Zahi Hawass Quotations

I found in one of the tombs an inscription saying, 'If you touch my tomb, you will be eaten by a crocodile and hippopotamus.' It doesn't mean the hippo will eat you, it means the person really wanted his tomb to be protected.

It's very important to reveal the mystery of the pyramid. Science in archaeology is very important. People all over the world are waiting to solve this mystery.

When we find something new at Giza, we announce it to the world. The Sphinx and the Pyramids are world treasures. We are the guardian's of these treasures, but they belong to the world.

Many parts of the granite statues were found, the most important of which had features close to Ramses II. The statue needs some restoration and weighs between four and five tons.

The sphinx will always have to be looked after.

It makes the heart to tremble when you open an undiscovered tomb.

Two hundred and fifty mummies covered in gold. Something like this cannot be explained - mummy after mummy covered in shining gold.

I will reveal the secrets behind these doors.

As scientists, we keep an open mind, but we have to base our ideas about the past on archaeological evidence.

Anyone can like their job... To love your job is not enough, you must give your passion to your job.

I will announce some of the tombs I found next to the great pyramid of Khufu. One is an intact tomb that I have not opened yet.

Not a single piece of material culture - not a single object - has been found at Giza that can be interpreted to come from a lost civilization.

I am damn good. I am doing all this for Egypt and nothing else. I reject 70 per cent of media interviews while these people who accuse me are running after them.

We are the only ones who really can care about the preservation Foreigners who come to excavate, maybe some of them care about preservation, but the majority care about discoveries.

When I make a new discovery, every journalist in every newspaper wants to know, ... These are all important. To know of this greatest civilization - the greatest people, both rich and poor - it is the best thing we could know.

Maybe they are mummies of kings or queens or nobles, we don't know. But it's definitely someone connected to the royal family.

Why should I allow them to drape it? If they want to make propaganda, let them do it somewhere else. They can do it in any other place in Cairo.

We don't really know what kind of people are inside but I do believe they look royal. Maybe they are kings or queens or nobles.

Anyone can like their job, ... To love your job is not enough, you must give your passion to your job.

A new hall for mummies will open at the Egyptian Museum in a fortnight's time.

This cannot take place. The pyramid cannot be draped by any person in this world. Nobody is allowed to do this.

This is a cachet (of mummies), which means that the ancient Egyptians since the end of the New Kingdom began to take the mummies out of the tombs and hide them. We don't really know what kind of people are inside but I do believe they look royal. Maybe they are kings or queens or nobles.

This is the jealousy, ... of the followers of the evil god Seth.

This item is among five archaeological collections to be presented by Egypt in the fair held in the United States for one year.

For an unknown reason they were buried rapidly in the small tomb.

They were taken from the court of the temple and put underground, possibly to protect them from destruction.

I hope that we will do this work and in a few months from now we will really know what's behind them,

I know that you have been aware of this for some time now, and am both surprised and disappointed that you did not contact me right away to set this matter straight.

For the last 100 years, curators sat down to drink tea, but they did not do their jobs. How many artifacts are in the basement? It was awful.

For the first time, we will make these dead mummies come alive,

All the pieces found are in good shape and they will be moved for restoration and display.

Egypt has managed to reclaim the 13-page papyrus manuscript.

Tutankhamun was not black, and the portrayal of ancient Egyptian civilization as black has no element of truth to it.

I have found a shaft, going 29 meters [95 feet, approximately] vertically down into the ground, exactly halfway between the Chefren Pyramid and the Sphinx. At the bottom, which was filled with water, we have found a burial chamber with four pillars. In the middle is a large granite sarcophagus which I expect to be the grave of Osiris, the god,