CLOSING IN ON CLEOPATRA

       Egypt's archaeology chief spills the secrets of his latest discovery in an exclusive interview with The Nation

       The most famous Egypotolist in the world and instantly recognisable for his signature Indiana Jones hat ("It gives me luck ... and it's more famous than the Indiana Jones hat"), is just a busy guy hopping from tomb to tomb, valley to valley in the sands of his native land.
       He announces his new discoveries at various dig sites almost every week on his website, and also finds time to show visiting world leaders around the Pyramids.
       He's particular proud of his recent encounter with US President Barack Obama whom he led on a tour of the Great Pyramids at Giza.
       "I was thrilled. The hour and a half I spent with the President was very important. He's real gentleman, a great man. We joked all the time: I told him face to face, 'you look like King Tut'.
       "I really think this man will change a lot in the world. I hope he can make peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. He's a simple man and this gives him charisma. His modesty gives him power."
       With the aid of Hawass's long-teim Thai friend, Dumrong Poottan of Koosang Koosom magazine, it's a privilege to catch him free for a 20-minute interview at his office at the Council of Supreme Antiquities in Cairo, where he's secretary general.
       Shaking hands with this tall, heavyset figure, its' hard to believe he's the same man we see on TV shimmying down the shafts of ancient underground tombs. But it's true that Hawass is the 21st-century guardian of a 5,000 year-old heritage, with a boundless passion for exploring and preserving his country's ancient treasures. His regal Greco-Roman looks have even prompted suggestions he's the reincarnationa of a pharoah.
       Right now, all he wants to talk about is his latest discovery: what are believed to be the tombs of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, unearthed beside the 2,300-year-old temple of Taposiris Magna, 50 kilometres west of Alexandria.
       "We've been excavating for the last four years and have discovered two statues of Cleopatra and 22 coins bearing her image," says Hawass, eyes wide with enthusiasm. "We found a large cemetery reserved for royalty and a group of cemeteries for important persons."
       The search for Cleopatra's tomb stems from his passion for the Ptolemaic queen renowned forher beauty. "When I was about 15 years old, I was in love with Cleopatra. I wanted to reveal her secrets," he says.
       Hawass began the search with a recent radar survey carried out by an Egyptian team. It revealed three possible spots where tombs might be located.
       The expedition, co-led by Dr Kathleen
       Martinez from the Dominican Republic, began digging and unearthed 27 chambers, 20 of them shaped like vaulted sarcophagi. The remaining seven were more elaborate,consisting of staircases leading to burial chambers. Inside these tombs, the team found 10 mummies, two of them gilded and believed to be those of the famous couple.
       The coins discovered in the temple show Cleopatra with a large nose, prompting some scholars to theorise that the queen's beauty was just a myth.
       Hawass disagrees.
       "A big nose doesn't mean she was ugly. I know many beautiful women with big noese ... The woman who captured the hearts of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony couldn't have been ugly".
       He also has a theory on the legendary love triangle: "People say she was in love with Caesar rather than Mark Antony. Martinez, however, believes she was in love with the latter. But my opinion is that her motive was political control and she used her charms on both men."
       The other important find is a mask depicting a man with a cleft chin. The face bears some resemblance to known protraits of Mark Antony.
       But so far the evidence isn't strong enough to verify that these are the tombs of Antony and Cleopatra, says Hawass: "After more than 60 per cent of the excavation ... we can say the theory could be true because of finds like the statues of Cleopatra and her coins. We also discovered two gold-covered mummies in front of the temple entrance of the temple and eight ungilded mummies.
       "Luck plays a big role in discoveries like there," he adds. "I'm a lucky person."
       Hinting perhaps at a future expedition, he points to evidence suggesting Alexander the Great was buried in Alexandria. For now though, his focus is on Taposiris Magna, where the team is still busy trying to identify the mummies.
       The other development exciting the Egyptologist is the analysis of mummies of the family members of King Tutankhamun, whose famed gold death mask is on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
       "I will announce next month the results of CT scanning and DNA analysis. It will tell us more about his father, mother, grandfather and how Tutankhamun died," he explains.
       This project benefits hugely from two laboratories, one in he basement of the Cairo musuem and the other at Cairo University. They are the first in the world established specially for mummy analysis. "We need two separate labs so as to verify the results," he says, adding that research done in this way meets international standards and ensures all mummy identification can be done in Egypt.
       Of all his discoveries, Hawass says he's proudest of the tombs of the Pyramid builders, one unearthed at Giza and the other at the Valley of the Golden Mummies in the Bahariya Oasis. The digs, he says, overturned long-held beliefs that the pyramids were built by slaves rather than Egyptians.
       Hawass is also leading a campaign to repatriate Egyptian artefacts that have been whisked away to foreign musuems. His main focus is the "big five": the Rosetta Stone (in the British Museum), the Nefertiti Bust (in the British Museum), the Nefertiti Bust (in Berlin's Altes Museum), the zodiac ceiling painting from the Dendera Temple (the Louvre), the bust of Ankhhaf, architect of the Khafra Pyramid (Boston's Museum of Fine Arts) and the statue of Hemiunu, nephew of the Pharaoh Khufu and architect of Giza's Great Pyramid (Germany's Pelizaeus Museum).
       "Now I'd like to add a sixth, the statue of Rameses II in Turin," he says.
       "I'm writing a letter to the Berlin museum to say that I've found no proof the bust of Nefertiti left Egypt legally.
       "I don't want everything back, but I want the return of that which has been stolen from Egypt," he emphasises, adding that it takes a lot of "passion, pride and writing" to recover such high-profile artefacts.