Newsgroup: it.discussioni.misteri
Titolo: [INTERVISTA DI MARZO A ZAHI HAWASS]

http://www.guardians.net/spotlite/spotlgt2.htm
Spotlight Interview 1998 - Dr. Zahi Hawass
I again met with Dr. Hawass on March 23, 1998 in his
office on the Giza Plateau. Here's what we talked about this
time:
Guardian: The sphinx has just undergone a long restoration. Tell
us about the work
and the recent reopening of the Sphinx.
Dr. Hawass: We were working on the Sphinx for the last ten years.
This project is very important because it's done by Egyptians.
The first phase was the south side. For
the past 5 years we've restored and now finished the north side.
The north side was a big problem because the proportions are
completely refinished and therefore we found that the cement on
the bottom of the Sphinx was about 3m thick, so we removed this
cement mechanically, because when you put cement over limestone
you stop the
breathing of the limestone. Then we replaced the cement with
mortar made of lime and sand, the natural way. We also built a
wall to separate between the site pollution of the people in the
village as well as the Sphinx. That square used to have cars. We
are not allowing any cars now, we have a parking lot away from
the Sphinx; the site looks
really quiet now.
Dr. Hawass: We will soon make a big celebration onto the Sphinx,
we'll invite important VIP's, people from all over the world and
we'll make a celebration for the
reopening of the Sphinx.
Guardian: When will this be?
Dr. Hawass: It should be the 2nd week of April. The people will
be sitting in front of the Sphinx, listening to speeches, after
that we'll bring a Symphony. It's a really big celebration
because the Sphinx was the symbol of a whole nation in ancient
Egypt and it still is the symbol of Egypt today. I also have to
say that's it's very important to
understand that we haven't completely finished the entire
restoration of the Sphinx but it's important that people from all
over the world get to see it again.  This year we also celebrated
the Equinox on the shoulder of the Sphinx, the 21st of March.
This day comes only only twice a year and this is very important
to prove that the Egyptians
when they carved the Sphinx they did not really make it as
haphazard, they intended really to cut the Sphinx here to be
connected with the sun.The other important thing
that we did is the opening of the tombs in Giza. We opened 10
tombs to the public, we opened also the Queen's pyramids of Khufu
for the first time.
Guardian: I know that you rotate the restoration of the Giza
pyramids, generally leaving two open and one closed for
restoration. You recently reopened the third
pyramid, that of Menkaura. Is the true that the next pyramid to
undergo restoration will be the Great Pyramid?
Dr. Hawass: We're going to close the Great Pyramid on April 1st,
because we found inside the pyramid again after 6 years, salts
deposited on the walls up to 2 cm thick,
and we also found cracks and graffiti left by the people and
therefore we will close this for 8 months to restore these
things. Then we'll open to the public the 1st burial
chamber and the so-called Queen's Chamber and we'll do this
cleaning and this restoration, mechanically removing all the
salt, but also, at the same time we will make
a new ventilation system with the French expedition. You know we
are not closing the pyramid to hide anything as people say. We
are not discovering anything in the Great
Pyramid, there is nothing really remaining to be discovered
inside.
Dr. Hawass: Even though we were prepared to investigate the
so-called "door" inside the pyramid that was found by
Gantenbrink. We found that in Gantenbrink's report
when he recently visited me, looking more closely at the video
tape, we see that there really is no crack or an open area that
we can send a robot. We found that there is no
shaft or small area, underneath this stone to send a small robot
or anything, this means that we are not going to be able to
investigate and see what's behind it.
 Guardian: There's no crack on the bottom of the slab found by
the robot at the end of the shaft that would allow even a small
camera?
Dr. Hawass: There's no crack on the bottom, exactly. This is what
the media created and I never received a proper report from
Gantenbrink, because of the problems that
we had with him. But when I met him last week and when he showed
me in the videos here what it looks like in there, we did not
really see any crack in the fitting. And
therefore, it's very difficult to decide to do anything further
with this.
Some people are saying, "how can you close the pyramid?" I mean
we cannot manage the monuments by always trying to please
tourists. We have to preserve the
monuments. Therefore, to close the pyramids, we have to preserve
these monuments for humanity.
Dr. Hawass: As another part of my plan to conserve and manage the
plateau, 5 KM south of the third pyramid, we finished by today
building a stable for horses. In a few
months from now, near this stable, in the desert south a big
parking lot for the tourists and a picnic area for the Egyptians.
So when the Egyptians start the feast, which they come in number
to the pyramids to celebrate and eat, they will have a picnic
area. And we'll open an entrance to the plateau from the Fayoum
road, then tourist buses will
come from Fayoum Road there, on the west, and they will enter the
plateau, and they can park their cars, and ride camels and the
pyramid will be the background. No
camels will be allowed to enter inside the plateau. This will
happen in three months, maximum. This is part of the newest phase
of management of the pyramids. We're
talking to the Japanese now to see if they can help us to move
the Khufu Solar Boat from this museum beside the Great Pyramid,
and restore the second boat, and move
both boats to two new museums that we will construct at the
entrance of  Fayoum Road. The when the tourists visit, they can
park their cars, they visit the boats, and
they go up to the plateau. The final phase of my site management
plan is really the whole conservation of the Giza Plateau. We
will finish the so-called tourist road around the plateau that
will contain all the cars and no cars will be allowed to go right
up to the pyramids. At the same time we will have electric cars
for tourists, we are talking to a company in the United States
now, they're going to provide us with these electric cars. They
will take people to tombs and no pollution will be affecting the
pyramids from the tourist cars and busses. We'll also build this
Cultural Center in the desert and this center is very important
because it will allow for Egypt to make more income and the more
income means that the people will only pay for the tickets to
enter the pyramids. But this will be very important, they still
sell postcards, souvenirs, and also at the same time even make a
kind of certificates for people to visit the pyramids and assign
them to anyone. This is really a source of income that can help
us in the
accommodation of the plateau.
            Dr. Hawass points out an inscription in the newly
opened Tomb of Debhen
The tombs that were just opened here are fantastic, an impressive
kind of restoration work and we are continuing now other
restoration, of four tombs. From the newly
opened tombs, ones that are from Khafre's section, two are unique
because they have beautiful architectural style, and another one,
the Tomb of Debhen, which has a very
unique text in it, because it is the first time that an owner of
the tomb left an inscription inside the tomb telling us that he
asked the King Menkaura to build the tomb for him. And the king
agreed and he asked the overseer of the work to bring the stones
to build his tomb. But Debhen, in his tomb said, that the king
was standing looking at his pyramid, behind him was the "Hr"
pyramid. We don't really know what this "Hr" Pyramid is. This is
really another mystery of the pyramids.
The Queen's pyramids that we finished now they're open to the
public, and the other excavation that we are doing, remember at
the third pyramid, where we discovered last
year the pair statue of Ramesses II. This year we are excavating
and re-excavating  an area near the east side of the pyramid and
they are cleaning three tombs that we have just found since last
week! And this is another very impressive excavation.
       ----------------------------------------------

 Dr. Hawass: There's no crack on the bottom, exactly. 
Tutto ciò è sconcertante!
Voglio dire, le immagini le abbiamo viste tutti...
Ciao,
Stefano Covili

Voglio dire, le immagini le abbiamo viste tutti...
giŕ, ed ovviamente Hawass invece di investigare oltre mandando un
altro robot con una telecamera piu' definita e con un sistema di
illuminazione migliore, preferisce fermarsi a quello che crede di non
aver visto in un filmato. Preferisce pensare che lě non ci sia una
porta, invece di controllare di persona.
Perchč?
Farewell...
---------------------------------------
NEURAL
gge...@hotmail.com
'Adepto in tutte le arti,
Maestro di nessuna'
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 aver visto in un filmato. 
Un momento, un momento: Zahi è *stronzo*, mica *scemo*... ;-)
Stai tranquillo che la smussatura all'angolo dx l'ha vista pure lui.
Il motivo per cui continui a negare l'evidenza, poi, non ci è dato
saperlo. E rientra quindi a pieno titolo nella caratterizzazione
*fecale* del personaggio. ;-)
Ciao,
Stefano Covili