Egypt Fires Its Most Famous Government Huckster
Yesterday, the Egyptian government fired the man widely credited with discovering long lost treasures of the ancient Egyptian world that had already been discovered by real archaeologists, when they let Minister of Antiquities Zahi Hawass go. Poor guy.
But for now, at least, Hawass is still being paid some $200,000 a year by the National Geographic Society to grant them access to the sites in Egypt, while an estimated 25 percent of young people there remain unemployed. An Egyptian archaeologist, Nora Shalaby, summed up Hawass' position of power under former President Hosni Mubarak, telling the AP, "He acted as if he owned Egypt's antiquities, and not that they belonged to the people of Egypt." It's safe to say that he won't be missed by many.
