Secrets from the Sand
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Reviewed in the Sunday Times 21 December, 2003
The grandeur and chill inhuman beauty of the works left to us by Pharaonic Egypt — from the smallest shawabti, or tomb statuette, to the Great Pyramid of Khufu
(the monarch previously known as Cheops) — are overshadowed only by the ignorance, greed and bestial stupidity of those who have rediscovered them in the past 2,000 years. The pyramid has long since been stripped of its white limestone casing, smashed open by burglars and defaced by graffiti; countless thousands of mummies were dug up and ground into powder to provide quack cures for credulous Europe; monuments of incomparable splendour have been shattered to supply stone for tacky suburbs. Even today, when all but the most benighted souls recognise the importance of cherishing these remains, raw sewage is being pumped down into the sites of underground chambers, and tomb raiding remains a thriving trade.
It is a sad, ugly story, and, on balance, not a single nation comes out of it all that well — a point worth remembering when one is tempted to pontificate about, say, the Egyptian authorities’ more shameful errors of curatorial judgment. Still, the chronicle does have its share of good guys, from the brilliant 17th-century Jesuit, Athanasius Kircher (who made a brave if utterly fanciful attempt to translate hieroglyphic script), to that ardent and precocious linguistic genius Champollion (who finally cracked the code, with the help of the Rosetta Stone) to our own Sir William Flinders Petrie, who more or less single-handedly transformed Egyptology from a jamboree for thieves and nutters into a serious branch of study. In our own time, the most influential of the good guys is Zahi Hawass, the Egyptian archeologist.
Now well into his fifties, Hawass has been conducting archeological surveys for more than 30 years. As this copiously illustrated autobiography records, he came to his calling slightly late, after false detours into law and diplomacy, and only received his PhD at the age of 40. (His earliest field researches produced a wealth of knowledge on ancient Egyptian labour forces: glum reading for those new agers who credit the pyramids to aliens or Atlanteans.) Like other slow developers, he has since made up for lost time with such tireless vigour that his output looks more like the work of an entire university faculty than a single man.
The three central chapters of Secrets from the Sand are devoted to his principal triad of digs. He has made significant discoveries in and around the site of the Great Pyramid at Giza; in sites at Saqqara and Heliopolis; and, most spectacularly, at the Bahariya Oasis, a couple of hundred miles to the southwest of Cairo, popularly known since the great finds of 1996 as The Valley of the Golden Mummies. Hawass describes this last as the most astonishing single discovery since the opening of Tutankhamen’s tomb, and few would wish to dissent: “It is,” he explains, “the largest undisturbed burial site ever found, containing probably more than 10,000 mummies.” Full excavation of the site will take many decades.
Exploits of this order have tempted bone-idle commentators to call Hawass a “real-life Indiana Jones”, although the most plausible similarity between the real and the fictional archeologist is a shared taste in sun-resisting headwear. Indy’s adventures are terrific romps, but they are rotten archeology: he is basically an old-style imperial looter with a PhD and a bullwhip. By contrast, Hawass is fully aware that, in the early 21st century, the Compleat Archeologist must also be a bureaucrat, a lobbyist, a popular educator, a media wonk and, above all else, a conserver. However great the thrill of opening a new tomb — and budding archeologists should be enraptured to hear that Hawass considers that barely 30% of Egypt’s subterranean treasures have been brought to light — the most urgent of tasks is not discovery but preservation.
If his colleagues alone are in a position to assess the long-term significance of his discoveries, any general reader who finishes this book will want to offer up a grateful prayer to Thoth, God of Wisdom, for Hawass’s achievements as a guardian. (On the evidence of one or two pious asides, the author is an orthodox Muslim; but that’s another story.) Since 1987, when he was appointed director general of his three main sites, Hawass has been — to put it briefly but not misleadingly — the Caretaker to the Pyramids. While completing this book, he was made secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities: he is now in charge of all his nation’s ancient monuments. He loves his treasures fiercely, and sees that drastic measures (outlined in his last chapter) will be needed, the sooner the better, if they are to be saved.
Among other things, he suggests a 10-year halt to excavations in Upper Egypt, and the strict regulation of tourist access to Giza and other attractions. It will be a tough, unpopular struggle. This pretty book is itself an element in that struggle: a weapon of mass enlightenment. Offered to the book- buyer as a coffee-table ornament, it has far more significance than most examples of that undemanding genre. An edited version of the final chapter might valuably be republished as a pamphlet, and handed to everyone who plans to visit the ancient sites. Don’t, by any means, cancel your travel arrangements: without the economic incentives of foreign tourism, the political will towards responsible management of antiquites will be gravely weakened. But be well aware that, however reverent your attitude towards the Egyptian wonders, your breath and sweat will ultimately destroy them as surely as any sledge-hammer. In short: submit gladly to any of the coming restraints proposed by Hawass. If you don’t, you will be signing up for the immemorial ranks of the hooligans, the wreckers and the fools.
* Secrets from the Sand by Zahi Hawass Thames & Hudson Ă‚ÂŁ24.95 pp270
Available at the Sunday Times Books First price of Ă‚ÂŁ19.96 plus Ă‚ÂŁ1.95 p&p on 0870 165 8585
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Grand opening ceremony on 6 March 2012 – numerous cultural events with typical national attractions at the world’s largest travel trade show – interactive communication via Facebo (24/02/2012)
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