Hawass, Z. 2003. Secrets from the sand. My search for Egypt’s past. – London, Thames & Hudson

Abstract

Reading the back cover which tells us that this book is about “the discoveries and archaeological adventures of the world’s most famous Egyptologist” and, at the same time, looking at the page filling photograph of the author, gives you already a good idea what type of book you are holding. It is a biography of the author starting from his days as a student and filled with little anecdotes and lots of photographs, mostly of the author himself.

In the first chapter the author tells us how he became an Egyptologist and, more importantly. an inspector of antiquities. He mentions the numerous people he encountered and worked with over the years and describes several excavations he directed before he accepted the position of director general of the Giza pyramids, Saqqara and the Bahariya Oasis.

Chapter 2 tells us about the author’s new discoveries at the Giza plateau, in the surroundings of the complexes of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure. Besides giving detailed information about his discoveries the author mainly presents his “official site management plan” to save the monuments from all the dangers of modern times (urbanization, tourism, traffic) and to create a sensible plan for excavation. Read more...