Zahi Hawass: Education, Career, and Contributions to Egyptology

Dr. Zahi Abass Hawass, born on May 28, 1947, in Al-ʿUbaydiyyah near Damietta, Egypt, is a world-renowned Egyptian archaeologist and Egyptologist. Celebrated for his extensive work in uncovering and preserving Egypt’s ancient heritage, his dynamic presence and media-savvy approach have made him a prominent figure in the field. He has served as the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and as the first Minister of State for Antiquities.

Early Life and Education

Zahi Hawass spent his early years in a small village called Abeedya near Damietta in Egypt. As a child, his initial ambition was to become a lawyer, inspired by successful lawyers in movies. At 15, he went to school to study law, but he found the subject too boring. He then chose to try a new department that had just opened in the Faculty of Arts: archaeology. Still, he hated studying and only ever just passed his classes. Hawass eventually changed his course of study to Greek and Roman archaeology. He received his BA in Greek and Roman Archaeology from Alexandria University at the age of 20. He also received a diploma in Egyptology from Cairo University. Later, he pursued higher education in the United States. He won a Fulbright fellowship and enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Egyptology at the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1987 with a dissertation on The Funerary Establishments of Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura During the Old Kingdom, supervised by the late David O’Conner. Additionally, Dr. Hawass has received seven honorary doctorates from various foreign universities.

Early Career

After graduating from Alexandria University in 1967, Hawass was appointed as an Inspector of Antiquities by the Egyptian government. Back then, the government gave everyone who graduated college a job. When he joined the Antiquities Department, he found out that everyone hated one another. Because he always strives to keep the peace, he thought to himself “I cannot live with these people.” So instead he went to study to try to be a diplomat. He passed the written exam but failed the oral exam. From there he wanted to try a career in the Ministry of Tourism but could not be accepted. He also tried and failed to work in the Department of Cinema that is a part of the Ministry of Culture.

With sadness, he returned to the Antiquities Department in Cairo. He met with the head of the department, Dr. Gamal Mokhtar, who informed him he was too absent from work. Dr. Mokhtar told Hawass he had signed a decree for him to join the excavation site in the desert. Hawass told him “I cannot go and live in the desert!” At that time, he was in love with a girl in Cairo and could not bear to leave her. But Dr. Mokhtar said if he did not go he would cut 15 days of his salary. So Hawass traveled to the site. It was a huge project with more than 300 workmen. Sitting in a tent on a Thursday, Hawass was waiting to go home for the weekend to Cairo. Then, one of the workmen came to him. His name was Faraq. He and the other workmen were from Qift and were experts in excavation and restoration, taught by all the foreign excavations that happened in the area. Hawass went with Faraq to the site and met Reis (overseer) Doctor. That was his name, “Doctor.” His father named him Doctor because he was working on a German expedition and the head of the excavation was called “doctor.” Doctor gave Hawass a brush and told him to sit down next to him and start cleaning in the middle of the tomb. After cleaning for about half an hour a statue began to appear through the sand. Hawass continued cleaning more and more and a voice inside of him said “I found my love. I found my love: archaeology.” Then he realized he was in love with something he didn’t know anything about. From 1969 to 1974 he was the Inspector of Antiquities for a number of sites throughout Egypt.

Key Roles and Responsibilities

Hawass’s career reached significant heights when he was appointed to key positions within Egypt’s antiquities administration. By the time he was accepted into a PhD program with a Fulbright scholarship in 1980 he was working as the Chief Inspector of the Great Pyramids. He returned to Egypt as the Director General of the Giza Monuments, Saqqara, and Bahariya Oasis. In 1998 he was made the Undersecretary of the State for the Giza Monuments, a position he held for only four years until he was made the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA)

In 2002, Hawass was appointed as the Secretary General of the SCA, a role he held until 2011. During his tenure, he focused on monument restoration and preservation, as well as on training Egyptian Egyptologists. As head of the SCA, Hawass directed several other excavation projects that led to significant findings, including the discovery in 2008 of an Old Kingdom pyramid at Ṣaqqārah that was determined to belong to a queen of Teti. He also initiated the Egyptian Mummy Project, which used modern forensic techniques such as CAT scans to study both royal and nonroyal mummies.

Minister of Antiquities

In January 2011, after Egyptian Pres. Hosni Mubarak shuffled his cabinet following antigovernment protests, Hawass was appointed to the newly created position of minister of antiquities. However, after protests forced Mubarak to step down as president on February 11, Hawass remained in his position for only a few weeks; he resigned in March-to protest, he said, the insufficient security for museums and archaeological sites following the onset of protests, which had resulted in looting. Less than a month after his resignation, he was reappointed by Egypt’s interim prime minister, Essam Sharaf. In July 2011 Hawass was one of more than a dozen government ministers removed from their posts in a cabinet reorganization meant to defuse widespread popular protests against the Egyptian interim government.

Discoveries and Excavations

Dr. Hawass has made numerous significant archaeological discoveries throughout his career.

Necropolis at Giza

At Giza in 1990, Hawass discovered a necropolis that housed the tombs of the pyramid builders, which proved, contrary to then-popular fringe theories, that the pyramids were indeed erected by Egyptians.

Valley of the Golden Mummies

His profile was further raised in the late 1990s when he began the excavation of an extensive collection of tombs at Bahariya Oasis. The site became known as the Valley of the Golden Mummies after the tombs’ well-preserved denizens, the most that had ever been found at a single site. His book about his great discovery at Bahariya Oasis, The Valley of the Golden Mummies, became a bestseller and has been published in five languages.

Other Discoveries

Through the course of his career he has made a number of major discoveries, including the tombs of the pyramid-builders at Giza and the Valley of the Golden Mummies at Bahariya Oasis. He also discovered two new pyramids: One belonged to Khufu, and the other to the mother of King Teti, founder of the Sixth Dynasty.

He directed the first Egyptian excavation in the Valley of the Kings, where he and his team not only discovered many important artifacts but also rediscovered one of the valley’s “lost tombs,” KV 53. Dr. Hawass’ efforts also revealed the secret of the tunnel in the tomb of King Seti I. Along the nearby Theban West Bank, he led a team that excavated the northern entrance to the temple belonging to Amenhotep III. Many statues were found there, belonging to this powerful king in the company of a variety of deities.

Recent discoveries at Saqqara. In 2021, Hawass announced the Discovery of the lost golden city: "the dazzling Aten" of Amenhotep III.

Egyptian Mummy Project (EMP)

One of Dr. Hawass’ most important endeavors has been the Egyptian Mummy Project, which uses modern forensic techniques, including CT scans and DNA analysis, to answer questions about human remains from ancient Egypt. The EMP has resulted in several crucial findings, including identifications of the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut and members of the family of Tutankhamun, and the cause of death of Rameses III. As a result of that project, in 2007 Hawass announced that he had identified the remains of Hatshepsut, and in 2010 it was determined that Tutankhamen was the son of Akhenaton and probably died of complications from malaria and bone disease.

Conservation and Site Management

As an archeologist deeply concerned with the conservation and protection of Egypt’s monuments, Dr. Hawass supervised an extensive site management program for Coptic and Islamic sites. He also oversaw the conservation of the Great Sphinx and built 22 new museums throughout Egypt, among them the Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza pyramids and the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat. He has developed site management plans for a number of important areas, including the Unfinished Obelisk Quarry in Aswan, the temples of Kom Ombo, Edfu, and Dendera, the West Bank of Luxor, Giza, and Saqqara. Under his direction, several historical mosques, churches, and synagogues have been restored and reopened to the public.

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Repatriation of Artifacts

Dr. Hawass has been actively involved in efforts to repatriate Egyptian artifacts from abroad. He has led initiatives to bring back significant items, such as the Rosetta Stone and the bust of Nefertiti, to Egypt. He also repatriated more than 6,000 stolen artifacts and trained more than 1,000 young archeologists in museology and excavation techniques.

Media Presence and Public Engagement

Dr. Hawass is known for his charisma and ability to reach out to the public, raising awareness of archeology and the preservation of Egypt’s precious heritage. He lectures internationally, with some audiences exceeding 4,500 attendees. Through these talks, he introduces his most important discoveries to the world. His dynamic personality and extensive knowledge have sparked global interest in ancient Egypt. He has brought the world of the pharaohs into the homes and hearts of people everywhere through numerous television appearances and books for the general readership.

Hawass’s media presence grew with appearances in documentaries and television specials, notably on the Discovery Channel and National Geographic.

Television Appearances

In 2006, Dr. Hawass received an Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for a documentary on ancient Egypt produced by KCBS in Los Angeles. Some of his most popular TV appearances have been “Mysteries of the Pyramids: Live from Cairo with Omar Sharif,” “Good Morning America live from the Great Sphinx with Joan Lunden,” and the “Today Show with Matt Lauer.”

He has appeared, also, in three live, prime-time productions for Fox Television. The first of these, in March 1999, was with Maury Povich; the second, in May 2000, was with actor Bill Pullman and host Hugh Downs; and the third was a look behind the hidden doors within the Great Pyramid through the use of a robot equipped with a fiberoptic camera. Dr. Hawass has also appeared in many documentaries produced by the BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, the History Channel, PBS, and Nova, as well as many programs in Europe and Japan. One of the most famous TV shows is (Chasing the Mummies) by History Channel. The TV show was watched by millions of people all over the world. He was chosen by the BBC for a profile representing Egypt in the new millennium and was featured by CNN in a short profile in 2008. National Geographic has produced a film on his life and work. He has been profiled in print by the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Times of London, as well as other major newspapers and magazines.

Publications

He has written more than 40 popular and academic books and more than 150 scholarly articles on his excavations, as well as innumerable pieces for Arabic and English newspapers and magazines. The most popular of his books are Secrets from the Sand (Doubleday) and Valley of the Golden Mummies (Henry Abrams), which became a bestseller. He wrote one of Egyptology’s most opulently illustrated books, A Secret Voyage, of which only 900 copies were printed. He has presented them as gifts to many dignitaries, heads of state, and royalty. Another of Hawass’ popular books for a general readership appeared in 2014, Discovering Tutankhamun: From Howard Carter to DNA. In addition, he published a volume about his work using computed tomography (CT scanning) and DNA analysis on Egypt’s royal mummies, as well as a children’s book titled King Tut and I: The Mystery of the Golden Boy.

Silent Images - Women in Pharaonic Egypt; Hidden Treasures of Ancient Egypt; Secrets from the Sand; Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs; Tutankhamun - The Treasures of the Tomb; Royal Tombs of Egypt - The Art of Thebes Revealed; The Great Book of Ancient Egypt - In the Realm of the Pharaohs; and Mountains of the Pharaohs - The Untold Story of the Pyramid Builders.

Awards and Recognition

Over the course of his career, Dr. Hawass has received numerous awards and honors.

In 1998, the President of Egypt bestowed on him the First Class Award for Arts and Sciences.
He also received the Pride of Egypt Award from members of the foreign press in Egypt.
Two years later, the Association of Egyptian-American Scholars named him Distinguished Scholar of the Year.
He was one of 30 international figures to receive the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement in honor of his accomplishments in archeology.
In July 2001, the National Geographic Society selected Dr. Hawass as one of its Explorers in Residence.
The Russian Academy of Natural Sciences granted him a Silver Medal and membership in the academy.
During November of the next year, his name was inscribed on a CD carried by the 2003 mission of the Mars Exploration Rover.
Time magazine chose him as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People for 2006.
The following year he was made an officer in the French Order of Arts and Letters.
In 2008, he received the rank of commander in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
That same year, Dr. Hawass was presented with a World Tourism Award and designated a Goodwill Ambassador to Japan by the Egyptian and Japanese Ministries of Foreign Affairs.
Dr. Hawass was named in April 2017 Ambassador for Peace and Cultural Heritage by the International Federation of Peace and Sustainable Development, an affiliate organization to the United Nations.
In July of the same year, he was awarded the Honorary Doctorate Degree from San Ignacio de Loyola University in Peru.
He was the guest of honor at the Magna Gracia Film Festival in Catanzaro where he was awarded the Golden Pillar Award.

Personal Life

In 1967, Hawass married Fekrya, a gynecologist. Dr. Hawass is married to Fekrya Hawass, a gynecologist whom he met in 1967. They have two sons: one is a physician, and the other is a restaurateur, both residing in Cairo. Dr. Zahi Hawass’s estimated net worth is between $3 million and $5 million. His income sources include his roles in archaeological projects, book sales, television appearances, and public speaking engagements. Hawass’s lifestyle reflects his deep connection to Egypt’s cultural heritage. He was a close friend of actor Omar Sharif and accompanied him during his final days in 2015.

Current Activities

After the 2011 revolution, Hawass retired from public office to work independently as an archaeologist. He currently oversees excavations in Saqqara and Luxor, the Scan Pyramids project, and is about to begin work in the never-before-excavated Valley of the Marks. Recently, he has published a novel in French dramatizing the life of Khufu and finished an opera about the life of Tutankhamun that will premiere in 2024. As of 2025, Dr. Hawass continues to be actively involved in the field of archaeology. He is set to embark on a lecture tour across the United States and Canada, titled “A Royal Evening with Dr.

Dr. Hawass is now working with the Ministry of Tourism to promote travel to Egypt, and he has recently lectured in Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and Britain.

Looking ahead, Dr. Hawass plans to continue his archaeological endeavors and public outreach. His upcoming lecture tour aims to share the latest findings from his research and to foster a deeper understanding of ancient Egyptian civilization among global audiences.

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