Egyptology research center named after Zahi Hawass opens in Cairo’s Smart Village.
Its established/funded/controlled (unclear) by the Alex Library which is now under much compromised management and heading in an Egyptian direction rather than a World Culture direction notwithstanding the world, not Egypt, funded it and that Alex was for a wile the center of western culture – definitely not Egyptian culture.
The Alex Library is a world library (named after a ‘pervert’ educated by Aristotle who was fascinated by the world and went to war with historians, scientists and philosophers in his entourage) so why it would spend its money on a minor Egyptian has-been who has been investigated on multiple occasions in Egypt and the US for fraud and who has no credibility with any major library, research center or university in the world – not even in Saudi or related states.
Here is the ceremonial presentation from one geriatric (from the Library), who may be part alive, to another. The silver ‘plate’ looks as tasteful and as discreet as you would expect:
Missing from the World Class, Historic audience for the presentation/launch/opening were the following – any Ambassador or other senior diplomat from any country including any country in the region, any archaeologist not employed by the Government of Egypt, any academic from any university of standing in the world in any field related to history or archaeology, any representative of any government that funds archaeology in Egypt, any major or minor museum in the world, any archaeology research, training or education body in the entire world, any learned society like the Royal Society but much broader. His own university in the US did not bother to attend. There were no representatives from any UN body including UNESCO with whom he closely worked. Can anyone spot Salima Ikran? I think the President of the AUC is not there. No one was there.
Here are his ‘friends’ who actually attended this momentous World event:
They look like Upper Middle and Upper Class Cairenes – there are no workers he once ‘employed’. None of them look like people interested in Egypt’s ancient history – but that is my guesswork, none look like archaeologists or historians let alone the scientists who increasingly determine historic objects or restore or display/write about them. Have any ever donated a penny to a museum. I doubt that any come from other than walled and guarded compounds. The crows looks to me exactly the group that would make Hawass feel good about himself.
To place his memorial facility in the ‘Smart’ village and invite this unintelligent and irrelevant rent-a-crowd seems irony – not a style of communication found in dictatorships.
Here is the logo for the new world’s greatest…
The illiterate Alex Library says: ‘The center is part of the Bibliotheca’s role in documenting Egyptian scientists’. His archaeology and management of an agency are not science – they are humanities – but maybe they don’t know the difference – or don’t care. Maybe this is outside their mandate and just diverting western money to this sad ego.
The new Hawass Egyptology Centre is in Sheikh Zayed. Egypt really needs another stand alone ‘specialist’ body – probably funded by the taxpayer – located in the middle of nowhere, attached to a walled military protected suburb with no public transport and utterly unconnected with any museum or university. It’s the wrong function in the wrong location and fragmented when Egypt needs consolidation and co-ordination. Sounds like standard impulsive Egyptian decision-making. On a positive note it will be meters from an incredibly expensive private school. Here is their student swimming pool which must get at least 2 hours use a day from a few students:
Unfortunately like most government/army planned/built satellite cities Sheikh Zayed is a mess. This area was to be a technology/business ‘hub’. It’s a cemetery. Microsoft used to be there but along with others got out once the army started playing with the internet. At the moment, and 18 years since establishment, the village has no companies anyone has ever heard of. (The government of Egypt announced a technology strategy to quintuple its IT exports to billions but has not a single world standard IT firm resident nor a single assembly factory for other than electric heaters).
Therefore Hawass is to do the best Egyptology in the World in a near vacant lot. This symbolism sums up his ‘achievements’.
Two years ago the President placed Sheikh Zayed under military control to develop for their own profit which is like giving Mayfair to the Grenadiers or Manhattan to the Marines Corps https://www.madamasr.com/en/2016/04/26/ ... ypts-land/. Therefore Hawass will be surrounded by protection and people with similar morals and strong dictatorial style – undeterred by persistent failure. .
The suburb is one of many messed up by the New Urban Communities Authority. Their output is so predictable the UN should give them an award – the worst urban planning and delivery in the world.
The Alex library that sponsors this Hawass ego thing is no longer the credible intellectual/international hub it once was and their new book licking Director have hit new lows:
“In a statement on Tuesday, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina explained that the new (Hawass) center would encompass research, education, and training departments, and organize archaeological, historical, and educational workshops, as well as offer scholarships to students working on scientific research. It will also give out Hawass Awards to the best archaeological research or archaeologist from the Ministry of Antiquities.”
So it will do training, education, workshops, scholarships and science. I will wait but it must have a big budget. Who will be the director and why didn’t they mention him/her. They have just mentioned functions not objectives – a common problem in misdirected Egypt. What will its governance be and what ‘world leaders’ will be on its board? Its world focus is clear – only ethnic Egyptian archaeologists employed by a Ministry that does little and not well will get the award. What if the archaeologist works for the AUC or another body in Egypt – obviously get lost.
Salima Ikram will be out on five grounds. She is Pakistani and therefore racially defiled, she has had no education in Egypt, therefore she has a brain and she was educated to a high levels at English Universities that no Egyptian could get into – including Hawass who has never even been invited there. In addition she’s never worked for the Ministry – hence her work has always been of the highest quality. Lastly she’s a woman and what did Hawass ever do for women – no ignore that. Of course she is an outstanding person – but never given a single Egyptian government award lest it detract from God Almighty but she was elected a member of the prestigious American Academy of Art and Sciences – an organization that will never admit Hawass. Members have included George Washington, John Stuart Mill, lots of Jews including Einstein, Nehru and Stephen Hawking. Lots of Archaeologists also.
Hawass’s views on Jews/Israel are poisonous, extreme and irrational and I refuse to post them but it didn’t prevent him taking large donations (where they ended up is not clear) from American Jews and being supervised by a Jew, Silverman, in his Phd thesis following which these two have collaborated on projects over two decades.
The new Director of the Alex Library sponsoring/paying for this Hawass memorial is about 4,500 years old, fat and unfit, has never worked outside Egypt, mainly worked for Government, is a political scientist who has not published a single academic article nor any books other than by a publishing house that owns newspapers that supported Mubarak. Was an assistant Minister and diplomat under Mubarak and held many other posts that were the gift of the old crocodile. His own CV reveals all when it claims writing for al Ahram as a major career achievement. 6th rate – even Mubarak didn’t think him 3rd rate. His appointment to the Arab League was described by the Huffington Post as ‘shocking and shameful’. His election to the Egyptian Parliament was corrupt with ballots substituted by the police/Security Services at the direction of Mubarak according to the unimpeachable Bassiouni p. 72. In 2011/12 he was even an intermediary in offering the Prime Minister ship to people acceptable to the army in 2011. https://dailynewsegypt.com/2016/11/13/a ... ouh-hamza/ His background helps you understand why he would support Hawass.
The Hawass center will be doing ‘worthwhile’ other things: “On the international level, the program will include a lecture three times a month by Skype to school students in the United States, Australia and Japan. This lecture will also be available in European countries such as Italy.” Not if I have anything to do with it – blocking stuff can work two ways - they want to use a free internet for their own promotion but deny it to their own people. Has anyone asked these schools if they want to watch, worked out the costs of translations or asked whether three times a month was too much?
There are even more worthwhile things to be funded by the taxpayer to extol the immortal Hawass: “An Internet training course to teach hieroglyphics online is also to be provided to children and adults” It’s a poor country and they waste the money of the poor taxpayers. There is also big promotion on the internet of 2 world discoveries – guess which ones they were – not that he actually did anything for them other than a press conference.
It gets worse. The education system in Egypt is the worst in the world and needs change – Hawass’s change and help is the following: ‘In collaboration with the Ministry of Education, art teachers in Egyptian schools will teach their pupils how to draw the hieroglyphic alphabet starting next week.” What rot. Even in a rich country like the UK would they want to teach kids Norse or ancient Gaelic.
Books are to be published for children on archaeology by a low rent Egyptian printer. Why?
A three volume Egyptology encyclopedia is promised by the new Hawass Center for publication – don’t hold your breath. I think this is the same one that Hawass promised to write a few years ago and took money from some awful Russian creatures to do it and it was to be published in Russia. Maybe it involved work for him – so now its best to get others to do that. In any event the Center has no academic standing or credibility - wonder why he didn't get the taxpayer to fund an 'Institute' attached to a respectable organization rather than just some atoll in the ocean.
The former Saqqara Training Center which is the physical structure now 'taken over' by the Hawass memorial is now to be renamed after the wretch – previously this Center was a state funded body to improve local government management skills – a needed task. Is it now to be diverted to something useless to suit the needs of one man. What the old, now reused, Center looks like I leave to you but I guess it will either be ugly or very ugly - unlike the ancient buildings Hawass worships.
The Egyptian taxpayer is going to spend a few million to memorialize Hawass. Did he contribute a cent? Has he ever donated anything to the people of Egypt or has he always taken from them? Has he ever donated speaking fees or book royalties – gained whilst he was in public employment – to Egypt?
Egypt treats him like a god but why has no western/eastern university, including his almer mater, .Pennsylvania (where he got a western paid scholarship to study at no cost to Egypt) ever given him award except several toilet universities in South America with no archaeology school – and one being a university to train bar tenders, restaurant and hotel workers. His profession ignores him in a pointed way.
He has received no state award from any civilized country, has never been invited to lecture at any university of standing. His claimed (and at a minor level) Legion of Honor is something I can’t quite track down except in Egyptian sources.
We all know that he has no credibility and little integrity. He broke the law (in the view of the Egyptian courts) in diverting the Tut funds to his friend Suzanne – the money has never been retrieved, he alienated about every archaeologist not in his pocket in the world and has published absolutely nothing in an academic journal or via an academic publisher in 50 years. He also broke the law in giving a shop franchise in the old Museum to a ‘related party’.
http://www.nileinternational.net/en/?p=97879
An aside. Everyone, or nearly everyone, publishes their Phd. Either chapters are published in journal articles or the whole thesis is published as a book. Why did Hawass not publish his Phd. I can’t even find the Phd in the University of Pennsylvania Library database.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... awass.aspx
No newspaper outside Egypt and nothing in the Gulf, covered the opening of this new 'World Event" Center in archaeology..
