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Dr Sabry Khater is well versed in Egyptomania. The head of the Egyptology sector of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities knows the power of our fascination with ancient Egyptian culture and how it helps drive some five million tourists to Egypt each year.
"People get crazy about Egyptology. They like to see more discoveries, more mummies, more gold and treasure. It's like an adventure for them to come to Egypt."
The allure shows no signs of abating. At the Auckland Museum this month Egyptology fans can visit Egypt: Beyond the Tomb to find out just how seriously the ancients took their funeral arrangements. Next week many will be tuned to the Discovery Channel's Secrets of Egypt's Lost Queen to learn why a find in the Valley of the Kings is billed as the most important since the discovery of Tutankhamen. The documentary is about the identification of a long-ignored mystery mummy as Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled from 1479 to 1458BC.
Khater, who was in Christchurch last week at a World Heritage Conference, describes Hatshepsut as "a very brilliant, strong lady". That's because it was unprecedented for a woman to be on the Egyptian throne for such a long reign - a feat Hatshepsut achieved by propaganda and cross-dressing in male regalia.
"She shows the people there is no difference between a man and a woman," says Khater. Hatshepsut's ability to pass over gender boundaries didn't stop there. She also constructed a myth about her birth to affirm her godly status and enable her to become the first female pharaoh. Not surprisingly, she's held up as a feminist icon. But her tactics, which included keeping stepson Thutmose III from the throne, caught up with her. After her death, attempts were made to remove Hatshepsut from historical and pharaonic records - literally, by chiselling off her images from stone walls.
Mystery is a key ingredient of Egyptomania and Hatshepsut already has her fair share. But the identification of her mummified remains has also uncovered something unexpected. The queen was obese.
Asked to explain, Khater is reluctant to acknowledge the shocking truth. As he points out the ancient Egyptian artists always depicted their subjects as the ideal. There was no fat or thin. "The pharaoh is the link between the people and the gods and must be in the ideal shape."
Similarly, Dr Zahi Hawass, the superstar Egyptologist who features in the Discovery Channel documentary, can't bring himself to mention the queen's roundness. Throughout the documentary Hatshepsut is referred to as "the strong" mummy, although on one occasion Hawass allows what may be an euphemism - "the powerful physique of a queen".
Hawass, who is secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, was not so reticent a year earlier.
When he first set eyes on Hatshepsut, she had been languishing for centuries on the floor of tomb KV60, next to her wet nurse In-Sitre. "I do not believe that this mummy is Hatshepsut," wrote Hawass at the time. " She has a very large, fat body with huge pendulous breasts; and the position of her arm is not convincing evidence of royalty."
The pendulous breasts must have swung it for Hawass, who postulated the mummy with the powerful physique was the wet nurse and the mummy identified as In-Sitre might be Hatshepsut. As it turned out Hawass was 100 per cent wrong. A tooth found in a canopic box (used for containing the viscera of mummified corpses) bearing the cartouche, or royal seal, of Hatshepsut was a perfect match to a missing tooth in the obese one's jaw. Which was proof enough that looks can be deceiving.
The queen's obesity has already attracted interest from feminist groups. "Fat chicks rule" proclaims the Big Fat Deal blog. Others point out the paradox of Hatshepsut's diet - no sugar, whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and little meat - which is remarkably similar to what nutritional experts are advising we should eat today. It's noted too that Hatshepsut had bad teeth - the hallmark of a high carb diet, not to mention no flossing. Some even speculate Hatshepsut may prompt a re-examination of the notion that the obesity epidemic is a modern phenomenon.
Khater says while cracked theories, mystery and new discoveries drive Egyptomania, it's the afterlife that's behind the craze.
"The ancient Egyptian people believe in the other life and I think at the time they were right. We are still thinking of this now. What will happen in the other life? Will we meet our fate again?"
He says there is something compelling about the idea of preparing for a journey in death through elaborate mummification and the ritual gathering of objects and tools needed for the journey.
"These guys were searching for the geography of the other world and what they will need in the other world. They wanted to continue their beautiful life in their eternal life."
IN charge of all Pharaonic and Greco-Roman sites, Khater is responsible for both restoration and excavation. His focus today is putting in place management plans that balance the needs of tourists with preservation. Besides flash floods and a rising water table that threatens tombs that have survived 4500 years, his biggest headache is tourists exhaling - specifically inside tombs and temples where their moisture erodes the plaster and paint of murals. That's led to limiting visitor numbers and rotating which tombs are open to the public.
Equally challenging is the eviction of villagers from historic sites. In Gurna on the west bank of the Nile in Luxor - the site of the Theban necropolis - bulldozers moved in last year to start dismantling the houses of about 2000 families living over the tombs. Khater says about two thirds of the families have been resettled in a new town nearby and there are plans to preserve about 30 dwellings, including some that were once the homes of 19th century tomb robbers.
"We will leave some to show the history of the village." But the resettlement plans have met opposition. Some families are protesting that their livelihoods - for generations tied to the tombs and tourists - are being removed.
A similar clearance is under way in modern Luxor, where people living in a 70m wide swathe stretching over 3km are being relocated to reveal the Avenue of the Sphinx - a processional way linking the temples of Karnak and Luxor.
No doubt the clearances - which between them will open up access to about 500 tombs and 200 sphinxes - will ensure plenty of new discoveries to keep Egyptomanics happy. Meanwhile, the revelations about Queen Hatshepsut's corporeal existence are likely to keep Egyptologists occupied for some time. Some will be puzzling over the layers of meaning in one of her wall inscriptions: "To look upon her was more beautiful than anything; her splendour and her form were divine".
* Egypt: Beyond the Tomb runs until August 12 at the Auckland Museum. Secrets of Egypt's Lost Queen, Discovery Channel July 15, 7.30pm.
