The Smiles of the Blind

This concluding chapter focuses on the events that happened since the start of the Tahrir Revolution in January 2011. Egypt now have a new president, a new constitution, new parties, and new coalitions. For the first time in their history, Egyptians were allowed to vote, and—no matter which way they voted—they were dissatisfied with the result. The country is politically divided. The only thing that unites people is their dissatisfaction. Indeed, everything is in short supply—most of all patience. The Egyptians took to the streets for bread, freedom, and social justice. Egypt's economic situation also worsened. The author witnessed the exodus of educated young people and the migration of intellectuals to America. Moreover, the literacy rate is sinking lower and lower as children and young people are neglected.

At the Base of the Cathedral

This chapter begins with a description of the cathedral near the author's apartment in Cologne, which reminded her of the pyramids. Although erected thousands of years later, the cathedral, like the pyramids, is an amazing testament to the power of the faith. The cathedral and the Rhine, the museums, and the Philharmonic kept the author from becoming homesick. During her brief stay in Cologne, she had admired the educational programs for children the museums had developed to accompany their exhibition Nofret, the Beautiful. She then decided that she wanted to work in museum education programs, especially for children and the handicapped. From 1988 to 1991 the author worked on the study about an Egyptian children's museum, writing it first in Arabic, then in a German version.

On the Great Pyramid

This chapter begins with the author's arrival to Cairo University. The university was founded as a private college in 1908, then nationalized in 1925. The author wanted to be a journalist and during her time at school, she wrote about al-Qarafa, Cairo's vast cemetery quarter—the beginnings of which go back to the era of the Fatimids and Mamluks. However, after spending a semester break in Luxor and Aswan looking at ruins, statues, and excavations, the author decided that she would major in archaeology and study philosophy and ancient languages as minors. She then began studying Egyptology and archaeology in 1969. Later, she would go on to participate in an excavation in the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Wind in the Reeds

This chapter focuses on the author's childhood in 1956. On July 26, 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser declared that he was nationalizing the Suez Canal and would use the income from the canal's operations to finance the construction of the new dam at Aswan. The broadcast of the speech was the signal for the takeover of the canal office by an Egyptian military commando unit. This episode has gone into the history books as the Suez Crisis, a highly euphemistic term, for the “crisis” was a proper war, with many dead, wounded, prisoners of war, and massive destruction. The author also describes her experiences adapting to a new environment as they move from Kafr al-Arab and Fariskur to Cairo, Egypt's capital and the cultural and political center of the Arab world at the time.

In the Museum

This chapter recounts the author's initial visit to the Egyptian Museum after her return to Cairo. She was shocked by the miserable condition of the museum itself. In western travel guides it is said, at times dismissively, that the Egyptian Museum resembles a storeroom bursting at the seams. It is true that the most priceless artifacts are crowded close together. However, when the French architect Marcel Dourgnon designed the structure at the end of the nineteenth century, he could not have known that within only a few years an ever increasing number of archaeological missions would make more discoveries and finds than in all the years since the direction of Auguste Mariette in the antiquities department.

Days of Rage

This introductory chapter details the last time the author met Hosni Mubarak in October 2010 in Rome when she was instructed to put together a list of 190 treasures from Cairo's museums for an exhibition of treasures from Egyptian history. It also looks at the revolutionary events in Tahrir Square and the plundering of the Egyptian Museum in 2011. The author then describes how she dealt with the challenges of corruption as she assumed a management position in the antiquities service in the Egyptian Museum. On that “day of rage” in Tahrir Square, she determined that she would be betraying herself and the youth of Egypt if she were to become the director of a museum founded by people who torture young people and beat them to death, and decided to do no more work that had any connection to Mubarak, his wife, and the regime.

The Tough Women of Luxor

This chapter details the author's introduction to a group of American women who wished to finance and undertake an excavation in Karnak. These women include television starlet Diane Smith, painter and art dealer Mary Martin, photographer and writer Audrey Topping, former skeet-shooting champion Betje Carlson, and Gypsy Grave, a director of a private archaeological museum in Florida. They were five power women who had pulled strings to get permission for the first all-female archaeological mission. They set up the private Nile Foundation, for which they collected roughly $100,000 in sponsors' money by way of charity and fundraising events. The concession of the project had been obtained through the American Research Center in Egypt, and the standing committee of the antiquities administration had approved it only with the stipulation that it be strictly scientific.

Dinner with Cleopatra

This chapter focuses on the author's assignment to oversee Austrian archaeologist Karl Kromer's spring campaign on the Gebel Qibli, the south hill of the Giza plateau. Roughly 3 kilometers south of the Great Pyramid, his mission from the University of Innsbruck was to search for traces of early, predynastic settlement. The author then describes her dealings with foreign colleagues and considers the modern divide between Egyptian and European scholars. The chapter also looks at Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the year 1922. In the same year, Egypt achieved its independence and a new era began for Egyptians in terms of politics.

In the Belly of the Barque

This chapter recounts the author's participation in the Egyptian excavation site in Tura. The name Tura is notorious in all of Egypt. A few kilometers south of Cairo lies the state prison where political opponents of the regime were tortured and abused, often enough to death. Its inmates were required to labor in the limestone quarries that supplied the nearby cement plant. In the winter of 1977, the cement plant wanted to expand. The new building site extended into the ancient stone quarries. Before the extension could proceed, however, the new site had to be explored for possible archaeological remains and excavations undertaken wherever something looked promising.