Secrets from the Sand: My Search for Egypt’s Past: New Paperback Edition - Softcover

Hawass, Zahi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9774161211 ISBN 13: 9789774161216

Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press, 2011

Synopsis

Zahi Hawass, familiar to millions from his many television appearances, provides stirring descriptions of his life’s work accompanied by many previously unpublished photographs. He takes us from the famous monuments at Giza, where he supervised the restoration of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid and excavated the cemetery of the pyramid builders, to the Valley of the Golden Mummies in Bahariya Oasis.
A storyteller par excellence, Dr. Hawass speculates about life in ancient Egypt based on a scientific analysis of excavations conducted by himself or under his supervision. He also spins tales of tomb robbers, explains how he negotiates with local Egyptians whose houses may lie directly above important sites, and describes in exciting detail the experience of entering an ancient tomb for the first time after thousands of years.

About this title

About the Author

Zahi Hawass is the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. He is the author of many books on ancient Egypt, including Life in Paradise (AUC Press, 2009).

From Booklist

Hawass is the head of the Egyptian government's leading archaeology organization, but his review of his career reveals his soul to be that of a hands-on practitioner rather than a bureaucrat. Committed to conserving his country's antiquities from myriad degradations, Hawass has excavated Egypt's most notable ancient sites, such as Giza and Saqqara. It was at the lower-profile Bahariya Oasis, however, that Hawass and his team discovered in 1996 the trove that will enshrine his name in Egyptology: hundreds of largely intact tombs and mummies from the Ptolemaic period (about 300 B.C.E.). Geographically, these locations structure Hawass' account of his life, which reads exactly the opposite of a typical academic autobiography because it focuses not on his papers but on the people he worked with on various conservation projects. Including photographs of Hawass on site, this book exhibits his unaffected delight in his life's work, which will personably engage his readers as much as the particularities of his experiences in the field. Gilbert Taylor
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About this edition

• Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 9774161211
• ISBN 13: 9789774161216
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276