Dig days: Scholars who love Egypt By Zahi Hawass Scholars from all over America gather to discuss the history and archaeology of Egypt. There are many universities in the United States whose programmes are considered among the best in the world for the study of Egyptology. When I took a Fulbright Scholarship to study in the States, I chose the University of Pennsylvania. One day, I was sitting in the laboratory when I met a lady who was working for a busy colleague of mine. The lady looked at me and said, "where are you from?" I replied, "from Egypt." The lady laughed, and said, "you are here in America to study Egyptology?" Many people do not know that Egyptology was essentially invented by great scholars from France, Germany and America. There are many departments of Egyptology in the States; at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, for example, or the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. There are departments at the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA and others. There are also departments for the study of Greek, Roman, Coptic and Islamic Egypt, and even for the study of modern Egypt and the Arabic language. One of the best of these centres for the study of modern Egypt is at Penn. It was home to some great scholars, such as Tom Naff and Roger Allen. Allen spoke Arabic fluently, and told me one day that in Egypt today we have another Naguib Mahfouz in our great writer Gamal El-Ghitani. The American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) organises the work of American scholars in Egypt, and its director reports to the board in the States. The presidency rotates annually, with an Egyptologist serving for one term and an Islamist for the next. Last year they had Carole Radman, who is excavating in Beni Sweif, and this year they will choose an Islamist. Every year ARCE chooses an American city, and professors and students give short talks on their fields of expertise. They also talk about excavation in Egypt. These conferences are good opportunities for them to meet socially, and everyone talks about their memories of Egypt, whether good or bad. I used to criticise ARCE in the past, saying that they did nothing in Egypt: no training, no restoration, and no excavation. I remember that Kent Weeks and I reported this to a lady from the US State Department who came to evaluate the organisation. Later, though, we saw a big change, beginning with the term of Mark Easton who served as director before Gerry Scott. I have to say that the ARCE is now doing great things in Egypt, such as building a database for the Egyptian Museum. Important conservation work is also being carried out, like that at the monastery of St Antony near the Red Sea, and I could count many other projects. The best, however, may be the field schools for training young Egyptian archaeologists in excavation techniques, especially the one supervised by my friend Mark Lehner. When I began to change and redevelop the Coptic Museum, I found that many reliefs were placed on the walls of the museum. I began to think that the museum could not be changed without taking the reliefs out of the walls and displaying them in cases. All the Egyptian scholars were afraid that if we were to attempt this, the reliefs would be badly damaged. One even said that he would commit suicide if I moved them. I contacted Gerry Scott, who hired an Italian team that worked with the talented Egyptian conservator Lutfi Khaled to remove the paintings successfully. This year I was invited to be the guest lecturer at the ARCE meeting in the small town of Toledo, Ohio. It was an interesting meeting, where for three days we discussed the past and present of Egypt.
