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| Sunday, September 9, 2007 11:32 AM |
| Fun with Lectures |
 by Fëanor |
Poppy and I have both been interested in Ancient Egypt and Egyptology for a long time. In fact, recently we've actually been purchasing DVD lectures on the subject. Admittedly, this is partially because poppy has a crush on the lecturer - Bob "Mr. Mummy" Brier of Long Island University - but the lectures are also really, really interesting. Brier doesn't just give you a dry listing of dates. He tells you about the history of Egypt by giving you specific, engaging stories about specific Pharaohs. He also tells other interesting stories about how he personally has interacted with Egyptian history, and about how Howard Carter discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun. It's good stuff.
So, when we saw that Dr. Zahi Hawass, the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, and a frequent speaker on various TV specials about archaeology and Ancient Egypt, was giving a lecture last Thursday night on the Penn campus, we decided to get a couple of tickets and check it out. And it was actually a lot of fun, and really very interesting. Hawass is a very funny guy, and had many amusing, informative stories to tell about the recent discoveries he and his team have made in and around the Great Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings. There was even a part of the lecture where Hawass showed us slides of himself posing with all the famous people he's had the chance to escort around Egypt, including Hugh Jackman, George Lucas (who even gave Hawass a whip, as Hawass is known as "Indiana Jones," due to the fact that he wears a similar hat and is always going on archaeological adventures), Barbara Bush, Naomi Campbell, and Dr. Ruth.
Before the lecture began, while we were in line to get in, we were surprised to see protesters out front. It turns out they were strong supporters of the theory that the Egyptians, and especially King Tutankhamun, were black, and felt that Dr. Hawass was not supportive enough of this idea. That's the weird bit - it's not like Hawass goes around saying the Egyptians were actually Aryan, or even that they weren't black or weren't African. His contention is simply that we can't know for sure what color their skin was, but that certainly they were African. Which seems a reasonable thing to say. It seems like sometimes people really go looking for things to protest... |
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