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Zahi Hawass goes into meltdown

Game of Groans: Egyptologist Zahi Hawass Goes Into Meltdown During Debate with Graham Hancock

Who needs HBO or Netflix when you can watch the great Zahi Hawass make a complete ass out of himself for free? In what for many alternative history buffs was going to be a more anticipated head-to-head encounter than next year’s Batman vs. Superman, the former supremo of Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities had agreed on participating in a high-profile public debate with Graham Hancock, taking place on Wednesday this week at the Mena House Hotel in Egypt.

Alas, it was not to be, with Hawass going into meltdown before the debate even began. The cause? One single photograph of Robert Bauval – the man who put forward the Orion Correlation Theory about the Giza pyramids – included at the start of of Hancock’s presentation. One mere glance at it was all it took for Dr. Hawass to go completely berzerk, start insulting Graham and his poor wife Santha, and storm out of the room!

(Transcript)

[…] Dr Hawass saw that one slide contained a photograph of Hancock’s colleague Robert Bauval, originator of the Orion correlation theory with whom Dr Hawass has had disagreements for many years. Dr Hawass immediately became furiously angry and began to shout at Hancock and at Hancock’s wife Santha (Santha is wearing the white dress in the video). Hawass demanded that Hancock censor his talk to remove all references to Robert Bauval and the Orion correlation theory. When Hancock explained that the alternative view of history that he was on stage to represent could not exclude the Orion correlation and therefore could not exclude Robert Bauval, Dr Hawass, again shouting, marched out of the debating room. One member of the audience who was present managed to record part of Dr Hawass’s meltdown which is the subject of this video.

Hawass’ feud with Bauval is no secret. For more than 20 years the pair have been at odds over Bauval’s theory, his role in the release of the first video of the ‘Gantenbrink Door’ within the Great Pyramid, and other associated themes. More recently though their relationship has become even more acrimonious, after the scandal concerning two Germans who allegedly extracted samples from Khufu’s pyramid broke – with numerous accusations and counter-accusations between Hawass and the author of The Orion Mystery. Where it will end is something that even Edgar Cayce wouldn’t be able to predict.

After Hawass’ tantrum, the event organizers frantically performed a damage-control op in order to convince Zahi to return to the hall, give his talk and answer questions from the audience. He agreed on the condition that the debate with Hancock was cancelled altogether, and he even refused to watch his opponent’s presentation or talk to him.

But wait, the groan-fest continues! During the Q&A, one attendant had the gall to ask Hawass for his opinion on the 10,000-year-old Turkish megalithic site Göbekli Tepe, and the impact this site might have on Egypt’s archeology – for example, on the controversy over the age of the Sphinx. The man who used to be the gatekeeper of an entire nation’s historical heritage, the one who had the first and last word in green-lighting any excavation on Egyptian soil, and who has belittled and mocked whoever dares to question the Great Pyramid’s age or its purpose, admitted on the record that he’d never heard of Göbekli Tepe before. You’d think perhaps his National Geographic buddies would’ve been kind enough to give him a free subscription to their magazine, after all the *many* favors he allegedly did for them…

Herein lies one of the true roots of our inability to understand our past properly: Arrogant insularity disguised as academic specialization, and a refusal to look beyond your particular area of expertise. It was because of that exact reason Göbekli Tepe was first mistaken for a Byzantine cemetery when it was originally discovered in the 1960s; it wouldn’t be until the 1990s when the late Klaus Schmidt re-visited the site and realized its monumental importance. It’s people like him, and not stubborn naysayers, who will go down in history as the true searchers of Truth.

It’s a good thing Zahi wasn’t born during the age of the pharaohs, though. No pyramid or ancient tomb would have been big enough to accommodate that ego.

[H/T Disinfo]

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FURTHER READING:

  1. zahi
    All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
    (Arthur Schopenhauer)

    1. Indeed
      The problem with it, is that the people who opposed said truth so vehemently, never Ever acknowledge they were once mistaken. They just act as if they knew it was true all along :-/

  2. Huzzah!
    Well done Mr. Hancock!!! Well Done! I lost so much respect several years ago for Hawass. Now, what little I had left is gone! If only he could get out from behind his own ego and entertain other ideas… So disappointed in Hawass. I have followed and respected him since I was a child. (37 now) He had once inspired me to want to be an archaeologist.. live in tent off of peanut butter sandwiches and make great discoveries. What an epic let down. **sorry that this is not all profound sounding, but it’s how I feel about it. **Thea**

  3. Pinpoints the problem with Archology and History
    This is why often it is outsiders, investigative journalists like Graham Hancock, and Michael Pollen with food, etc… who are able to get closer to the “truth” than the so-called experts. It is because they do not have as strong a built-in bias for one theory. They have not devoted their career to one paradigm or one point of view, thereby forcing them to defend it or admit a lifetime’s work is wrong, misguided, or less meaningful…

    Egos, fear, and willful ignorance of competing or undermining evidence describes most experts. Open-mindedness for open debates of the evidence as Graham pleaded with Zahi, is too much too ask of many experts, die-hard believers and skeptics alike.

    1. Outsiders
      I’m in total agreement with that. Unfortunately, academicians are taught at the very beginning of their training to distrust and disregard opposing views. “If it ain’t peer-reviewed, it doesn’t exist” :-/

      Now, I know I criticized narrow-viewed specialists for disregarding things outside their specific area. But I also know that in the past I’ve often criticized debunkers and professional skeptics who think that being an expert in one given discipline automatically makes them an authority in Everything-ology. It is for sure a complicated issue…

  4. *slow sarcastic claps*
    *appears in a poof of smoke dressed like Mephistopheles*

    woooooow…well done Mr. Hawass. Never in the history of mankind has someone the age of a full grown man acted like such a spoiled brat. Is there an award for this performance? No? Anyone?

    *pours some tea* Would anyone like some tea?

    Anyway, have some open mindedness sir. Not every theory will agree with yours flat out. And Mr. Hancock *sips tea* you should have laughed that off. I would have! But that’s just me.

    Finally, none of this should really surprise us. For one thing we come to expect this from Mr. Hawass to the point I’m surprised South Park hasn’t made fun of him yet.

    Next, again not surprised that Nat Geo had to pay him big bucks. That’s what happens when a Board of Trustees gets in the way, I should know, I worked for a 65 year old company that ended up paying its last executive director $700,000! Needless to say the Board drove the place out of business and me out of a job. You can own it if you want, it will be on the auction block on July 1st for $5 million, but I digress. I wonder if I summon Einstein from the dead for a day would he spend his time arguing with Hawking or bitching about how many of his theories have been changed or new discoveries made that defy them.

    All well then. Last call on tea, oh, and I have some snacks too. Everyone please enjoy a helping of Oreo cookies, except Mr. Hawass. I have something special treat just for you, sir. It’s crow! Lots and lots of crow. You don’t have to eat it now, but soon.

    Sooooooon. *sips tea*

  5. It’s just so amazing that
    It’s just so amazing that Zahi had never even heard of Gobekli Tepe. It paints him in a whole new light for me at least. I figured he was at least knowledgeable in archeology…, after all Gobekli Tepe has pushed back organized labor and civilization another 7000 years or so. A site that vast with megaliths that large cannot be constructed by hunters and gatherers…and it was apparently buried to preserve it when the people moved on – another massive and organized undertaking. And it’s not just radar scans as he impugned, they’ve already uncovered huge areas of megaliths decorated with ornate carvings and stacked like Stonehenge – this is hardly breaking news. It’s made headlines for several years now and anyone even remotely interested in archeology and man’s origins regardless of where they live, should be aware of this if they are even half awake.

    I’ve never spent any time wondering about Zahi, beyond his annoying dramatic behavior and ad hominem attacks on rivals and their theories. But now I wonder the extent of his formal training – if he even has any that is worthwhile, or is he an appointed hack that became a celebrity and really was never anything more than a self-serving mouthpiece. My first introduction to him was that tv special Bill Pullman did with him, when they went underground to presumably open a coffin live on air. Zahi got stuck in one of the passages and literally started having a panic attack live on air. By the end of it you could read on Bill Pullman’s face his embarrassment of even being part of the charade – he apparently agreed to the show because he had an interest in archeology, but clearly was not impressed with Zahi’s antics either…

    I’m going to go stick my head in the sand so I don’t hear any counter arguments to my points now… 😛

    1. Radar Scans
      IMO I think that when Zahí went out to rant about the “radar scans showing nothing” he wasn’t belittling Gobekli Tepe (after all, he’d already admitted his ignorance) but was reacting out of pure instinct against Hancock’s mentioning of the Sphinx.

  6. What’s interesting about the
    What’s interesting about the sphinx isn’t so much the water weathering on the sphinx itself, because it’s been restored so much over the years – the weathering is somewhat concealed, but rather the water weathering on the walls of the enclosure within which the sphinx sits. I watched an old documentary a few months back on the sphinx on Netflix and learned something I was unaware of… I assumed the sphinx was a large rock outcrop above ground that had been sculpted into the sphinx, but actually it was mostly at ground level and the bedrock around it was removed, so that it sits in a large box so to speak. The rock walls of the “box” it sits in have not been restored over the years and show signs of water erosion all over them, dating the walls back to a time when the area was wet – some 10,000 – 12,000 years ago. If the walls of the enclosure the sphinx was sculpted from by removing material are 10,000+ years old, then so must he sphinx be, at least in its original form, either that of a lion or an Anubis dog, as at least one proponent theorizes…

    But the water weathering is yet another argument Zahi Hawass simply refuses to even acknowledge or discuss.

  7. Dates
    Well, the say science moves along one funeral at a time.

    People like Zahi Hawass, just need to die so new ideas can be accepted.

    I mean it took like 250 years for people to accept the earth went around the sun, and the evidence was there for all that time in astronomical observations.

    It’s just shocking to see people so blind sighted and blinkered protecting their own backs and funds and too scared to rock the boat. Not even keeping up to date with new things in their field.

    I greatly admire Hancock, for at least having an open mind and looking at dates objectively without personal bias or any personal gain.

    1. Funerals
      Well, thanks to Göbekli Tepe it looks as if the Zeitgeist won’t need Zahi to fertilize the roses. He will just be left behind during his lifetime, before he turns into a sad footnote in the annals of Egyptian archeology 😉

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