by Mubarak on January 31,2011, as part of a cabinet shake-up during the 2011 protests.

Zahi Hawass was reappointed Minister of Antiquities by then-Prime Minister Essam Sharaf.

Zahi Hawass's team is continuing to CT scan mummies, both royal and private, and hopes to solve some of the mysteries surrounding the lives and deaths of such important figures as Hatshepsut and Nefertiti.

Zahi Hawass has appeared on television specials on channels such as the National Geographic Channel, the History Channel and the Discovery Channel.

Zahi Hawass has appeared in several episodes of the US television show Digging for the Truth, discussing mummies, the pyramids, Tutankhamun, Cleopatra and Ramesses II.

Zahi Hawass appeared on Unsolved Mysteries during a segment on the curse of Tutankhamun's tomb.

In 2010, Zahi Hawass appeared on a reality-based television show on The History Channel called Chasing Mummies.

In June 2007, Zahi Hawass announced that he and a team of experts may have identified the mummy of Hatshepsut, in KV60, a small tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

Zahi Hawass was interviewed about his work by Keith Floyd as part of his television series Floyd around the Med in the episode "Cairo, Egypt and Aswan to Luxor".

Zahi Hawass was the host of the documentary Egypt's Ten Greatest Discoveries.

Zahi Hawass has repeatedly spearheaded movements to return many prominent and irregularly taken Ancient Egyptian artifacts back to Egypt from collections in various other countries.

Zahi Hawass, then serving as Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo, spoke at a press conference saying: "If the British want to be remembered, if they want to restore their reputation, they should volunteer to return the Rosetta Stone because it is the icon of our Egyptian identity".

In 2022, Zahi Hawass launched another petition, calling for the return of the Rosetta Stone, the bust of Nefertiti and the Dendera Zodiac ceiling to Egypt.

Zahi Hawass stated at the time that DNA analysis was out of the question because it would not lead to anything.

In 2012, a study signed by Zahi Hawass disclosed that Ramses III may have had a haplogroup E1b1a that most dominant in Sub-Saharan Africa, and it occurs at moderate frequencies in North Africa, West Asia, and Southern Europe.

In 2023, after ending his lecture about ancient Egypt at Columbus, Ohio, Zahi Hawass asked the audience whether they have any questions.

Zahi Hawass criticized a tweet by US billionaire Elon Musk claiming that aliens built the pyramids.

Zahi Hawass stated in a TV interview that that studying ancient Egyptian civilization provides a comprehensive understanding of its secrets.

Zahi Hawass said that the archeology and antiquities do not contain proof that Moses or Joseph lived in Egypt or the exodus of the Israelites from it.

Zahi Hawass asserted that there is no archeological evidence confirming the identity of the pharaoh who ruled during the arrival of the Prophets Moses and Joseph to Egypt, adding that information currently available on the issue is limited to guesses and speculation.

Zahi Hawass has been accused of domineering behaviour, forbidding archaeologists to announce their own findings and courting the media for his own gain after they were denied access to archaeological sites because, according to Zahi Hawass, they were too amateurish.

Zahi Hawass has typically ignored or dismissed his critics and, when asked about it, he indicated that what he does is for the sake of Egypt and the preservation of its antiquities.

Zahi Hawass has been a long-standing opponent of normalised relations between Israel and Egypt.

Zahi Hawass later wrote that he was using rhetoric to explain political fragmentation among the Arabs, and that he does not believe in a "Jewish conspiracy to control the world".

Zahi Hawass already sells a line of Stetson hats reproducing the ones he wears, which "very much resemble" the ones worn by Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones movies.

Zahi Hawass is married to Fekrya Zahi Hawass, a gynecologist whom he met in 1967.

Zahi Hawass was a close friend with actor Omar Sharif and accompanied him in his final days until his death in 2015.

Zahi Hawass was a friend of Jehan Sadat, the former First Lady of Egypt.

Zahi Hawass is often mistaken for being a Coptic Christian because of his name, even though he is Muslim.

Zahi Hawass is the recipient of the Egyptian state award of the first degree for his work in the Sphinx restoration project.

In 2003, Zahi Hawass was given international membership in the Russian Academy for Natural Sciences and, in 2006, he was chosen as one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time.

Zahi Hawass has written and co-written many books relating to Egyptology, including The Curse of the Pharaohs: My Adventures with Mummies, and King Tutankhamun: The Treasures from the Tomb, the latter published to coincide with a major exhibition in the UK.

Zahi Hawass is a regular columnist for Egypt Today and the online historical community Heritage Key.

Zahi Hawass has narrated several videos on Egyptology, including a series on Tutankhamun.