Zahi Hawass, former supreme ruler of Egypt’s antiquities, is back hitting the media hustings, with last week’s Smithsonian Magazine feature starting whispers of a comeback, and now LiveScience posting an interview with the (formerly) Great and Powerful Z. It features the the usual Hawassisms, such as “I’m the only one who can really bring the tourists back to Egypt”, but readers of this blog will probably be most interested in what he said about the “Gantenbrink Doors”:
I really believe that Cheops chamber is not discovered yet and all the three chambers were just to deceive the thieves, and the treasures of Khufu [are] still hidden inside the Great Pyramid, and these three doors could be the key to open this burial chamber. There is no pyramid of the 123 pyramids in Egypt that have these type of doors with copper handles. Really, I believe they’re hiding something.
Perhaps Zahi is just trying to drum up some media funding to bring interest back to the treasures of Egypt after a tough few years tied to the removal of former President Mubarek. After all, Hawass is the man who has previously said on a number of occasions that “it’s not a door”, and “I believe that the shafts from the so-called Queen’s Chamber likely have no function”. Nevertheless, he has been peddling this line for a few years now – for example see my story “Return of the Djedi” from a few years back where he said basically the same thing.
Or maybe Zahi’s just caught up in this whole Indiana Jones shtick so many media outlets pin on him…
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