Drop the Mummy

Drop the Mummy, and Nobody Gets Hurt
Recent controversy over moving King Tut puts Egyptologists in the spotlight
By Manal el-Jesri



DR. ZAHI HAWASS, Egypt’s most publicized Egyptologist and the secretary general of the Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA), is renowned for the number of controversies he can stir. Brushing the controversies aside as nuisances “begun by backward people who are jealous,” as he told Egypt Today, Dr. Hawass keeps on working regardless of any setbacks.




Last month, in the midst of the controversy around the removal of King Tut-Ankh-Amon’s mummy from its resting place in Luxor, Hawass went to the Bahareya Oasis. Egyptians and Brits watched a live coverage transmitted by the television cameras of both countries as Hawass, holding his axe, opened a newly discovered tomb. “We had made a number of discoveries here years ago, but in 2002, I had decided to stop all work. We had found 234 mummies, which is quite enough. The Valley [of the Golden Mummies] is huge, and encompasses around 10,000 mummies. It is Egypt’s biggest burial area, and was used by Egyptians from all classes. I believe mummies should remain underground. But then I decided to start work again,” Hawass says.



Opening seven tombs that had already been pillaged in Roman times, Hawass and his entourage were hoping to discover something about the lives of average Egyptians from ancient times. “We had x-ray machines, through which we discovered that three of the mummies we studied had died of chronic headache. Many of the people had injuries on their arms and legs. A seven-year-old boy we found was wearing a golden cobra on his forehead to protect him in the next life. The people here had died at a young age, and the reason was probably the water, which we found to be too rich in iron,” Hawass explains.

A website set up by retired archeology professor Dr. Nasr Eskandar tries to belittle the importance of the Valley of the Golden Mummies, explaining that the importance of the mummification processes in the area is minimal. “This is ridiculous of course,” Hawass says. “This area was one of the richest in the country. They made the greatest date wine, which was exported to Rome and France. It is also the hugest burial area discovered so far, which means that it can give us complete information about the lifestyle of the time,” he points out.

Ahmed Saleh, the director of SCA’s Abu Simbel antiquities department watched with the rest of the world as Hawass made his discoveries in Bahareya on December 13th, 2004. “That was a real joke. How can a scientist hold an axe and just hack at a tomb on air? All scientists know that a lot of processes should precede the opening of a tomb. If you just hack away at it you lose important historical evidence. I am sad that this is what Egyptology has come to,” Saleh says.

With a masters degree in biomedical and forensic studies in Egyptology from Manchester, Saleh is one of the first Egyptians to specialize in the field. Over the years, Saleh has initiated a number of media campaigns, not afraid to question Hawass’ decisions and ideas. His last but one skirmish with Hawass took place over the remains of the Atlanta mummy, which came back from the United States about a year ago. At the time, Hawass had announced that the mummy belonged to King Ramses I, and was preparing a royal welcome for the returning king. “I sent him my official opinion. This could not have been the mummy of Ramses I, because it had been lost in ancient times. He just ignored me, so I wrote to Akhbar al-Adab,” Saleh remembers. The result, he says, was two days’ deduction from his salary.

Nowadays, Saleh is awaiting his new penalty. It is because of the stir he started that the mummy of King Tut didn’t come to the Egyptian Museum. “When journalists called to ask my opinion I said the mummy should not be moved. The SCA had no clear plan of how it was going to move the mummy, which is in an already dilapidated state. In the past, the mummy was treated roughly and unscientifically, and any more handling may lead to more damage,” Saleh says.

Hawass brushed aside Saleh’s opinion. In a six-page article prepared by Hawass to clear the King Tut issue, he writes: “The aim from the study was to find a better way to preserve the mummy At the SCA, no single person has a say on things. There is a committee made up of 60 scientists, which had made the decision [to move the mummy].

“But despite the scientific method that was to be applied, a person who loves to say no just for the sake of objecting tried to stir public opinion with lies. Unfortunately, some journalists listened to him. He claims to have a masters degree in mummification, but even if he does, no single person can know all there is to know about this issue.”

Despite the difference in opinion, both scientists agree on one fact. The mummy is currently in bad condition, and was handled roughly in the past. In 1925, a year after its discovery, a team of professors including Howard Carter tried to examine the mummy. On finding it stuck to the sarcophagus, they put it out in the sun to melt the materials keeping it together. They later used hot knifes to pry the golden mask off the face, the golden bracelets off the arms and toes. As a result, the head was separated from the body, the pelvis from the midriff and so were the arms, hands, legs and feet.

In 1968 and 1978, the mummy was first analyzed and x-rayed by R.G. Harrison from Liverpool University, and second by James Harries from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. According to Saleh, the results of the studies were never published in their complete form anywhere, so why do another study? “Enough handling of an already suffering mummy! Why not seek the studies that took place in the past? We must first know their discoveries were so as to know what to look for,” he argues.

Hawass points out that the 1968 study was in fact published. In this study, Harrison had made the assumption that the king had died around the age of 1822. But in the past, CT technology was not available. “We were going to get 1,700 images telling us all we need to know about the mummy,” he says. According to Hawass, a German company has agreed to present Egypt with a CT scanner to help in The Egyptian Project for the Study of Mummies. “All of the members of this study are Egyptians, except for Dewolfe Miller, who hails from Hawaii University,” Hawass writes.

Saleh, a scientist himself, is not totally against the idea of more studies carried out on the mummy. He just shudders to think what may have happened had the mummy traveled to Cairo in a car, or even an airplane. “What if there was an accident, and the mummy was lost forever? We would have lost our most famous mummy. Visitors to Luxor view King Tut as the central attraction,” he says.

Although Saleh points out that the government paid thousands of dollars to provide him with a degree in mummification that no one has asked him to use so far, he is quick to point out it was not because he wanted to be included in the team that he rose against the notion of moving the king. “Preserving ancient remains at this stage is much more important than studying them. We should think of preservation first and foremost. Besides, there are already 55 royal mummies at the Egyptian Museum. Why not do work on them?” he asks.

Saleh refers to Ahmed Youssef, Egypt’s most well-known expert on mummies, who is called upon all over England to help in the preservation of human remains. “Why not call on our internationally famed expert, have him look at the mummy and tell us where to go from there?”

Saleh fears that any handling of information by foreigners may lead to a twisting of history. He refers to the findings of Scott Woodward, an American microbiologist, who tried to find resemblance between Egyptian kings and prophets from the Talmud. “They are trying to say that our Egyptian history belongs to them,” Saleh accuses.

Hawass is quick to refute this idea. “There is no Jewish conspiracy, and we will not be carrying out DNA tests. We are proud to be Egyptians, and we work to protect our great monuments. I do not know why we insist on listening to a young man and disregarding the expertise of more seasoned scientists,” Hawass says.

The renowned Egyptologist insists that the work on King Tut is still going to happen, but will take place inside his burial chamber in Luxor. “We just do this out of respect for the people of Luxor, who do not want their king to move,” he says. But why King Tut? “King Tut, together with the Pyramids and the Sphinx, is synonymous with Egypt. He represents gold, greatness, the curse of the Pharaohs. Besides, his time was rich with mysteries how did he die, who could have killed him. ACT may show us something.

“What I am trying to do is bring archaeology into this century. We have to do something. Why should we leave the foreigners to study Egyptology on their own. If we do not wake up we will find ourselves khaddameen (servants) for them. I am trying to make Egyptology Egyptian. But we insist on staying backward. We will restore the mummy, study it, keep it where it is but create a more suitable environment for it.”