Before going to the press preview this morning for Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs, which will open at the Discovery Center Times Square on Friday, I had never seen Zahi Hawass in action. But now I know why Hawass, the Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, has been so good at elevating the profile of Egyptian antiquities, claiming and repatriating artifacts from Western museums, raising money for archaeology and museums in Egypt, getting very good press in the process, etc. Too good, sometimes.
He’s a charmer, story-teller, teaser and advocate par excellence. Relating a tale about flying back to Cairo on Egypt Air with a coffin recovered with the help of Homeland Security officials here, he said a woman near him, learning that the coffin was in the plane’s cargo area, got the willies. “Don’t worry,” he told her, “If there had been a curse, I’d have taken Lufthansa.”
This came after he mercilessly teased American Airlines, one of the tour’s sponsors, for its checked baggage charges.
Then, when a Mexican reporter asked why Tut wasn’t going to Mexico City’s archaeological museum — he’d pick up on Hawass’s statement that he wished the exhibition were being held at the Metropolitan Museum, instead in of the grimy, commercial Times Square area — Hawass bluntly told him “you don’t pay anything.” Egypt needs the money from this tour, and the last time Egypt lent something to Mexico, it got beans, essentially.
So far, this four-year tour of Tut, seen by more than 7 million visitors, has earned more than $100 million for Hawass’s digs and museums, he said. In New York, where it’s bigger than elsewhere, Hawass is expecting more than 1.5 million viewers in the next nine months, and a take of $20 million more.
One of the new draws will arrive “within a month.”
It’s Tut’s chariot, one of six discovered by Howard Carter in the tomb, and it’s never before been outside of Egypt. Hawass thinks Tut was riding in it when he had an accident a few days before his death. Why it is coming? Because people like to see change, because it will bring more tourists, and because “I wanted to make news,” he explained, without a trace of embarassment.
Which brings me to all the clever ways he’s stringing out discoveries with National Geographic. Expect more finds, more TV specials, etc., etc.
Hawass knows the art of enticement, too.
What about the show? More on that soon.
Btw, I couldn’t gain access to the chariot photo tonight, but it’s not spectacular. I prefer other things in the show, like Tut’s pectoral, above.
Photo Credit: Andreas F. Voegelin, Antikenmuseum Basel and Sammlung Ludwig (bottom)