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Morning News

Archaeologist Discusses 'Valley of the Golden Mummies'

Aired October 11, 2000 - 11:20 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And we continue with an extraordinary find that was made in Egypt four years ago. It's the so-called valley of the golden mummies was discovered. The first book to document this discovery has been published. It includes dozens of full-color illustrations, great pictures.

Joining us from Washington, the author of the book and renowned archaeologist, Zahi Hawass.

And, I hope, Mr. Hawass, that I pronounced your name correctly.

ZAWI HAWASS, AUTHOR, "VALLEY OF THE GOLDEN MUMMIES": Correct.

KAGAN: Good to have you with us and thanks for bringing the pictures of all your mummies along with you as well.

HAWASS: Thank you very much.

KAGAN: We're going to go ahead. We were able, ahead of this time of this interview, to flip through the book and get some of the great pictures. We're going to put the pictures up and, as we do, I'd like you to tell us about this incredible find.

Give us an idea of the size, in terms of number of mummies that we're talking about. And where did you find them?

HAWASS: You know, I excavated the site last year. This was the first season. And the second season was finished last May. In the first season, I found 105 mummies, and in the second season, we found 102 mummies. And all the mummies that we found, about 207 mummies. But, when I did make a survey, and I tried to find the size of the whole cemetery, I could expect to discover in this site at least 10,000 mummies covered with gold.

KAGAN: That's incredible.

HAWASS: Yes, this is why I called it the valley of the golden mummies.

KAGAN: Now, of course, these mummies have been there for thousands of years.

Why were you able to find them now? or recently? HAWASS: You know, as you said, the first discovery happened by accident four years ago when the (INAUDIBLE) guard of the Temple of Alexander the Great was riding his donkey and the leg of the donkey fell in a hole.

KAGAN: And it came down to a donkey falling in a hole.

HAWASS: By accident. I went to excavate, only on March, 1999, but the last excavation in last May was really amazing, because we found beautiful artifacts such as -- look at this mummy. It has a royal symbol on the forehead, because royal symbols in the Greek-Roman period became common to the upper-class people. And we found coins, we found wine jars. You know Bahariya was a very important site in Egypt because everyone in ancient Egypt wanted to have a glass of wine made of dates in the afterlife. And therefore, they made -- they were rich and they could afford, really, to have mummies like this.

KAGAN: And what other new things have you been able to learn about the people? How they lived, what we didn't know.

HAWASS: Really understand a lot about the daily life of the people. What kind of food they ate. They depend completely on the trade of wine. And we could really understand. I took the X-ray machine with me for the first time to Bahariya in the desert and we could understand about diseases. Like, we found that the average age of death among the people were about 35 only.

KAGAN: Sounding younger all the time.

HAWASS: And I found out that, maybe, because of the water that comes from well and that water full of iron. But, I found one lady at the age of 80. And look at this beautiful young lady. They pushed her breast down, then they could put the beautiful scenes on the chest. And look at the face is completely covered with gold and the chest covered with carbon ash.

KAGAN: The pictures are incredible in this book. You found, you discovered the mummies. Who owns them? and then, where will be a place where we can go see them in person? Will there be a museum tour?

KAGAN: We are opening a museum in the site called Bahariya. And I will put in this museum, like, eight mummies. Like, this child mummy is at the museum now. But, the rest of the mummies, I don't really believe that it should be open to the public because they will be ruined if the tourists will look at the mummies. But, we will have this eight mummies for the tourists, because Bahariya became a very famous site now, because it could be the most important discovery really happened in Egypt after the discovery of King Tut.

KAGAN: And just real quickly, for those of us not that familiar with Egypt, where exactly is this in Egypt?

HAWASS: It is located about 225 miles southwest of Cairo. It is the most beautiful paved road in Egypt and the site is, like, incredible. Very dramatic and lively a very romantic place for people to go and enjoy the site and the mummies and the discovery that we made.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm sold.

KAGAN: Yes, Bill, my co-anchor, is ready to pack his things right now.

KAGAN: Zahi Hawass, your enthusiasm is infectious. Thank you for coming today, sharing your story and your pictures as well. We appreciate your time.

HAWASS: Thank you very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

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