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Egyptian Archaeologist Hawass Sees Role as Guardian of Antiquities

Egyptian archaeologist and former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass stands in front the Great Sphinx of Giza during a lecture with a group of tourists. (AFP)
Egyptian archaeologist and former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass stands in front the Great Sphinx of Giza during a lecture with a group of tourists. (AFP)
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Egyptian Archaeologist Hawass Sees Role as Guardian of Antiquities

Egyptian archaeologist and former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass stands in front the Great Sphinx of Giza during a lecture with a group of tourists. (AFP)
Egyptian archaeologist and former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass stands in front the Great Sphinx of Giza during a lecture with a group of tourists. (AFP)

Standing at the foot of the towering Great Sphinx of Giza, Zahi Hawass revels in his reputation as an indefatigable yet controversial figure in the enigmatic world of Egyptology.

With the early morning sun-kissed pyramids behind him, the 72-year-old dubbed "the Egyptian Indiana Jones" posed casually for photos sporting his trademark cowboy hat.

"This is a real archaeologist's hat. Harrison Ford's was a fake," he joked with AFP, referring to the American actor and star of the Indiana Jones movies.

Hawass, who has appeared in dozens of documentaries about ancient Egypt, is himself a star attraction for a luxury archaeological tour organized by an operator based in Poland.

A larger-than-life character, who sees himself as "the custodian of Egyptian antiquities", he evokes in the same breath ancient deities and Pharaohs as well as his own name.

Regaling tour participants with stories of his archaeological adventures, he boasts of his international achievements and cheerfully poses for selfies.

The high energy show is all part of his rambunctious performance for the eager crowd who fork out almost 10,000 US dollars each for two weeks of travel basking in his knowledge on all things Pharaonic.

'I found my passion'

Despite his swagger, Hawass says he never once imagined he would have such a meteoric rise in the often dry and dusty world of archaeology.

"When I was young, I wanted to be a lawyer... I was a very bad student," he told AFP.

On a whim, a few friends advised him to study archaeology, and he fell instantly in love.

One day while out on a dig everything clicked when he uncovered a statue. "I thought to myself, I've found my passion," he said.

Today several decades later, he divides his time between digs in southern Egypt, his Cairo office, a daily sports workout and a multitude of prestigious conferences both at home and abroad.

But his flamboyant showmanship when enthusiastically unearthing Egypt's ancient treasures to a global audience has ruffled many in his esteemed academic community.

Some peers accuse him of being a businessman cashing in on his celebrity. And he admits that $150 per entrance ticket to one of his conferences is a little steep.

But to those who accuse him of lacking empirical rigor in his fieldwork, he hits back and points to his many awards.

"I have made some major discoveries," he said citing the tombs of the pyramid builders in Giza in the 1990s or the golden mummies of Bahariya Oasis, eastern Egypt, in 1996.

Fayza Haikal, professor of Archaeology at the American University of Cairo (AUC), said his research methods are "serious".

"Like all stars, he has his fans and detractors," she said.

Hourig Sourouzian, a renowned Armenian archaeologist working in Upper Egypt, is more generous in his assessment.

He maintains Hawass has been a dynamic "engine" for Egyptology, translating to lucrative research grants from governments and funding bodies.

'Ambassador for archaeology'

Hawass was head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities from 2002 to 2011 and then briefly minister of antiquities in early 2011.

It was a portfolio especially created for him. But he had to give it up right after the 2011 revolution that unseated long-time President Hosni Mubarak.

Employees hurled abuse at him amid charges of nepotism and accusations of smuggling antiquities to overseas buyers as he was escorted out of the Egyptian Museum.

He left in a haze of corruption allegations. A case brought against him was overturned and the charges dropped on legal technicalities. Hawass maintains his innocence and boasts that the case never made it to court.

Under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, he remains an influential figure in the field, and he is effusive in his praise of the general-turned-politician saying he "saved Egypt".

There have been rumors of a bitter rivalry between him and the current minister of antiquities, Khaled El-Enany, but Hawass dismisses such talk saying his successor is "doing a very good job".

"Enany when he came he depended on the people that I trained," he said. "And he calls me for advice all the time."

Disparagingly, Hawass lamented that the political turbulence delayed the opening of his brainchild, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM).

The gigantic museum, overlooking the Giza pyramids, is now set to open to the public in 2020 five years later than originally planned.

Hawass hopes it will lure back tourists after a slump since the revolution and a string of deadly terror attacks.

More than 11 million tourists visited Egypt in 2018 some drawn by many recent discoveries in which he was involved.

"We can say anything we want, but Zahi is the best ambassador for Egypt and archaeology," said Sourouzian.

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Varieties

Long-Distance Flights Can Interfere with the Internal Clocks of Seabirds

A Manx shearwater flies around Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, Wales, Britain, in this handout image released on October 29, 2026. (Joe Wynn/Handout via Reuters)
A Manx shearwater flies around Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, Wales, Britain, in this handout image released on October 29, 2026. (Joe Wynn/Handout via Reuters)
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Long-Distance Flights Can Interfere with the Internal Clocks of Seabirds

A Manx shearwater flies around Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, Wales, Britain, in this handout image released on October 29, 2026. (Joe Wynn/Handout via Reuters)
A Manx shearwater flies around Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, Wales, Britain, in this handout image released on October 29, 2026. (Joe Wynn/Handout via Reuters)

People who travel across many time zones, like a trip from London to Tokyo, may experience jet lag, with the body's internal 24-hour clock — the circadian rhythm — thrown out of sync with the local time at the arrival location. A new study shows that birds that fly long distances may experience a similar phenomenon that causes them to drift off course.

Research involving seabirds called Manx shearwaters found that crossing the Atlantic at speed can throw their internal clocks out of sync with local time, causing errors in the strategy they use to navigate their way home.

Birds can use several cues to find their way, including having the sun serve as a compass. A bird flying south sees the sun on its left at sunrise and on its right toward sunset, so it must keep adjusting its heading as the sun moves across the sky.

"Animals use an internal clock to do this, the ‌same one that tells ‌our bodies when to sleep, when to be active," said Patrick Lewin, a researcher ‌at ⁠the University of ⁠Oxford's Department of Biology and one of the leaders of the study published in the journal Science.

To investigate how the birds navigate across vast stretches of open ocean, researchers analyzed 20 years of GPS data from 1,045 breeding Manx shearwaters, birds that can travel as far as about 1,000 km (620 miles) west from colonies on islands off Britain on foraging trips.

Using the positions of the birds and the sun's movement across the sky, the researchers calculated the error each bird should make if its internal clock stayed set to the time at dawn. Across 335 homing flights made out of sight of land, the headings of the birds closely matched those ⁠predicted errors.

"The process behind what we're observing here — the mismatch between the internal clock ‌and external time caused by longitudinal movements — is exactly the same as what ‌causes jet lag in humans," Lewin said.

The researchers have not yet investigated whether the clock mismatch affects the birds beyond navigation. But internal clocks ‌influence behaviors including feeding and rest, raising the possibility that those too could be mistimed.

Shearwaters tend to hunt shortly ‌after dawn and before dusk, when fish and other prey are closer to the surface, meaning a mistimed rest period could cost them a feeding opportunity, Lewin said.

The study also showed that birds kept using their solar compass even when another source of information was readily available. Along coastlines, where familiar land could potentially guide them, their distance from shore still shifted in the direction predicted by clock-related sun-compass errors.

A ‌TWO-STEP PROCESS

"For most navigational tasks, it is thought that compass systems are used in conjunction with a map system in a kind of two-step process. In the map step, ⁠the animal determines where it is ⁠in relation to a goal, such as a home colony. Then in the compass step it uses a compass to translate that into movement," said Tim Guilford, a University of Oxford professor of animal behavior who was one of the study leaders.

The birds may continue to combine these systems even in familiar areas, rather than relying entirely on one or the other.

"If this only produces small deviations, there might not be strong selection against it," Lewin said.

Another possibility is that the sun compass helps the birds determine which way to go along the linear feature, Lewin said.

Even clouds may not render the sun compass useless. Evidence suggests that birds can sense polarized light and estimate the sun's position unless conditions are heavily overcast, Lewin said.

In people, jet lag can cause unpleasant short-term effects and has been linked to longer-term health problems in those who experience it frequently, such as airline pilots and flight attendants.

It is not yet known whether birds experience similar effects, but species such as shearwaters that regularly travel rapidly east-west may have evolved ways to cope with repeated disruption to their internal clocks, Lewin said.

"Knowing this phenomenon is occurring is only the first step, but perhaps these birds could teach us something about how to treat or avoid jet lag," Lewin said.

Varieties

Philippines Raises Volcano Alert Level as Blast Sends Ash Skyward

Smoke billows into the sky as Mayon volcano erupts as seen from Legaspi City, Albay province, south of Manila on October 30, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke billows into the sky as Mayon volcano erupts as seen from Legaspi City, Albay province, south of Manila on October 30, 2026. (AFP)
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Philippines Raises Volcano Alert Level as Blast Sends Ash Skyward

Smoke billows into the sky as Mayon volcano erupts as seen from Legaspi City, Albay province, south of Manila on October 30, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke billows into the sky as Mayon volcano erupts as seen from Legaspi City, Albay province, south of Manila on October 30, 2026. (AFP)

One of the Philippines' most active volcanoes fired a dark column of ash thousands of meters into the sky Friday in a "moderately explosive eruption" that lasted nearly six minutes, the state seismology office said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage in towns and cities surrounding Mount Mayon, but the country's volcano institute raised the alert level from 2 to 3 on its 0-5 scale and called for evacuations within six kilometers (3.7 miles) of the crater.

The 3,000-meter (nearly 10,000 feet) ash column gradually drifted southwest onto nearby population centers, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said in a bulletin.

"Mayon is in a new phase of magmatic eruption, with increased chances of lava flows and hazardous PDCs (pyroclastic density currents)... affecting the upper to middle slopes of the volcano in the immediate days to weeks," it said.

It urged local officials to evacuate areas near the crater "due to the danger of PDCs, lava flows, rockfalls and other volcanic hazards", with planes also advised to avoid flying close to the mountain.

The 2,462-meter (8,000-foot) Mayon, rising in a near-perfect cone about 330 kilometers southeast of Manila, is one of three Philippine volcanoes that have shown elevated levels of activity this year, though no major eruptions occurred.

In June 2023, more than 12,000 people living on its lower slopes were moved to evacuation centers to protect them from ash and toxic gases spewing from its crater.

Earthquakes and volcanic activity are common in the Philippines due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", where tectonic plates collide.

The country's most powerful eruption in recent decades was Mount Pinatubo in 1991, which killed more than 800 people and produced an ash cloud that travelled thousands of kilometers.

Varieties

People Enter Cages While the Animals Seem Free at a Unique Amsterdam Museum

A crocodile stares down at the entrance of the Art Zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Oct. 27, 2026. (AP)
A crocodile stares down at the entrance of the Art Zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Oct. 27, 2026. (AP)
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People Enter Cages While the Animals Seem Free at a Unique Amsterdam Museum

A crocodile stares down at the entrance of the Art Zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Oct. 27, 2026. (AP)
A crocodile stares down at the entrance of the Art Zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Oct. 27, 2026. (AP)

Look up as you enter Amsterdam's new Art Zoo museum, and a 12-foot crocodile stares down at you, mouth open, ready to chomp.

The taxidermic reptile is one of hundreds of preserved creatures on display, alongside artfully arranged piles of bones, illuminated tulips encased in apothecary jars and a cabinet of grotesque fish.

While it’s not a Halloween-themed museum, the show should appeal to anybody looking for something a little dark this spooky season.

“It was a little creepy,” admitted Tomáš Vaško, a Slovak living in the Dutch capital, after touring the museum on a dark October day.

Art Zoo is the creation of Dutch artists Jaap Sinke and Ferry van Tongeren, who draw inspiration from “wunderkammers,” or curiosity cabinets collected by wealthy Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries to showcase objects from the natural world.

“The main thing is that we like storytelling with the animals," van Tongeren told The Associated Press. "We like to add drama. We add an attitude to the animals, where traditional taxidermists just want to mimic nature.”

Behind him, a cheetah slouched in an alcove under the watchful eye of a cassowary.

In natural history museums, animals are posed as they could be seen in the wild. At the Art Zoo, a Japanese giant spider crab stretches its 6-foot legs above a doorway beside the leg bones of a mastodon that nearly reaches the ceiling.

The duo rose to fame in 2015 after shark-pickling artist Damien Hirst purchased their entire exhibition from a London art show.

Unlike at a traditional zoo, the human visitors are confined, not the animals. The display rooms in the 17th-century canal house where the Art Zoo is located are enclosed by brooding, black metal cages.

“We really like the concept of having all the people in a cage and then all the animals free,” van Tongeren says. “In that way, the whole building becomes one artwork.”

None of the animals in the eclectic collection were taken from the wild.

“All our animals come from zoos where they died of natural causes,” said Sinke. Still, he acknowledged that the paperwork can be challenging. The pair primarily obtained specimens from Europe to ensure they know the history of the animals.

Sinke and van Tongeren actually consider themselves an artistic trio, crediting naturalist Charles Darwin as the third contributor to their work. They pitched the concept of the museum as the return of Darwin’s wonder.

Not everything in the collection is a real animal. Underneath the crocodile suspended from the ceiling is a wall of Jenny Hanivers, ray carcasses modified into grotesque creatures by 16th-century sailors who presented the macabre beasts as real sea monsters to gullible collectors.

Their misshapen faces appear to keep a beady eye on museum guests as they walk from caged room to caged room.