He is also leading this dig.Īten was abruptly abandoned by Amenhotep III’s son Akhenaten, when he transformed ancient Egypt’s religion and moved the capital 240 miles north of Thebes. She and others were encouraged to pursue their training by Zahi Hawass, known as the “godfather” of Egyptian antiquities. “For once, Egyptians are the leading Egyptologists,” says Asmaa Ebrahim, who has studied archaeology in Egypt and abroad. For decades, as archaeologists dug into the history buried in the Valley of the Kings, Egyptians were laborers, never discoverers.
