Sample Translation
Translated by Charlotte Collins
ES GIBT NUR DEN GERADEN WEG
by Wafaa El Saddik
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH & Co. KG
Publication: May 2013 (Hardcover) / 368 pages
Foreign rights with Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH & Co. KG
Iris Brandt/ Rights & Contracts Director: ibrandt@kiwi-verlag.de
Aleksandra Erakovic/ Foreign Rights Manager: aerakovic@kiwi-verlag.de
Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Chapter 8
In the Museum
Was returning to Cairo and asking my two sons to adjust to life in this city a mistake?
There were moments when I wasn’t sure how to answer these questions. In this chapter I shall
tell of intrigue, deception, and betrayal, of public humiliation and investigation by the public
prosecutor, of ludicrous fabrication and bitter disappointment. But right at the start, I want to
make it clear that I was in far greater measure compensated and blessed: by the marvels that
revealed themselves to me in nooks and crannies of the museum, by the loyalty and friendship
of wonderful colleagues, and by the gratitude I saw in the faces of so many children to whom
we opened the doors of this vast treasury.
We packed our bags in the summer of 2003. Azmy and I have come to a decision. I am
now fifty-three years old. My generation, in the person of Zahi Hawass, has advanced to
management level. Now it’s our turn. In another ten years a younger generation will be in
charge. If I still want to make a difference, I have to do so now. Abdel Halim Nur el Din and
Gaballa Ali Gaballah, Zahi Hawass’s predecessors as heads of the Supreme Council of
Antiquities, had both offered me the directorship of the museum, and I had refused on both
occasions. If I were to decline again, Cairo may never again consider appointing me.
According to Egyptian law, I am still an employee of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, on
unpaid maternity leave with an option to return. And I am eager to get back to archaeological
work.
Moreover, Azmy wants to give up the ‘Dom-Apotheke’ pharmacy. He just doesn’t enjoy it
any more. Instead, he wants to devote himself to research about the art of healing in ancient
Egypt. ‘I think I’ll take early retirement,’ he confides in me. We also want our boys to know
life in Egypt, and to speak their mother tongue Arabic as fluently as possible.
We are looking forward to this new phase in our lives. But there will be moments –
especially during the first few months of my seven years as Director General of the Egyptian
Museum – when I find myself regretting my naïveté. I was prepared for hard work, tough
negotiations, resistance, and trials of my patience. After all, I’d had decades of experience
with the Supreme Council and was well aware of the dark side of this mammoth organization
with more than 30,000 employees. The wheels of bureaucracy not only grind slowly; in
authoritarian systems they grind people down as well. I believed that I was prepared, but in
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Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
fact, I had no idea what it would be like to confront this machinery every day. I could not, or
would not, begin to imagine that there were people just waiting for me to make a mistake and
to force me to resign in ignominy.
Dealing with the authorities at immigration and customs when we arrive in Cairo is a mere
bagatelle in comparison to the many hoops we had to jump through when we moved from
Cairo to Cologne. And we are very lucky to find an apartment in Dokki, a sought-after area in
the centre of town, popular with business people and foreign diplomats. Its proximity to the
German Evangelical High School (DEO) is what counts for us. We don’t want Hadi and
Tarek to have to spend hours travelling through Cairo on the school bus. It hadn’t been easy
getting them admitted to the academic high school; the competition was fierce since many
better-off families in Cairo are keen for their children to attend the DEO. Sending the boys to
a standard Egyptian school was not an option for us: they wouldn’t be happy there because
their Arabic was not good enough at the time. Our youngest is already reproaching me
bitterly: why did I take him away from all his friends in Cologne he’s known since
kindergarten? Why have we swapped our nice apartment with the big garden in Junkersdorf
for a high-rise apartment in Dokki? ‘And for this city?’ During these first few weeks I can’t
come up with convincing responses to Hadi’s complaints. For three weeks now I’ve just been
sitting at home: I’ve already given up my dream of becoming director of the museum.
As soon as circumstances allow, I make an inaugural informal visit to the museum. The
incumbent in charge is Mamdouh El-Damati, a bright young colleague who, like his
predecessor, was a university professor before accepting the appointment as director-general.
Damati has always impressed me as a serious and dedicated person. The directorship is
usually extended from one year to the next, and I don’t expect him to leave office any time
soon. In any case, my return to Egypt was not contingent upon being put in charge of the
museum. I realise that a suitable function has to be found for me first.
I am eagerly anticipating seeing the museum again. I show my Supreme Council of
Antiquities pass, give the policeman at the security gate a friendly nod, and enter the foyer. A
wave of familiarity immediately washes over me: the noisy echo of overlapping voices and
footsteps; the warm light streaming through the windows and skylights, shifting over the
massive sarcophagi; the steles and statues of black basalt, pink granite, quartzite, and
porphyry; the bleeping of the guards’ walkie-talkies; the multilingual cacophony of the
guides; and through it all a little girl’s voice – and my mother’s …
‘Mama, were the pharaohs all so big?’
‘No, they were not. They were normal size, maybe even a bit smaller than people today.’
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Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
‘Why are they all so gigantic then?’
‘Because the ancient Egyptians believed their pharaoh was very powerful, so powerful that
he guaranteed order in the world. So if the pharaoh was big and strong, Egypt too was big and
strong. That’s why they made such colossal statues of their rulers.’
I was eight years old when Mama took me to the Egyptian Museum for the first time. We
had just moved from Kafer al Arab to Cairo. Everything in this city was big: the palace of the
king, the pyramids, the museum, and the colossal statues in it. I still clearly remember
standing with Mama in the huge central hall, in front of the double statue of Tiye and
Amenhotep III. ‘But how did they transport it?’ The heads of the couple nearly brushed the
cornice of the first floor, twelve meters above. The king and queen dominate the atrium,
dwarfing even the not exactly small striding figure of Sesostris III and the mighty stone
sarcophagi at their feet. I’m sure that eight-year-olds gazing up at Tiye and Amenhotep III
today must also get a stiff neck. ‘They’re much bigger than the main entrance! How did they
get them into the museum?’ Mama explains that the fragments of the statue were found at
Medinet Habu, across the river from Luxor, in 1889. When the big new museum was built in
1900, archaeologists reassembled the statue from the fragments in the still-empty atrium,
restoring the missing bits in plaster. (Even today, fragments of the group continue to come to
light at Medinet Habu.) ‘The queen is just as big as the pharaoh!’ I exclaim. ‘In other statues
the women are much smaller than their husbands.’ Mama says that Queen Tiye played a very
important role at her husband’s side, and helped him govern the country.
More than four decades later, at the age of almost fifty-three, I stand before Queen Tiye
once again. As a student, too, I always paid a call on her first when I came to the museum. I
chose to write seminar papers on Tiye, the mother of the pharaoh Akhenaten, and on the brief
but fascinating Amarna Period. Later, I enjoyed showing the statue of Tiye during my lectures
on the role of women in ancient Egypt, about the great royal wives and female rulers like
Hatshepsut and Nefertiti. The most beautiful portrait of Queen Nefertiti is the object of my
second visit this morning. The ochre-coloured quartzite head is an unfinished study from the
workshop of the master sculptor Thutmose. As if with a fine kohl pencil, he has traced the
queen’s eyelids, nose, and mouth. Words cannot express the effect Nefertiti’s countenance
has on me, and presumably on the majority of people who behold her likeness. The German
archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt, who discovered the workshop of Thutmose on December 6,
1912, and whose trusted workman Mohamed el Senussi freed the famous painted bust from
the accumulated windblown sand where the it had lain for more than 3,300 years, was right
when he wrote: ‘No use describing it, you have to see it.’ His words still hold true today – and
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Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
not only for the bust Borchardt took with him to Berlin. They are equally applicable to the
entrancing portrait in Cairo. For me, the expression of this woman’s distant, cool noblesse is
even more sublime in the Cairo head that in the Berlin bust. Nefertiti does not smile; neither
the queen nor her husband wears the cheerful, gracious smile with which Amenhotep III and
Tiye greet visitors to the atrium. Instead, the features of Akhenaten and Nefertiti convey
another message: wisdom that looks beyond the mundane. In the evenings, after the doors of
the museum have closed, I will often come here on a pilgrimage to recharge my batteries. Our
conversation, woman to woman, always does me good.
Next I head up to the first floor, to Yuya and Thuya, Queen Tiye’s parents. Yuya was the
commander of the charioteers under Amenhotep III. In 1907, in the early days of the museum,
he and his wife Thuya were the original stars until their great-grandson Tutankhamun stole
the show from them in the 1920s. But a terrible shock awaits me: the condition of Yuya’s
gilded coffin! The heavy gold leaf is shot through with deep cracks. It is still displayed in the
same glass case made for it following the discovery of Yuya’s virtually intact tomb in 1905.
Ever since, this magnificent piece of funerary equipment has reposed more or less unprotected
in the simple glass case, exposed to seasonal fluctuations of temperature and humidity. Worse
still: Yuya’s and Thuya’s mummies, wrapped in linen bindings, still lie in their coffins as they
were laid to rest 3,390 years ago. Yuya’s head is still covered in thick, henna-dyed hair. He
looks as if he has only just fallen asleep. To me he is the most impressive personality in the
museum – in a room like a funeral home where the prominent dead are put on public display.
This was always anathema to my mother.
I too am shocked – by the appalling state of the museum. Guidebooks sometimes write
disparagingly that the Egyptian Museum resembles a jumble-shop, bursting at the seams. It’s
true that exceptionally valuable objects stand here cheek by jowl, densely crowded together.
When the French architect Marcel Dourgnon designed the building in the late 19th century he
could not have known that in only a few years the steadily increasing number of
archaeological missions would make discoveries with more finds than in all the years since
Auguste Mariette.
The first collection of Egyptian antiquities, virtually wrested from the Europeans with their
passion for acquiring antikas, was still perfectly manageable. Convincing Mohammed Ali
Pasha that he too should own a collection of pharaonic masterpieces required considerable
powers of persuasion. 1835 witnessed his first acquisitions of antiquities; in 1848 they were
housed in a storeroom at the Esbekiya Gardens; three years later, they were moved to the
citadel. Finally, in 1858, Mariette successfully established the first public museum, in Bulaq
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Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
(a quarter of Cairo with a name derived from the French “beau lac”). Over the years it was
gradually expanded, for even when the collection was installed in what had been a warehouse
it was foreseeable that the rapidly growing holdings would soon require a prestigious building
of their own. Even when the artistic treasures moved in 1890 to Giza into forty-six imposing
rooms in the palace of the Ottoman viceroy, it was apparent that the venue would only be an
interim solution.
In those days, Cairo was the reputed “Paris of the Orient,” so it was only natural that the
viceroy wanted an Egyptian Louvre. Since the days of Mohammed Ali the Antiquities Service
had been the domain of the French. It came as no surprise that, once designs had been
submitted, it was a Frenchman – Marcel Dourgnon – who won the competition. The
foundation for his neo-classical building was laid in 1897 on a huge open space near the
British military barracks. Five years later, on November 15, 1902, it was inaugurated with
tremendous fanfare, the first purpose-built museum of its kind in the Orient.
Gaston Maspero, the first director, supervised the transport of 5,000 wooden crates from
Giza and other places where antiquities had been stored to the new museum. The huge vaults
in the basement served as the central storeroom for all finds from excavations allotted to
Egypt. The museum’s inventory book, the Journal d’entrée, records around 35,000 artefacts
for 1902, a single year! Today there are about 160,000 numbered entries. The available space
could not accommodate the haul of discoveries over the years that followed. The spectacular
discoveries of major tombs in particular served to create problems. First, the nearly complete
funerary equipment from the tomb of Yuya and Thuya arrived. It was followed by around
5,000 treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun; an entire wing on the first floor of the
museum had to be cleared to accommodate them! Then, in 1940, Pierre Montet sent the
treasure of Tanis. Once again, space had to be found – for the gold mask of Psusennes I, for
the sarcophagus and silver coffin, and for display cases containing hundreds of pieces of
finely filigreed jewellery. In the 1950s and 1960s the legendary third Nubian Campaign – the
initial campaign had taken place before the construction of the first dam at Aswan by the
British and the second when it was augmented – posed the biggest challenge yet to the
capacity of the museum. An international UNESCO excavation and research project explored
the ancient Nubian sites and rescued what would otherwise have been irretrievably lost below
the waters of Lake Nasser, including dozens of Nubian cemeteries, burial mounds, and
settlements. In short, over the years the 100 exhibition galleries of the museum have become
increasingly crammed full as more and more display cases, hundreds of mummies and
mummy coffins, priceless palace furniture, papyri, jewellery, and statues from every epoch of
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Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Egyptian high culture crowded into the building: they now occupy almost every square metre
of wall and floor space. The library in the left wing of the museum has had to give up many of
its rooms; storerooms have been built in the exhibition galleries; curators have had to
relinquish their offices; the top floor, which is not open to the public, has become a storage
area for coffins and mummies; and over the decades truckloads of crates containing finds
from excavations have piled up in the basement.
The basic concept of the museum has not changed since Maspero’s day. The holdings are
still displayed in traditional style, like a lesson in Egyptology. The cases are now so opulently
stocked that the overabundance is more than many visitors can cope with. Some joke that the
exhibition galleries must do double duty as storerooms, and they are right. Our treasures could
easily furnish another five or ten museums full of antiquities in Egypt – and indeed, this is
what has happened in the interim.
For me, though, the museum’s antiquated character is what gives it its special charm. The
museum building on Tahrir Square is more than a hundred years old, itself a museum piece at
the heart of a rapidly growing city where less and less remains of the “oriental” Paris’s magic.
For years I would stubbornly refuse to have the old glass display cases from the Bulaq
Museum – some of them 150 years old – ‘junked’. When the Neues Museum opened in Berlin
in 2009 it gave me great satisfaction to discover that the ruins of Stüler’s classicizing building
were restored, at tremendous expense, and that in many rooms the original installations were
recreated, with historical wooden display cases and cabinets. For me, this proves that while
our museum urgently needs modern fire prevention and air conditioning technology, the
concept and furnishings are eminently up-to-date.
But this morning it’s not just the battered condition of the historical furnishings that upsets
me; not just the dust, or the mostly outdated or even incorrect labels, some of which date back
to the time of Maspero. It is above all the realisation that obviously, in all the years I’ve been
away, nothing has changed. I wonder whether my predecessors simply didn’t notice. Or
perhaps they were too scholarly by nature? Maybe they could cope with the straightforward
academic bureaucracy of their universities, but not with managing a team of more than 300
employees in the museum, and negotiating the extremely complex hierarchy within the
Supreme Council of Antiquities? Where on earth has all the money gone that was supposedly
spent in 2002, to mark the museum’s centenary? After all, the museum’s income is enormous.
The Egyptian Museum is the main source of revenue for the Supreme Council. A hundred
years ago, some 500 visitors passed through its galleries and exhibition halls daily. In 2003,
there were up to 5,000 a day. And in 2010, towards the end of my tenure as director, on some
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Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
days the total was as many as 12,000 visitors. That’s around 2.5 million a year. I am reliably
informed that we were taking in one million Egyptian pounds a day in admission fees, or
around $161,000. In a good year, then, the museum was earning around 58 million dollars,
plus lending and admission fees for exhibitions abroad. Contrast that to the budget the
museum received in 2003 from the Supreme Council: a paltry 2,000 pounds! It is Mamdouh
El-Damati who tells me this. ‘Two thousand pounds a day?’ I ask him, appalled. ‘Two
thousand pounds a year!’ That’s less than $258 – to cover every repair, periodic repainting,
installation, etc. Egypt’s most important museum brings in millions of pounds, but these are
siphoned off via the Ministry of Culture into the coffers of the Egyptian government. At least
funds were allocated for a new coat of paint for the façade on the occasion of the centennial
celebrations. There was no money to renew the original gold leaf on the museum’s wroughtiron fence, but that I can understand. Later, however, I discover that the Supreme Council had
gold coins specially minted for the centenary and distributed to guests and members of the
government. I find a couple of these expensive coins in the museum safe at a time when I
don’t know how I can pay my employees. A list of the original number of coins and their
recipients is nowhere to be found. I immediately have the remaining coins entered into the
inventory.
On this morning I also look in on Mai. Mai Trad is the house factotum. No one knows how
old she really is. I myself have known her since the early 1970s, when I was a student. Mai
hales from Lebanon: she’s an Egyptologist, and for more than thirty years she has spent every
day in the museum, assisting many renowned Egyptologists from all over the world with their
research. The museum is her home: no one knows the historical inventory books and
catalogues of the collection better. Wherever I go in the world to visit colleagues in their
museums, they all ask: How is Mai? Is she still at the museum? Not any more, unfortunately.
She returned to Lebanon in 2011, after the revolution. Mai lived near Tahrir Square. The riots
prevented her from leaving the house; the elderly lady’s health was badly affected by the
noise and tear gas. She could no longer manage the short walk to the museum. I miss her
very much. She was the benign spirit of the museum.
I can see her before me now: a small woman, she walks with a cane; her eyes are full of
life, constantly darting here and there. Nothing in the museum escapes her notice. ‘I’ve been
waiting for you, Wafaa,’ she says. ‘I always knew you would come. Now everything will be
all right, inshallah.’ We greet each other like mother and daughter, and in the years that
follow, knowing that Mai is in the museum buoys me up. She introduces me to her closest
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Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
colleague: Sabah Abdel Razek. ‘Sabah is the hardest-working curator of them all,’ says Mai,
and the lovely face of this Nubian woman lights up with a friendly smile. At the time Sabah is
forty and, like Mai, she is married to the museum. Another reason she has remained single is
the tradition of the Nubian people which requires her to marry a member of her clan. Sabah is
to become my most trusted employee: reliable, absolutely loyal, and a tireless worker. Over
the next few years she manages a phenomenal workload without ever losing her inner
equilibrium and concentration, even in the most critical of situations.
Mai takes my arm, and together we head outside into the museum garden, where we stroll
past fragments of a granite obelisk of Ramesses II, the remains of his colossal statue, and one
of King Thutmose III’s sphinxes. I love this garden, the pool with the heraldic plants of Upper
and Lower Egypt, lotus and papyrus. But the lawn, the shrubs, and the flowers are neglected
and badly in need of attention and the pool, choked with algae.
‘I’m sad and angry, Wafaa,’ says Mai. ‘They spent a vast amount of money last year, but
none of it has stayed in house. They squandered everything.’
‘I know, I saw it on television. That’s why I didn’t come to the festivities.’
The Supreme Council of Antiquities had scheduled me to speak as part of the conference
programme in the section ‘Museology in the 21st Century’, and I prepared a lecture about the
pedagogical role of the museum. But then friends telephoned to tell me that the seasonal
workers, the poorest of those employed on a temporary basis by the Supreme Council, had not
been paid for weeks. The money was obviously going towards financing the centenary
celebrations. I cancelled my plans to attend and asked my colleague Ula al Ugazi, a professor
at Cairo University, to give the lecture in my place. The centenary celebrations in December
2002 continued for several days, and I followed them on Egyptian television via satellite.
A red marquee for several hundred guests was erected in the garden fronting the museum.
Because Suzanne Mubarak and Farouk Hosny, the Minister of Culture, were expected, the
grass and all the flowerbeds, as potential hiding places for bombs, were uprooted. Several
rooms in the basement were cleared to make way for the special exhibition, ‘The Hidden
Treasures of the Egyptian Museum’ – resulting in absolute chaos. Any crates and boxes that
stood in the way were haphazardly and unceremoniously shoved into neighbouring rooms,
which were already full to bursting. Zahi Hawass then presented Suzanne Mubarak and the
assembled guests which included the directors of world-famous museums in Paris, London,
New York, Vienna, Hildesheim, Boston, and Oslo, with his plans for the ‘Grand Egyptian
Museum.’ The ground-breaking ceremonies on the Giza plateau had taken place early in
2002. 1,700 entries submitted in the competition to design the structure had, he said, already
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Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
been narrowed down to twenty proposals. The estimated 450 million dollars it would cost
would be met by donations, with fundraising organised under the leadership of the Minister of
Culture. This great new museum would exhibit only ‘masterpieces’ of ancient Egypt, like the
treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun. The famous royal mummies would be housed
elsewhere, in a museum in Fustat, in Old Cairo. Also in the planning as was a museum in the
seaside resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh.
On the 100th birthday of the Egyptian Museum, then, Zahi Hawass was announcing its
demise. The spectacular exhibits would be taken to Giza, and the most prominent objects
distributed to other museums around the country, leaving the old museum with the remainder,
a vast, motley collection. It was immediately apparent to me that this would divert the floods
of visitors away from Tahrir Square towards Giza where, along with the pyramids, tourists
would only visit the ‘celebrity’ Tutankhamun. Hardly anyone would come to the city any
more. The welcoming words of my colleague from Hildesheim, Arne Eggebrecht, suddenly
sounded more like a warning: ‘There are many museums of Egyptian art all over the world,
but there is only one Egyptian Museum. And it has stood here in Cairo for exactly one
hundred years.’
I take my leave of Mai. Our conversation has depressed me deeply. The next day I go to
Zahi Hawass and tell him there is no point in my taking on the directorship if the Supreme
Council is not prepared to do something for the old museum. Zahi listens attentively. He
nods; yes, he knows some things are in a bad way, I am completely right. We’ll talk about it
all in good time. ‘You have my full support, Wafaa. But you know that everything here takes
time, both at the Supreme Council and at the ministry.’ – ‘I will only take over the
directorship if I am given a firm commitment of sufficient funds.’
In any case, I have enough to do, reorganising our family life and alleviating Hadi’s
homesickness. At the end of September the children have a few school holidays, and we go to
Luxor. After the stress of moving we’ve earned a little break. I walk once again along old,
familiar paths through the temples on the east bank, and on the west bank, I pay a visit to the
Hatshepsut Temple and the Valley of the Kings. Then at the Karnak Temple of Amun-Re I
look in on the excavations by colleagues of the ‘French-Egyptian Centre for the Study of the
Temples of Karnak’. Here, too, I am saddened by what I see. The French colleagues are
working while our young Egyptian inspectors stand idly by, watching. I ask one of them why
she isn’t working too. She explains: ‘Because they ignore us. They turn their backs on us;
they don’t allow us to work with them. And yet this mission is a joint venture.’ I read the sign
at the site and note the terminological disparities between the titles of the Arabic and French
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Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
versions. The Arabic terms the undertaking ‘Egyptian-French,’ while in French, it’s ‘FrenchEgyptian.’ It’s clear, then, who’s calling the shots. ‘The French are also preventing us
Egyptians from having our own excavations here in the temple,’ says my young colleague,
incensed. ‘They still see Karnak as their colony!’
Since the 1960s an official protocol has existed between the Supreme Council of
Antiquities and the French. It stipulates that excavations at Karnak are cooperative
undertakings. ‘My colleagues and I have complained to Cairo, but we’ve had no response
from the Supreme Council,’ I am told. Has nothing changed, then, since my days as an
inspector? ‘Come with me,’ I say. ‘We’ll see about this.’ I go to the dig to look for the head of
the French team, and announce myself as a member of the Supreme Council. I remind him
that this country has authorised his concession for these excavations, that he therefore enjoys
the privilege of being allowed to excavate at one of the most important sites in the history of
Egyptian high culture. ‘If you continue to refuse to involve your Egyptian colleagues in this
work, you are in breach of our agreement. If you keep treating my colleagues like this, you
will have to leave this site.’ I am quite certain that the director of the excavations understands
my every word. Ten years later, as I write this, I read an article in the December 1, 2012
edition of al-Akhbar that makes me absolutely furious. It says: Egyptian inspectors complain
about the attitude of the French mission in Karnak.
As I continue to speak to the young inspector about her problems, some local Egyptian
labourers working at the site approach us: one of them has recognised me. They tell me that
none of them has been paid for three months. Initially I am reluctant to believe this as well,
but their rais confirms that it’s true. ‘These men have children who were supposed to start
school last week, but they weren’t able to because their fathers have no money to buy school
uniforms. They don’t even have money to feed their families.’ I promise to speak to Zahi
Hawass about this immediately. I call him and explain the situation at Karnak. Zahi promises
he will do something right away. Back at the hotel, I can’t eat my dinner for thinking about
the hungry children. That night I have nightmares. Next morning Azmy says, ‘Come on, let’s
go to Karnak. I have some money for the workers.’ He can’t bear it that I’m not eating. Back
in Cairo I discover that Karnak is no exception; it is, unhappily, the rule. Where are the
workers’ salaries disappearing to? When are these people going to take to the barricades?
In October 2003, Zahi Hawass rings me. ‘You must take over the directorship of the office
of scientific research. I need you as my assistant.’ I accept the position which I had had once
before, under Ahmed Kadri. I’m looking forward to the work; I have free rein and lots of
ideas. Collaboration on excavations with international partners must become true co11
Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
operation. First of all, though, Zahi asks me to make contact with a man whom I shall refer to
here as Ali Fahmi, out of consideration for his family. Fahmi, he says, will explain to me what
work there is to be done. I don’t know Ali Fahmi; he’s not a member of the Supreme Council
of Antiquities. When I mention the name to Azmy, he is surprised. ‘I know him. He’s an
acquaintance of my friend Kahul, the director of the sports club at the Nile Hilton Hotel. I
played tennis with him there once. You know what? I’ll come with you and say hello to him.’
So we go to the address Zahi has given me, and to my astonishment I discover that Fahmi is
the owner of a travel agency. He greets us very amicably, chatting with Azmy about
acquaintances they have in common. Fahmi is about fifty. Historical photographs of Egypt
hang on the walls of his office. He tells us that he owns a large collection of very beautiful,
rare photographic plates of Egypt, and that his second hobby is the enjoyment of fine wines,
as is clearly evident from his countenance. I am amazed to see a number of my high-ranking
colleagues from the Supreme Council in his office, busy negotiating various official matters.
They are quite obviously taking instructions from Fahmi. He has no specific assignment for
me; rather he seems simply interested in sizing me up. ‘First of all, please put together a
proposal for me detailing what you plan to do in the office of scientific research. It would be
good if you could get it to me by next week.’
I am shocked. Why should I provide an outsider with access to our internal matters? I
make enquiries among my acquaintances and colleagues. Who is Ali Fahmi? I hear that
Fahmi is said to be probably the most important man for the Supreme Council, aside from
Zahi Hawass. Zahi follows Fahmi’s advice. It’s also said that Zahi commissioned him to
organise the multi-million-pound centenary celebrations. And furthermore, Fahmi was
awarded the contract – worth seven million pounds – for the renovation of Zahi’s office. He
also deals in antiques.
I go Zahi’s office in Zamalek. We’re friends, I think: we can speak openly and honestly
about everything.
‘Who is Ali Fahmi?’
‘A friend. An adviser. A man I can rely on.’
‘But he runs a tourist office and travel agency! Since when do we work with private travel
companies?’ The Supreme Council has an unwritten rule: no collaboration with commercial
travel agencies. In the past, illegal deals were made so that employees of the Council could
line their pockets. Tourist groups with certain agencies were admitted to archaeological sites
without tickets; employees would split the tourists’ admission fees with the travel agents.
12
Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
‘Why should an outsider be making decisions about matters we alone should have control
over?’
But there’s no talking to Zahi. ‘Do what he says. He’s a businessman. He knows how to
solve problems professionally.’
‘You know he also deals in antiques.’
‘Don’t worry, Wafaa. Everything’s ok.’
Fahmi soon finds out where I stand as far as he’s concerned. There is a woman working in
Zahi’s office; I will call her Amal in the present context. Subsequently she became Fahmi’s
wife. Two floors above Zahi’s office is that of Abdel Aziz Mansur (this too is not his real
name), the chief architect of the antiquities organization; he is another of Fahmi’s confidants.
Weeks pass: days at the office, the long days of Ramadan. We slowly re-accustom
ourselves to the rhythm of life in Cairo, to seeing my brothers and sisters regularly again, as
well as good friends old and new. Tarek and Hadi make new friends at the German school.
My work at the office of scientific research is enjoyable. Then, in January 2004, Mamdouh
El-Damati resigns from office early.
Friends call me. ‘You have to become director now. The people at the museum need you,
Wafaa. Go and see Zahi!’ Ali Radwan and Shafia Bedier, both university professors, contact
me. ‘Make me happy – take over the museum,’ says Ali Radwan. ‘It needs your help so
badly!’ Shafia Bedier even appeals to my patriotism: ‘Do it for Egypt!’ Finally, even
Mahmud Mabruk is on the phone, the head of the Museums Department of the Supreme
Council. ‘Mrs el Saddik, I promise you, you will be given all the support you need.’
Zahi Hawass summons me to Zamalek. ‘We all want you to be successful. This was why I
brought you back to Cairo. Now you can take over the directorship. I know that if I don’t
secure concrete assurances of funding now, I’m not going to get them later. So I explain to
Zahi that I have no intention of taking over the museum under the conditions which my
predecessor had to endure. The Supreme Council must allocate the museum a proper, separate
budget. ‘This makeshift state of affairs has got to go. I have no desire to have to beg for
months on end for every single pound.’ When he hears that the museum’s annual budget is
only 2,000 pounds, Zahi can hardly believe it either. He promises to do something about this.
And indeed over the years that follow he always promptly approves my requests for funding.
Zahi is genuinely interested in advancing the museum – while at the same time actively
championing the construction of the Grand Museum. ‘Isn’t it possible to separate the
Egyptian Museum from the Museums Department,’ I ask, ‘and treat it as an independent
institution?’ Zahi hates bureaucracy, too. ‘Wafaa, you have completely free rein at the
13
Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
museum. I promise you that. But there’s no legal provision for giving it special status. I can’t
change the law.’ I believe him, but I end our conversation by making one thing absolutely
clear: ‘No intervention in the museum’s affairs. I don’t want Ali Fahmi or any other outsider
interfering.’
At the end of January I visit Mamdouh El-Damati in the museum. I am anxious to hear
what he will say about the working conditions, if he has tips and advice for me, and what
unfinished project he is leaving behind. I find him already in the midst of packing, surrounded
by boxes, books, and newspapers piled high, ready for the move. He greets me warmly, but
makes no secret of his bitterness. ‘Frankly, my dear colleague, I’ve had it up to here. I’m
really glad to be getting out of here and going back to my chair at the university. Shall I show
you something?’ Damati picks up a thick file. ‘This is my correspondence with the Supreme
Council – just some of the applications I made for the modernisation of the museum, for
urgently needed maintenance, and new projects. But do you think Zahi Hawass or Mahmud
Mabruk sent me a single implementation order? No, not one. Everything was just put on
hold.’ The main culprit, he says, was Mabruk, the head of the Museums Department. ‘Oh,
you’ll get to know him, too.’ I empathize with Damati as he stands there, packing his
briefcase. Will I too leave the museum like this one day? I make a vow to myself that I won’t.
In February 2004 I become Director-General of the Egyptian Museum and Head of the
Committee for Foreign Exhibitions. I am the first woman to be appointed director in the
century of the museum’s existence. My starting salary is 750 pounds – around $130 – a month
which surprises me, because as Director-General I earn far less than many of my colleagues at
the headquarters of the Council in Zamalek. In fact, my salary is less than my cleaning lady in
Cologne earns. The rent for our apartment in Dokki alone amounts to 6,000 pounds a month.
Without the German pension Azmy receives, we couldn’t afford it, let alone the school fees
for Hadi and Tarek, and of course our ordinary day-to-day expenses. Then I discover that I am
entitled to some supplementary payments, which do at least bring my income up to 2,250
pounds a month, or around $365. I have little more than nothing left to lose.
The day I take office I summon the curators, the head of the conservation laboratory, the
chief of the museum police, and the head of security into my office for one-on-one
conversations. The police are responsible for security on the grounds outside the museum
building; they are assigned to us by the Ministry of the Interior. The 160 people in the civilian
security service, on the other hand, are employees of the Supreme Council. Their remit is
security inside the museum: protection against theft and making sure visitors obey the
regulations, such as the bans on smoking, eating, and taking photographs in the galleries. The
14
Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
museum is also under surveillance by CCTV – the video room is right next door to my office.
When it’s the turn of the police chief, he immediately takes his leave, politely explaining that
the protection of property rotates every three years and in a few days his unit will be deployed
elsewhere. He wishes me luck. The head of security makes no secret of the fact that he has a
problem taking orders from a woman. He arranges for a transfer.
I get to know the curators; most of them I haven’t met before. Each of the museum’s six
departments is run by a head curator with a deputy, plus three assistants – thirty curators in
all. Nine out of ten of them are women. A few months later I set up two more departments.
Sabah Abdel Razek becomes chief curator of the basement project, and is allocated five
employees. Eight people are assigned to the second new department, the registration project,
to create a digital database of the museum’s vast holdings. Twenty-three conservators work in
the laboratory. Four Egyptologists take care of the museum’s audio guide. We also have eight
administrative assistants, two photographers, four public relations officers, three carpenters,
three painters, three plumbers and electricians, two landscape gardeners, and sixteen
gardeners, two doctors and three doctors’ assistants, eight firemen and two fire engines,
twenty workers for moving heavy objects, four warehousemen – all in all, a total of more than
three hundred employees.
The curators bear the responsibility for all the objects in their collections. They should
assess the condition of the holdings in their section and arrange for conservation when
necessary; they are responsible for lighting, cleaning, and security of objects on display and in
storage, and they assist students as well as professionals who come to the museum with
research projects. Among other things, they are also responsible for the labels on the display
cases, which are intended to give visitors a brief and accurate summary of up-to-date
information about the objects on view. These, though, are in a dreadful state. The majority of
these little signs are handwritten in French and date back to the foundation of the museum. No
Egyptian visitor is capable of deciphering these hieroglyphs. So I inform my colleagues that
over the coming months we will rewrite all the labels on the display cases in English and
Arabic. I know that writing brief, up-to-date descriptions for several thousand objects is going
to be a challenge; but little by little we should at least be able to replace the most important
ones.
I realise during these initial conversations that it’s going to take time to establish trust
between us. Most of the curators are frustrated after years of bad experiences. And recently,
during the centenary celebrations, they saw what huge sums of money were poured into the
festivities, while they and their departments had been struggling for years. The curators and
15
Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
the head of the conservation laboratory earn even less than I do, while the young curators,
security staff, and manual labourers are paid less than 200 pounds ($33) a month. It’s hardly
possible to meet daily needs on less than $1.30 a day. Some employees must take on a second
job. And now I come along with my “actionism” that obviously intimidates the curators, and
annoys them to boot. I arrange a meeting with them all. I promise I shall do my level best to
get them grants, training courses in modern museology, abroad if possible. Sceptical faces
say: we’ll believe it when we see it. During my seven years as director-general I did managed
to send all the curators and a majority of the conservators and photographers to training
courses in museums abroad. This proved possible thanks to a large number of friends,
colleagues, and sponsors. I could see how motivated and enthusiastic my colleagues were
when they returned to their workplace after attending these workshops; what good it did them
to spend those days with colleagues abroad. A privately-funded trip was something the
majority had never even dreamt of.
Trust takes time. My colleagues avoid contact with me, as if they’re afraid to knock on my
door. However, on my morning rounds I start chatting with one or another of the curators.
‘They say that you don’t want to see anyone: that your outer office has been instructed to turn
everyone away. You don’t want to be disturbed.’ I discover that my two secretaries are
spreading the rumour that I am haughty and incompetent. I confront the two women and
inform them that in the coming weeks I will be putting together my own team; they should
request to be transferred. Astonishingly, the two schemers find work in the SecretaryGeneral’s office. All the more reason for me to take pride in my new office team. Fatma
Alzahraa is responsible for all my appointments; Mona Abdull Nazier takes care of all the
research activities in the museum; and Albert Girgis is the most dynamic bookkeeper I have
ever met, a walking computer with an incredible memory for names, numbers, minutes of
board meetings, regulations, and laws. Albert takes care of all the contracts for exhibitions
abroad. During those seven years these three literally covered my back; they made bearable
the huge amount of paperwork that crosses the director’s desk. They alerted me to those
papers I had best read more closely; anything they put in front of me I knew I could sign
without qualms. Their two predecessors had utilised a short stint as my secretaries to forge my
signature on falsified overtime and payroll slips. They also ordered expensive replicas in my
name from the replica department of the Supreme Council in Zamalek, which the museum
supposedly intended to give to particularly important visitors such as guests of state and
diplomats. The replicas are nowhere to be found in the museum. I inform Zahi Hawass, and
am very surprised that the two women nonetheless stay on in Zamalek.
16
Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
I soon learn that the museum’s fundamental problem is not its staggering lack of funds.
The longer I spend digging my way through the piles of paperwork and phoning people to
remind them to deal with our requests, the more I begin to understand my predecessor’s
exasperation. The Museums Department in particular delays many things. On one occasion, in
an interview with the Egyptian press, I say that the worst obstacle I have to deal with is the
museum bureaucracy. The next day the furious head of the department of museum
administration is on the phone. How could I say such a thing, in public? I then reel off for him
some of the applications that are gathering dust in drawers in his office. For a while after this
things are a bit better, but everything eventually falls back into the same old rut.
We arrange to meet with the curators every morning to discuss the plans for the day. The
museum is huge, and without a definite appointment I wouldn’t see my employees from one
week to the next. This way I get to know everyone personally; I can praise, motivate, make
corrections. A museum is only as good as its staff – this is something I learned in Europe and
the United States. I would like to introduce my colleagues to the standards I had become
familiar with abroad. Before these 9:00am meetings I do the rounds of the still-empty
museum. One morning I decide to make a tour of the grounds. My gaze comes to rest on the
main entrance: on the original beautifully-carved doors of 1902, with their filigreed floral
ornament and copper fittings, the Egyptian crown, and the once golden, shining stars. All this
has been obscured by thick layers of varnish. I gaze up at the façade, the figures in their
niches, the marble steps up to the entrance: the stone that once gleamed brightly now lies dull
beneath a layer of filth. I put restoring the door and an appointment with the cleaning
contractor on the to-do list.
When I enquire about the paint that will have to be painstakingly scratched off the façade, I
learn that responsibility lies with the right-hand man of the Minister of Culture Farouk Hosny
and with the chief architect of the antiquities organization. The two of them also arranged to
have the interior walls on the museum’s ground floor and the pedestals of statuary faced with
heavy marble slabs inappropriate for the style of the building. I ask the museum architect why
she didn’t prevent it. ‘We couldn’t do anything to stop it. The two men are very powerful.’ I
ask Klaus Heinen, a family friend in Cologne, for help. Klaus is an architect. He flies to Cairo
at his own expense and confirms my suspicions: the marble slabs are tremendously heavy and
constitute a structural risk for the basement storage areas. Furthermore, condensation
accumulating between the slabs and the wall is corrosive. I put the marble slabs on my to-do
list, and I can say here that the slabs were removed during subsequent renovations, and the
17
Sample translation from „Es gibt nur den geraden Weg“ by Wafaa El Saddik
Translated by Charlotte Collins
© 2013, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
two men, who made a fortune overnight by handing out contracts to major companies, are
today behind bars.
I am also unhappy with the situation on the east side of the museum. An ugly extension
serves as communal accommodation for the policemen of the security unit, and a crude
concrete wall closes off the site on the street side. The rooms where the men sleep are dirty;
they hang up their washing and toss leftover food outside without thinking. Worse still, some
antiquities are simply lying around on the grounds nearby: parts of sphinxes, obelisks, statues,
sarcophagi, reliefs, and even one or two tomb chapels. Layers of dust and sand cover
everything. I charge Mai Trad and two young colleagues, Wahid Edward and Wahid Girgis,
to work with the conservators on registering, cleaning, and conserving the blocks. I ask Lotfi
Khaled, the Supreme Council’s chief conservator in Luxor, to select the most beautiful
objects for a sculpture garden. Lotfi and our workers succeed in creating a garden that is truly
exquisite. First, though, we tear down the hideous police barracks and provide quarters fit for
human habitation on the north side of the museum. The concrete wall is pulled down and an
iron railing, modelled on the historical prototype, erected in its place. Now passers-by can
look in from the street at the appealing sculpture garden. I also meet up with the gardeners to
inspect the premises: we need to put in new plants and trees.
Tahrir Square is without a doubt the busiest roundabout on the African continent. The
traffic thunders about the museum, flowing across the bridges over the Nile. The square is not
a thing of beauty, ever since an ugly construction fence was built some years ago to surround
a huge site in front of the Nile Hilton Hotel. (This site is probably the most expensive piece of
unexploited space in Cairo, and symptomatic of the shameless corruption and ossified
bureaucracy in the public construction sector.) The fence blocks even a glimpse of the
museum. Along with the smog, sand also troubles the museum; every day the wind blows it
in from the desert, across the city, into the galleries of the museum, and onto the floors.
Battalions of cleaners pass through the building every morning. I watch them pushing their
mops around and try not to lose my temper. The women propel waves of dirty water before
them; it runs underneath the wooden cases and cabinets where of course it encourages mould
and rot. The ledges and bases are thick with dust; they need to be cleaned far more regularly
with industrial vacuum cleaners. The cleaning crew wipe the glass of the display cases using
rags and cheap detergent; the result is more haze, rather than transparency. I arrange for
special microfibre cloths to be sent from Germany, instruct the cleaners to be more careful
with water, tell them not to use detergent on the polished surfaces of the statues. I am now
known as the ‘German cleaning maniac.’
18