Dig Days: Manfred Bietak By Zahi Hawass There are many foreign archaeological expeditions working in both Upper and Lower Egypt. They carry out excavation and conservation projects not only at Pharaonic sites, but Coptic and Islamic ones as well. Today, we have more than 200 expeditions, and I don't think any other country in the world hosts this many teams from abroad. For the last six years we have made many rules for these expeditions. The rules scared people at first, although now they know that these rules were for the benefit of the monuments. We as Egyptians believe that our monuments belong not only to us, but to everyone, all over the world. At the same time, the discipline of Egyptology was created by foreign scholars, and they solved many mysteries like the riddle of hieroglyphs. Many French, German, Italian, and American expeditions, among others, have worked in Egypt and published countless volumes that are very important and useful to this field. Whenever we mention foreign expeditions, we must also talk about individual colleagues. We cannot remember all of them, but there are certain ones whose love of Egypt and Egyptians stands out -- people who have dedicated their lives to Egyptology, and lived among us for many years. One such scholar is Manfred Bietak, who is now working at the site of Tell Al-Dabaa in the northeastern Nile Delta. This site is the location of the ancient city of Avaris, the capital of the Hyksos, who occupied Egypt for more than 100 years. It is also near the site of Qantir, where the capital of Ramses II was located. Bietak did careful, scientific work at Tell Al-Dabaa, a site that has been ruined by agriculture, with much of its history lost below the water table. Earlier work had also destroyed much of the historical sequence at the site. Bietak began, however, to excavate carefully using the best techniques, and he learnt and recorded the history from each level of this important site. I once visited his camp at Tell Al-Dabaa. I can say that his work may be among the most important scientific efforts underway in Egypt right now, and that he is one of the most important scholars here. I met Bietak for the first time at the first International Congress of Egyptologists, which was held in Cairo. At that time, I was planning to excavate the site of Merimde Beni Salama, a very important Neolithic site that could be the first location to see settled food production. Everyone was worried about this young Egyptian, whose work was going to follow on that of the great Austrian archaeologist Hermann Junker. I took Bietak with me to the site, and explained my plans to him. I believe that after this visit he was able to tell other Egyptologists not to worry about the site. He used to visit me at my office at the Giza Pyramids, where I have spent most of my life, and even offered to help me go to Vienna to study Egyptology, although I could not accept because I had a Fulbright fellowship to study in the United States. On one of his visits to see me at Giza, he went with me to my excavation at the tombs of the pyramid builders. That day, I was excavating a tomb that belonged to a man named Inty-shedu, an artist who was involved in the construction of the Great Pyramid. In a niche inside the tomb we found five unique statues of him at different ages. Bietak watched every step as we excavated them, and I was happy to have a friend like him near me while I carried out this important work. When I had a heart attack in 1996 and spent two weeks in hospital, Bietak was in Vienna, but when he came back he heard about my health problem. He came to visit me at home one morning as a surprise, with flowers in his hand. His friends decided to dedicate a book in his honour, and I contributed an article to it about the discovery of the temple of Ramses II at Akhmim. It was funny to talk about this temple at a lecture that I gave at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and to announce that I was giving it as a gift to Bietak. He did not understand what I meant at that time. When the book was published in his honour and he saw my article, however, he understood. We at the Supreme Council of Antiquities held a party for him. At the party I gave a speech from my heart in which I explained our love for him, because he will truly always have a place in all of our hearts. Bietak is a very sensitive man, and sometimes ignorant people who do now know the value of a great scholar like him say words that hurt. But I once told him: "Don't worry -- these words can be thrown in the garbage, but your books and articles will live forever."
