Zahi Hawass Recently I gave a lecture in Hamburg, Germany, and while I was there I found out that Universitöt Hamburg was planning to close its Department of Egyptology for financial reasons. I was very disappointed to hear this, and I wrote letters to the authorities to try to convince them not to do it. I said that some of the magic of the city came from its involvement in Egyptology and I sincerely hoped that the department would not be closed. Some time later I was invited to open a brand new archaeology department, the Capitol Archaeological Institute, at the George Washington University in the United States. Money for this institute was raised by Deborah Lehr and her husband, John Rogers, who is an important member of personnel at Goldman Sachs in New York City. I was invited by Lehr to go to Washington DC and preside over the opening ceremony. On the day of the inauguration, Lehr introduced me to the president of the university, Steven Knapp, and I proudly told him that the event was one of the greatest days of my life. In the speech I gave that day, I thanked Lehr for her dedication and hard work in making her dream a reality. The opening event was attended by the director of the new institute, Eric H Cline, and many great people from a variety of professional fields, including representatives of the National Geographic Society, the Egyptian Embassy to the US, and politicians. I told them all that they too should thank Lehr for her wonderful determination. I wanted to give Lehr a gift in honour of her work and to commemorate the day. I could not think of anything better than to present her with one of my most beautiful new books, The Lost Tombs of Thebes: Life in Paradise, which is about the nobles' tombs in Luxor. Lehr was very shy, but it was clear from her face that what she did for the university was because of her love of archaeology. In my speech I told the story of how I became most aware of the love of archaeology felt by young people in the US. I talked about a lecture I gave in 2009 in Atlanta, Georgia, to an audience of 4,500 people at the Fox Theater. A few days before the lecture I had received an e- mail from three young ladies of eight or nine years old who wanted to meet me in person afterwards. Peter Lacovara, the senior curator of Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art at the Michael C Carlos Museum at Emory University, introduced me and called the young ladies up to the stage. All three of them stood in front of me, but the little girl in the middle stepped forward and asked me for a hug. While I did this, she asked for more, so I hugged her again! It seems the audience too felt the emotion of the moment and they all stood up in one of history's most beautiful standing ovations. I have found out since then that many children are now fascinated with archaeology and Egyptology, and aspire to make these their future careers. For this reason I set up a fan club on my website that allows anyone with an interest in my work to find out about what I do and to contact me with their questions. The address is www.drhawass.com. You would not believe how many letters I receive every day from children who want to be archaeologists and who ask me what they must do to do this great job. I take a lot of pleasure in ensuring each letter gets answered, and I send out signed photographs of myself with my famous hat on, looking like Indiana Jones. The letters are amazing, and each and every one of them touches my heart. I have also decided to write a book on this theme, entitled, How to Become an Archaeologist. It is being written to answer the questions of all the children all over the world. I told all of this to the people at the Capitol Archaeological Institute's opening to remind them of how thankful we should all be of the important work of individuals, like Lehr, whose great love of this subject is influencing future generations of archaeologists. The dinner that evening that was held at the Rogers' house cannot be forgotten, and the speech that Rogers gave will be engraved in history.
