49 / 147
49
I didn’t expect it, at least not to begin with! I had no intention of tying to become President until I read that can-
didates were asked to put forward their ideas for the Association’s activities over the next four years. I had felt
for a long time that the Association should be more visible and active – and I knew I was not alone in this - and
I wanted to be able to contribute my thoughts on this. I saw putting myself forward to be the President as a
way of sharing those ideas. I also thought that my experiences running the Egypt Exploration Society – another
Egyptology organisation with an international membership would be of use, but I had thought there was a good
chance that the Association’s members would prefer a more distinguished and experienced academic. I take my
election at least in part to be a vote of confidence in what my colleagues and have achieved at the EES in the
last few years.
So, to be honest the Association’s impact has been minimal in the last few years. I say that with all due respect
to those who have been involved in the running of the Association for the last few years, who have worked hard
mostly alongside very busy academic jobs. My main priorities are:
To establish clearly what the Association’s purpose and aims are, and what it means to be a member
For the Association to become genuinely representative of, and to provide a voice for the international commu-
nity of Egyptologists
To raise awareness of the Association’s purpose and activities, among both the community of professional Egyp-
tologists and the wider public
For the IAE to become widely recognized as the definitive representative body for our subject, for setting stan-
dards of practice and ensuring those are followed by everyone professionally involved in the subject.
The ones that study Egyptology, no matter where they live, get usually really involved with the land where this
ancient civilization first saw the light and then developed: the Arabic Republic of Egypt. Because of the facts
connected to the Arabic Spring, many things have changed in Egypt since 2010. Did you feel these changes
as present during the Congress days? What do you think about this difficult matter? Do you think that tourism
could come back as an important reality in Egypt in a future not so far?
The Arab Spring and its effects were represented among the papers but I have felt since January 2011 that the
International Association was not sufficiently engaged with the situation and the challenges it has presented.
Professional Egyptologists face many challenges in 2015, some connected with the Arab Spring, other not. I see
part of the IAE’s role as being to identify these challenges and to bring people together to ask, ‘what are we go to
do about this’ and ‘how can we work together to ensure that we can meet these challenges’. I have felt I the past
that the Congress should be more focussed on the current situation and some of the more pressing practical
issues for our subject (I will also send a document with some suggestions I made ahead of the Florence Congress)
and I hope we will be able to tackle such things at the Congress in Luxor in 2019.
It is also important, however, that the Association should not be political itself so I don’t want to say too much
about the current situation. But, personally, I can say that in fourteen visits to Egypt in the last four years I have
always felt safe there, and given this and all the wonderful sites and monuments Egypt has to offer, I very much
hope that tourism will return to the levels it enjoyed before the revolution.
Probably many already have asked you how your passion for Ancient Egypt grow so important, and obviously
we also want to know that; furthermore, we would like to know what has been the course of your studies.
What are the difficulties you have crossed during your studies and how did you overcome them?
Well, I was certainly interested in ancient Egypt as a child. I have clear memories of watching the documentary
series ‘The Face of Tutankhamun’ on the BBC when I was around 13 years old, and I also remember asking my
history teacher at school why we had to study British history and why couldn’t we study the Egyptians them-
selves. I went to the University of Birmingham to study Ancient History and Archaeology and I loved EVERYTHING:
Roman Britain, the Roman Empire, Classical Greek archaeology, British and European prehistory, Anglo-Saxon
and Medieval Britain and so on. But for some reasons ancient Egypt grabbed me more than anything else and
by the first few weeks of my second year I had decided to visit Egypt for the compulsory study tour we all had to
undertake. This was very brave for me: I had never travelled abroad without my family, and certainly never to
somewhere like Egypt. But by the time I left for Egypt a few weeks later I had already become a real Egyptology
geek and I felt I knew quite a lot about what were going to see, and actually being at those places – Karnak,