King Professor of Egyptology at Harvard University, teaches these classes in a dark room that holds up to 20 students.

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Hawass is the international star of Egyptology, thanks largely to a steady flow of television documentaries and books to which he is attached.

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Drawn to European literature, and caught up by the fashion for Egyptology sparked by the discovery in 1922 of Tutenkhamen's intact tomb, he began dabbling in writing.

ECONOMIST: Naguib Mahfouz | The

Of course tomb robbery has been going on since ancient times, but Kent Weeks, Professor of Egyptology at the American University of Cairo says the past two years have seen a dramatic increase in such crimes.

BBC: Egypt revolution brings golden age for tomb raiders

In 1994, Wade and Bob Brier, a professor of philosophy and Egyptology at Long Island University, took a human body that had been willed to science and mummified it following the ancient procedures of mummification outlined in ancient Egyptian lore.

CNN: 'Death can tell us a lot about living,' mummy expert says

Egyptology is a small, backbiting world.

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