Last year I wrote about the problems I had with American Customs at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. At the time I was on a lecture tour to promote my book, Hidden Treasures of Ancient Egypt, published by National Geographic. At the airport, the officer who was looking at my passport said politely, "sir, you will have to follow me," and took me to a room full of foreigners who did not speak English. After giving the officials in charge my passport and lecture schedule in the US, I sat in the waiting room for half an hour. This was especially remarkable, because my first lecture was at the White House. I was extremely upset, and I kept asking myself why this was happening to me.

I thought that my problems with American customs were solved when the American Embassy gave me an A1 Visa, the equivalent of diplomatic status. However, when I arrived at the airport in New York in May of this year, the customs officer asked me why I was there. I told him that I had been chosen by Time magazine as one of the Top 100 Influential People of the Year, and that I was attending a party at Lincoln Center in honour of this occasion. I even showed him a copy of the magazine...

Dig Days: Again a problem with the American customs, Zahi Hawass, Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt, Issue No. 803, July 13 - 19, 2006.

cf. Dig-days: A recent visit to the States, Zahi Hawass, Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt, Issue No. 705, August 26 - September 01, 2004.

cf. Dig days: Ambassadors remembered, Zahi Hawass, Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt, Issue No. 694, June 10 - 16, 2004.

Setting up an offshore, submarine archaeological site anywhere is not an easy task, let alone in a city with the water pollution problems of Alexandria. Yet the remarkable discoveries made by underwater archaeologists over the last decade justify further serious efforts for what would be Egypt's first ever offshore underwater museum.

The site and form gives cause for conjecture. Should it be in Alexandria's Eastern Harbour, the Sisila area, or Abu Qir Bay? What will it look like? Should it resemble the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney or the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology at the spectacular Uluburun Wreck in Turkey, or the Musée de Marine in Paris? All these display a collection of sunken ship wrecks, flora and fauna.

These questions and more were raised at an international workshop held last week in Alexandria to discuss the feasibility of constructing such a museum. On the table were a projected ground plan, an architectural design and a programme to study the environmental conditions of Alexandria's Mediterranean Sea and its state of marine pollution, the socio- economic problems related to the success of the underwater archaeological museum project and urban impacts. The workshop was held under the umbrella of UNESCO and the Ministry of Culture at the Alexandria Art Creativity Centre, where a multidisciplinary team of 28 international and Egyptian experts were gathered...

Under the waves, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt, Issue No. 803, July 13 - 19, 2006.

We began to restore the chest of the sphinx in April 2006. The reason for the restoration [was] because the chest was restored by lime and sand. We found that the wind took all the old restoration out. The restoration [is] finished.

That's the whole of the text. There are some nice photographs that accompany it though.

Sphinx Restoration Update, Zahi Hawass, Guardian's Egypt, July 2006.

Egyptian kings have magic for all of us. But even more than kings, queens — especially the great ones like Nefertiti and Cleopatra — capture our imaginations. It is perhaps Hatshepsut, who was both king and queen, who is the most fascinating.

We know that only four women became pharaohs in ancient Egypt. Three of these ruled at the end of dynasties, when power was slipping from the hands of the ruling houses. There was Nitokerty (Nitocris) from the end of the Old Kingdom; Sobekneferu at the end of the Middle Kingdom; and Queen Twosert, who ruled after the dynastic crisis at the end of the 19th Dynasty. In contrast, Hatshepsut ruled as a pharaoh during the golden age of Egyptian history, when Egypt ruled the East.

Recently, I was invited by Dorothea Arnold to give a lecture on Queen Hatshepsut on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition that is currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Hatshepsut, which means “united with Amun in front of the nobles,” was the daughter of Tuthmosis I and Queen Ahmose. She married her brother Tuthmosis II and had one daughter Neferure. She was the fifth queen of the 18th Dynasty, and had many great titles during this time. Some believe that her title “the divine wife of Amun” was her passport to becoming the pharaoh. After the death of Tuthmosis II, a son of a secondary wife Isis, Tuthmosis III, became the king, with his wife and stepmother, Hatshepsut, as his regent...

Quest for the Mummy of Hatshepsut, Zahi Hawass, Guardian's Egypt, June 2006.

During the opening of such sarcophagus, Hawass announced that this tomb was originally belonged to Tutankhamun's mother Kiya who died during giving birth to the boy king and was robbed during antiquities and used as a store house for embalming materials. His belief based on initial findings that include seals and inscriptions, a ceremonial bowl that exactly matches one found in King Tutankhamun's tomb including an identical hieroglyphics text. In addition Hawass added that the face depicted on top of one of the sarcophagi found is totally similar to the one of the boy king specially the nose and the cheeks.

Hawass asserted that such tomb could not ever belong to Tutankhamun's wife who had enough time to carve a large beautiful tomb that bode to a royal queen. She was the wife of Tutankhamun for ten years and then king Iye [Ay] for another couple of years.

In September, after the completion of cleaning works, all hieroglyphic texts engraved on the sarcophagi will be studied in an attempt to reveal more secrets of the tomb or it could solve one of the mysteries of Tutankhamun...

Last Sarcophagus Opened at KV 63!!, Zahi Hawass, Guardian's Egypt, July 2006.