Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Interview with Dr. Zahi Hawass

http://149.48.228.121/wgbh/nova/pyramid/excavation/hawass.html
This interview dates back to the late 1990s, but I had not come across it before, and it has some nice content. It is a low-news day so I have thrown it in on the offchance that it might be of interest to anyone. Hawass is talking about the monuments of Abusir and Giza, including the tombs of the pyramid builders at Giza: "We've uncovered titles of the craftsmen, draftsmen, tombmakers, the overseer of the east side of the Pyramid, the overseer of the west side of the Pyramid, and so on. We found that the average age at death of the workmen was very early, 30 to 35, while officials died at 50 to 60. We've also studied the bones in these tombs, which have provided much information. All the skeletons of men and women show signs of stress in their backs, because people were involved in moving heavy stuff. We determined through x-rays that someone had syphilis, and we found evidence of brain surgery on a workman, who lived for two years afterwards. The ancients even had emergency treatment for workers on site, because we discovered that they were fixing broken bones and even amputating legs that had been crushed by a falling stone."
See the above page for the full story.

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