Kent Weeks Interview (page: 5 / 7) Living Legend of Egyptology	Print Interview

The road to success is not always a straight line. It can take many turns. What detours or setbacks have you experienced, and how do you handle them when they arise?

Kent Weeks: Oh, there are constant setbacks, constant detours. First of all, any archeological project is unpredictable. In some ways, it's a crap shoot. You never know what you're going to find the next day. Before you begin digging a site, it's rather like a surgeon operating on a patient. You want to know as much as possible about the site as you can. A surgeon doesn't open up a body and say, "Oh, this is interesting. Hey, why don't we remove that? That will be fun!" He goes in with a specific goal. And similarly, with archeology, because...

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Archeology is basically nothing more than systematic destruction. We don't know what to expect. It's a constant series of surprises. What that means is that I can tell somebody who's giving us money, "We're going to do this -- A, B and C -- and we're going to finish in six weeks. Then we're going to get the publication out and you will be credited for it." And you suddenly find six weeks have passed, and you've discovered there's a whole lot more to do. You can't get the publication out yet. You've got to go to the person who gave you the money, ask for more money. Try to explain that you weren't lying to them in the first place, these are just unexpected events. This is always a problem, because after a while people begin to wonder... you know, like with our project. When we started out, we were making a map of the Valley of the Kings. I thought we could do it in a couple of years. Well, it has now been 17 years and we're still working at it. I think we're going to be in a position where we can publish -- both in hard copy and on CD-ROM -- in about two years. But who knows what tomorrow's going to bring? I've had problems. You know, concessions or permissions won't materialize, or a promotion I was hoping for didn't come because the publication upon which the promotion was based didn't come. So you know, you delay being promoted from assistant professor to associate, or associate to full for another year. And these are disappointments, sure. But the only thing I can say is, just keep going. Have faith in yourself, and have faith in what you're doing, and one way or another it will get done.

[ Key to Success ] Courage

Have you ever been afflicted with self-doubt or fear of failure?

Kent Weeks: Oh yeah, always. I've always been filled with self-doubts. I've always said, "God, am I really capable of doing this?" I've got a project now that requires the expertise of mining engineers. I don't know anything about that. Geological engineers, I don't know anything about that. Structural engineers, electrical engineers, conservators, photographers, computer programmers. I don't know diddly about this. My job now is simply trying to take all of these specialists -- and keeping in mind what I want the end result to look like -- try and make all of this team work together in the most cost-effective, efficient and accurate manner possible. And every day I lie down at night and say, "Well, did I screw up today, or are things looking all right?" And if I can wake up the next morning and say, "Well, we're going to go for it. We're going to keep going," I'm one happy guy. But of course, I think everybody is always filled with a degree of self-doubting. I don't mean it's a pathological state, but there sure are times when you say, "Is this the right thing to do? Is this the right time to do it? Are we doing it in the right way?"

You also do some teaching, don't you?

Kent Weeks: Oh, I love to teach. It's strange. My father was one of 14 children, he was a policeman. One other of my aunts and uncles was a businessman, but all the rest of them went into teaching. My brother is a teacher. My daughter wants to teach. I think it must be genetic or something, I don't know. But I have always enjoyed teaching. If you've got a bit of ham in you, it makes it all a lot easier. If you've got a lot of ham in you, it can be really fun.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. There is nothing I enjoy more than teaching Egyptology, making people aware of this magical civilization. Watching their eyes when I show them something that they hadn't realized, hadn't known before. This is especially exciting for me, because teaching at the American University in Cairo, I have classes that are about 50 percent Americans, 50 percent Egyptians. Very diverse backgrounds. And instead of showing slides of a monument, we just get in a car and go out and look at the pyramids. Or we go to the Egyptian Museum and see these things first-hand. And it is a delight to see the eyes of the Egyptian students open to their own culture. And an equal delight to see Americans who have come out -- perhaps they were interested in Arabic, or political science, or economics, just taking this one course in ancient Egypt as an elective -- but seeing them go around and share that sense of absolute astonishment. When you take them out to the pyramids for the first time, or take them into the Egyptian Museum and show them the Palette of Narmer, or some other famous piece... it's great. I really do enjoy it.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

No matter what the field, you can't please everybody all the time. How do you deal with criticism?

Kent Weeks: It depends on the criticism, and how it's presented.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I've written books that have received very good reviews. I've written books that have received some very bad reviews. I try to -- once I get over my little temporary fit of pique -- go back over the bad reviews and say, "All right, now this is what they said I was doing wrong. This is what they would liked to have seen. Next time 'round we'll take that into account and try and improve upon it." If it is constructive criticism, I am finally getting to the point where I welcome it. I think when I was in college I always considered such things a threat. "Somebody is out to get me." Whether it was a nasty comment scrawled by a professor who was tired that night on the margins of an exam book, or somebody who says, "This first draft of a thesis really has got to be redone," it was something that I just got very upset about. Now I look upon it as a very helpful tool. I welcome it now. I will go out and deliberately seek my worst critics and say, "Would you mind reading this over?" I will get back copies of a manuscript with red marks, and slashes, and "Bilge!!!" written in the margin with three exclamation points. I don't mind it anymore. I find it very helpful. And sometimes, frankly, I also find it kind of funny, particularly when I don't agree with them.

[ Key to Success ] Integrity

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