16 - 22 August 2001
Issue No.547
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 16 - 22 August 2001 Issue No.547 |
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Dig days
The Lord Carnarvon of today
I met him 15 years ago in Philadelphia, when I was a student at the University of Pennsylvania. He was in the midst of a deep and long-lasting love affair with Egypt. and he would often come and talk to me, telling me how much he wanted to fund American expeditions there. I never saw a man who used to think about Egypt and Egyptians like he did. The man's name was Bruce Ludwig. He was tall, with a beard, and anybody who caught a glimpse of him might think of him as a bearded James Bond, for he was both dashing and worldly.
Bruce began to fund Mark Lehner's excavation at Giza and offered to help Mark a great deal in later years. Lehner made many important discoveries at Giza connected with the builders of the pyramids. Bruce and his wife, Carolyn, would visit me in my office at Giza, and would often come to see my excavations and discoveries. One day I gave a lecture in Los Angeles at a place connected with their family church. I talked about the secret tunnel we discovered in the Sphinx's tail, inside which we found an old shoe -- which told us we were not the first ones to enter this shaft. Lehner and I studied the tunnel and discovered it was cut in the Late Period, when people had already heard of the legend of the Sphinx and were digging to see whether anything was hidden underneath it. They cut about four such shafts inside the body of the Sphinx, but the one in the tail is the most interesting since it was cut about 15 metres into the guts of the Sphinx.
When the lecture was over, we went to have dinner at a country club. I looked at Carolyn, and saw she was daydreaming. I asked her what was wrong. She said: "Nothing, I am just dreaming of adventures. I want to enter this shaft." I said to Carolyn: "I promise you I will go with you and we'll have an adventure inside the Sphinx." During our dinner at the club, we were laughing because I told Carolyn that Mayor Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles, had once come to see me and asked if he could stand on top of the Sphinx's right paw. I had warned Mayor Bradley about the Sphinx's curse, and I told Carolyn that when he got back to Los Angeles he lost his job.
Carolyn and Bruce came back to Cairo the following month, in February 1998. At that time, Bruce was increasing his involvement in Egypt and had become an active member of the Board of Trustees of the American University in Cairo. He did much good work there, planning for the building of the new AUC campus in New Cairo. Bruce and the board worked on this with the help of AUC President John Gerhardt, who has made a great mark on AUC since he came to Egypt, improving the education and cultural activities of that fine institution. Even AUC Press has become more active since he arrived. The press has published some wonderful books on Ancient Egypt since it hired my dear friend Mark Linz, who has made it a hive of activity.
Bruce Ludwig's e-mails always express his best wishes for Egypt, and I believe we should give him citizenship as a good Egyptian. As well as funding Lehner, he also funded Kent Weeks' work in the Valley of the Kings, where Weeks rediscovered and conserved the tomb KV5, known as the Tomb of the Sons of Ramses. Bruce is an excellent force for good public relations, and I still remember his discussion on the Nile with the anchorman Hugh Downs, talking about Egypt, and the effect this had on a wonderful film which showed Egypt in a positive light.
Hugh told me at Bahariya Oasis, where we once did a live shoot at 3.00am about the Golden Mummies, that Bruce was a wonderful man. I told him Bruce had dedicated his life to archaeology, and had forged close friendships with many famous archaeologists, such as the late Ahmed Kadri and Gamal Mukhtar. Bruce's current dream is to set up a world fund for the monuments, to help in the conservation of the endangered archaeological treasures of Egypt. If I believed in reincarnation, I would suggest that he used to be an Egyptian. But perhaps, before we look for such an ancient link, we should look to the more recent past for a parallel to Bruce's untiring efforts and enthusiasm for Ancient Egypt. I am thinking, in fact, of Lord Carnarvon, the man who funded the discovery of the Tomb of King Tut in November 1922. Bruce Ludwig is the Lord Carnarvon of today.
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