Dr. Weeks, we'd like you to take us back to February 2, 1995. Can you tell us what you were feeling or thinking when you first entered KV5, the tomb of the sons of Ramesses the Great, and this whole new discovery opened up for you?
Kent Weeks: My first words as we went into this huge corridor, with room after room after room going off on either side -- it was over 100 degrees back there. The humidity was about 95 percent, because the room had been sealed for thousands of years. Rain water -- believe it or not, it does rain occasionally in Egypt, about once every 300 years -- but it's a torrential rain that washes wet debris into the tombs and the moisture has nowhere to go. So the humidity was just horrendous. The chamber -- the corridor -- was filled to a depth of about six feet with debris, and there was only a crawlspace about a foot, a foot-and-a- half high between the debris that filled the room and the ceiling. So I'm slithering on my belly down this passageway with a very poor, weak flashlight, an Egyptian assistant and a graduate student. And all I could do was say, "My God, I don't believe it. My God, this is incredible!" We stayed in there about 20 minutes. I mean, it was so uncomfortable, we were just drenched, covered in mud by the time we got out. And I went back, my wife was upstairs -- she's the artist on our project, and has worked with me for as long as we've been married, which is now 29 years -- and I said, "I think our life has changed forever. This tomb is going to keep us busy for the rest of our lives. I think we have made a truly spectacular discovery." Which indeed, we did do.
I went back in a couple of hours later, again said, "Oh my God, what have we got ourselves into?" I began looking around at the problems of engineering, of conservation, of cleaning, of excavation. It was obvious that this was going to be a lifetime's work. It was going to take decades to clear out this tomb. I'll give you an example. The average tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the ancient Greeks called them syringes, looked rather like that, just long tubes cut into the bedrock. Sometimes they'd go in ten feet, sometimes they'd go in 150. Ordinarily, they have anywhere from one to about ten or 11 chambers. When we first found this tomb, and we began working on it in 1987, we thought there were five or six chambers in the tomb. In February of 1995, when we found the doorway in the back wall and went through it, we suddenly found ourselves in a tomb with 67 chambers. And in November of 1995 we found two more corridors leading off. We're now up to 95 rooms. Not one, not ten, but 95 rooms. It's the largest tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings, one of the very largest ever found in Egypt. Completely unique in terms of its size, unique in terms of its plan. It isn't a long syringe, cut straight into the hillside, it's like an octopus with tentacles going off in every direction. We think, in fact, we may even have two layers, a double-decker tomb here. What we're in the process of doing now is seeing how we get from the upper level, where we are now, down to the lower. We're trying to find the path down there.
Did you have any idea such a major complex lay inside this mountain? Kent Weeks: I had no idea. We had been working in the Valley of the Kings since 1979, simply trying to make a detailed topographic map of the valley and detailed plans of each tomb that it contains. The reason was simple; there existed no complete inventory. We wanted to make basically what amounted to an archeological database, because we knew that if we didn't have good maps, and if we didn't have a good record of what the known tombs contained, there would be no way to protect and preserve them for the future.
We heard in 1987 that the antiquities department was making plans, because of increased tourism, to widen the parking lot right at the entrance to the valley, in order to accommodate more tour buses. We had seen on a map drawn of the Valley of the Kings in 1800 by Napoleon Bonaparte's soldiers when they visited Egypt, they had drawn a map of the valley, and right at the entrance they had put a little black dot and a legend -- "tomb entrance?" -- question mark. Now, the map was very inaccurate, it was a sketch plan, nothing more than that, it wasn't to scale. But judging by the map, and looking at the topography, we thought that that little black dot lay exactly where the bus park was going to be widened. We reasoned that if they were going to widen the road, they were going to have to cut back the mountain and they might very well damage or destroy a tomb, if in fact there was a tomb there. So we got permission from the antiquities department to do some clearing before they began their excavations and paving. There was no problem with that. In a matter of about ten days we had found the tomb entrance, in 1987. Opened the door, went inside, found the tomb completely filled with debris, and spent six years excavating the first two small rooms, only about 12 by 15 feet square, each of them, six years removing that debris. Extremely slow work, because the debris had the consistency of cement. Because we discovered that the walls of the tomb were decorated, and we didn't want to do any damage to that. And because we found that there were thousands and thousands of fragmentary objects on the floor of the chambers. All of that debris had to be removed with a pick, then sieved, carefully analyzed, all of the pottery, thousands and thousands of pieces had to be analyzed.
That's maddeningly difficult work. How do you account for that kind of dogged determination, that kind of dedication? Kent Weeks: Well, once we got into the tomb and discovered that it was decorated, it became a very interesting tomb to me. First of all, the inscriptions indicated it belonged to the reign of Ramesses II. We knew it couldn't be his tomb; the Pharaoh Ramesses II has his own tomb about 150 feet away, but it was of his reign. As we cleared the walls, we began finding inscriptions indicating that it was the burial place of not just one son of that pharaoh, but several. We found names and titles of them on the wall. Now here was a golden opportunity to look at the burial place of several sons of one of Egypt's most powerful rulers, and to get some better idea -- not just of the history of that period and of the burial practices -- but maybe to get some idea of what the role of crown princes and the royal family was in ancient times. To get some better idea of how the Egyptian court functioned. From a historical standpoint, the tomb immediately took on very important dimensions. Dr. Weeks, did you always know what you wanted to do with your life, or did it just happen? Kent Weeks: No, you know, I've never had any doubt at all.
I knew when I was eight years old that I wanted to be an archeologist. I knew when I was nine years old that I wanted to focus on ancient Egypt. I'll be darned if I can tell you what the reason is. I don't know what the cause was, whether it was a movie I saw or a book I read. But by the luck of the draw, I had a series of teachers throughout grade school who not only encouraged this interest in ancient Egypt, but kept pushing books on me and saying, "Read this, read that." And I grew up almost feeling that Egypt was a part of my life, from the age of eight onward. Never had any doubts at all, except once. That was when I entered college. In my freshman year I panicked. "How on earth am I ever going to make a living being an Egyptologist? I mean, I don't even know exactly what an Egyptologist does. But I've sure never met one. I've never heard of any university around here that offers a job in Egyptology." I panicked, went down and changed my major from archeologist to architecture. I lasted four days. Talked to the adviser, read through the list of courses I would have to take, sat in on two lectures and decided I'd rather die of starvation. It's going to be Egyptology or it's going to be nothing. And that was it. I just continued on with Egyptology from then on.
You mean you have no explanation for such a commitment, for such passion?
Were there any other events or books or experiences that inspired you as a kid? Kent Weeks: Well again, I don't know what the initial cause was. I can tell you a lot of things that reinforced this decision throughout elementary school, junior high, high school. First and foremost, a series of wonderful, wonderful teachers to whom I owe virtually everything.
I have always had the greatest admiration for elementary school teachers. They've got a hard job to do, and these people really did it extremely well. If it hadn't been for them, I might well be out selling shoes or insurance today, I don't know. In any case, it was reading the books that they offered, it was talking to them. When I was about 12, discovering that there were places in America that taught Egyptology, I wrote off to various universities. I said, "Excuse me for interrupting, Professor sir, but I'm a 12-year-old. I want to become an Egyptologist. What should I do?" And without exception, every one of those people wrote back long letters. "You should study this... languages are important... get some history. A good liberal arts education is the basic foundation for anything you decide to go into. Keep in mind that you're never going to be rich. Keep in mind that you may not get a job..." because even today, in 1996, we've got probably 350 professional Egyptologists in the world, and that's it. And many of those are not gainfully employed doing Egyptology. There aren't enough museums, there aren't enough universities around to keep them employed. So it's a dicey business. But fortunately, because of the letters I got, the advice I got, I think I structured my high school career and my college career in such a way that I could finally get into the field.
I went to the University of Washington as an undergraduate. They didn't offer any Egyptology at all. So I did archeology, but they didn't offer much of that. And I thought, "Well, I'm interested in the history of medicine. Why not take anatomy and pathology and all the med school courses?" And I went down and conned my way into all of those. Did a whole series of things on medicine as an undergraduate, which paid big dividends, because when I finally was accepted to graduate school at Yale, my parents couldn't afford to send me there. I needed to get a fellowship. Fellowships were hard to come by, and I thought, "Wait. I think I know what I can do." So I made an application to the National Institutes of Mental Health and said, "I want to study ancient Egyptian medicine at Yale," and I got a four-year scholarship to do it. Did my doctoral thesis, finally, on the representation of the human figure in ancient Egyptian art and the anatomical terminology in ancient Egyptian medical texts. I think I'm the only person in the world ever to get a degree in Egyptology on an NIMH fellowship. But gosh, without that... I mean it's almost like kismet, in some ways. All of these things just falling together and allowing me to continue what could be a rather narrow, difficult path. I've been very lucky.
What did your parents think of all this, when you were a kid and were so immersed in Egyptology? What did they think when you said that's what you wanted to do with your life, at the age of eight and nine?
Kent Weeks: Well, when I said it at the age of eight or nine, my mother said, "That's nice, dear." My father turned the page of the paper and said, "Umm." When they realized I was getting serious about this they were very encouraging. But I must admit at the same time they were rather concerned. "How's this kid going to make a living? Are we going to have him around here at the age of 45?" I had an aunt who was very pragmatic. She said, "How dare you consider squandering your parents' money by doing something so stupid at university? Why don't you go into engineering, or maybe business? There's all kinds of things you can do in marketing." After I got my doctorate, I got my first job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I was there for two years. And then I was hired by the University of Chicago. Even after that, while I was married, we had two kids, I was teaching at the University of Chicago, I would go back to Seattle, my aunt would say, 'Well, have you come home? Are you finally going to settle down and get a real job? Are you through with all this silliness?" Not very helpful. But the teachers, yes. My parents, yes.
Was there anyone in particular who inspired or challenged you when you were a kid?
Kent Weeks: Well, I think the two people who most inspired me -- and actually provided an example that I wanted to follow -- were, number one, John Wilson, who was professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago, one of those people I wrote when I was 12 years old and who wrote back this very kind letter. The other one was an Egyptologist, an Egyptian named Ahmad Fakhri, who had in the 19... I guess it was late '50s, early '60s -- had come to Seattle with the first King Tut traveling exhibit. It was at the Seattle Art Museum, and I was in high school at that time. I wrote him a letter and said, "Can I meet you? I'd like to talk about Egyptology." This fine old man -- here I am, just a little kid -- he takes me out to lunch. We talk for three hours about the joys of Egyptology, the pitfalls of trying to make a career in such a narrow discipline, and so forth. He gave me some wonderfully sound advice. These two fellows, who later on became great colleagues and dear friends, really did give the final polish, if you will, to the plans that I was trying to make for the future.
Were there any books that particularly influenced you as a youngster?
Kent Weeks: I've always been a voracious reader and I read everything. I think in many ways it was not books specifically dealing with ancient Egypt that had the greatest influence on me. It was books of poetry, it was books of English literature, it was Tolstoy, War and Peace, which I did not read in the original Russian, I read it in translation. But again, the liberal arts background that I was able to get at the university paid big dividends. I again thank John Wilson and Ahmad Fakhri for encouraging this. I took a lot of courses in English lit, a lot of courses in... oh gosh, Byzantine history, Greek and Roman history, courses in ancient Chinese social structure. I took Greek. I took French and German of course. I took statistics and anthropology, things that are really, at first blush, unrelated to ancient Egypt. But they have come home in the last several years, and have given me more valuable knowledge about techniques, or comparative materials, than I would ever have had otherwise. I really like the American system of education, where we encourage this broad base, this liberal arts foundation. As opposed to, say, the British system of education, where when you enter college as a freshman, it is expected you know exactly what you're going to do, and you're going to concentrate on that one narrow discipline and nothing else. I think that's unfortunate. I think it's misguided. Now in British society I'm sure it works very well, but I find that the broader background that I've got has been far more useful, far more influential than the specific courses that I took in hieroglyphics, or Egyptian history, or Egyptian art.
Would you say that you were a gifted child? We're trying to account for this incredible curiosity and the lengths you went to, to satisfy it at such a young age. Kent Weeks: Well, maybe it was lack of imagination. I got into this rut, and I couldn't think of anything else to do. I really don't know.
I certainly do not consider myself to have been a gifted child. I was a real hellion. Not going off and robbing banks or anything like that, but you know, the usual thing, sending Playboy magazine subscriptions to the school library. Writing letters to the editor signed with a fake name about how incompetent the principal was because he wouldn't allow us to have Sloppy Joes at lunch hour, and so forth. Just all kinds of minor troublemaking. I was much more interested in doing that sort of thing, or going out on dates, than I was about really concentrating on my studies. Once in a while I'd get motivated. I got highly motivated in chemistry. I loved it. I got highly motivated in history. I loved it. There were other courses -- math, physics, ho-hum! I could have cared less. And no, I was not a 4.0 student at all. I think I graduated from high school with like a 3.1 -- 3.2. It wasn't until I got into university and began looking at the variety of different subjects that one could take and seeing how they might all fit into this goal that I have, that I really did, I think, become a motivated student. But it wasn't easy. I mean, I don't consider myself to be particularly bright. I just was interested enough that I was willing to put in the long hours of study that made it possible.
How did you get along with your fellow classmates? When you weren't raising hell, what did you do in your spare time?
Kent Weeks: I worked in the school radio station as an announcer, both in high school and in college. I was never much on sports. I turned out for track a couple of times, but that was about the extent of my interest. I can remember being asked to go out and serve as the announcer for a big football game between our high school and our primary rival down the road. I didn't know anything about football. Didn't know? I mean I... "Oh, he's going to make a basket! Is this a touchdown, or is it a home run?" I got everything screwed up, to the point that by the end of the first quarter they literally, bodily took me out of the box and said, "Don't ever come back!" But I enjoyed being an announcer. I enjoyed being on radio, and it was fun. I hung out with a bunch of guys who similarly were interested in that, some of whom have since gone into politics. Some have gone into radio and television, and are now working in stations around the West. But that was one of the principal things I was interested in doing. That, reading, going out and as we called it then, "cruising the gut." Driving from the A&W to the Dairy Queen and back, seeing what was going on in the evening. I grew up in a small town and that was about as good as it got.
You say there was no defining moment that inspired this passion, this commitment to what you do. How do you explain to somebody why it is so important and exciting to you? Kent Weeks: I think part of it is the thrill of discovery. And the second part of it...
My dad was a police officer. This may have something to do with it, because I have always looked upon archeological work as being very much akin to detective work. Taking little clues here, and little pieces of evidence there, putting them all together and trying to reconstruct, in effect, the crime scene. What led up to the event in the tomb, the burial of a pharaoh, or the abandonment of an ancient house, or what have you? I've always enjoyed this, and I don't think it's any coincidence that a lot of my favorite leisure reading is detective novels. I love going through these. I like reading books on forensic medicine, all this kind of stuff. It's the puzzle, and it's working toward the solution that I really enjoy. Now there are any number of areas of archeology where you could have that same thrill. I happened to pick up on ancient Egypt, and again, I cannot tell you precisely why. But it was the idea of being an archeological detective, trying to reconstruct one of the most ancient, most spectacular civilizations the world has ever known, that appealed to me then and that continues to fascinate me as much now as it did 40 years ago. Fifty years ago, almost.
Was there any one person who gave you the break you needed to get started in your career?
Kent Weeks: Well, of all the people, I think the one I'm most beholden to in the field of Egyptology was my professor at Yale, William Kelly Simpson. When I was an undergraduate at the University of Washington, I wrote him a letter saying, "I would be very interested in doing some archeological work. I've had some experience working on the Columbia River, digging. I'm very interested in Egyptology. If you have a project, please let me know." Well, apparently Kelly did some calling around and sent me a letter back and said, "Sure, come aboard. We're going off to Nubia to work on the salvage program protecting monuments from the flood waters of the Aswan Dam, and we're going to leave in November." So in November of 1963, I packed my bags. Me, who had never been out of western Washington in his entire life, got aboard a flight, flew to New Haven, Connecticut. Spent three or four days there and then flew on to Cairo. It was the most incredible experience of my life.
I must admit that when I got off the plane and drove into Cairo, I just sort of went, "Ah! I'm home." Came down the next day with acute appendicitis and spent the next four days in the hospital. Went down to Aswan to board our boat down to the archeological site. There were about six Yale students on the project, they were all swimming in the Nile. I decided to swim in the Nile, dove in. Didn't realize how strong the current was, pulled all my stitches, so spent two days in the hospital in Aswan. And then finally went down to excavate with the Yale project in Nubia. About six days after we got there, Kelly gets a telegram. He says, "I've got to go back to Aswan. There's some paperwork that I've got to take care of." And he looks at me and he says, "You're in charge." Here I am, 20 years old, never been out of western Washington before. I am in Nubia, about 250 miles from the nearest living human beings, except for 300 local workmen, whom I suddenly am supposed to supervise, although I don't know a single word of Arabic. It was really an indoctrination, an ordeal by fire. I was just thrown into the thick of it, but I loved it. I was scared out of my mind. The first sentence of Arabic I learned was, "Stop! Don't dig any deeper." The second sentence I learned was, "Can't you dig faster? We're trying to work here!"
Why do you think you were the one who was chosen to take over? What do you think Dr. Simpson saw in you?
Many people have talent and potential, but don't necessarily get to do what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Why do you think you succeeded, where others might not have?
Kent Weeks: I think, quite frankly, the one explanation I have is simply perseverance. I just never took no for an answer. It's like writing research grants, which anyone in any field in the academic field has to do on a regular basis. You've got to get used to getting rejection slips. If you write a proposal that you think is brilliant, and they send it back and say, "Sorry. We're not going to give you a penny..." write another proposal. Try another funding agency, but keep going at it. And this is what I did. If trying to achieve my objective I couldn't go this way, I'd try an end run. I'd try another tack, another path, like a National Institutes of Mental Health fellowship. It was just perseverance. I was just too stubborn. I wouldn't take no for an answer. I don't think it's anything more than that.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Regardless of the field -- it doesn't have to be archeology -- what personal characteristics do you think are most important for achievement, for success? Kent Weeks: Number one: perseverance. And I think that, more than anything else, is crucial. That will compensate for a whole lot of things. In my case, I'm not the greatest philologist in the world. I can read Egyptian hieroglyphs, but I am by no means on a par with many of my colleagues. But if I persevere, if I work at it, I can finally make it out. I think that's important. Number two: a willingness to cooperate and be cooperative with your colleagues. I think a degree of collegiality, in a field like Egyptology particularly, is absolutely crucial.
I have no qualms at all about asking a philologist, to say, "Look, I'm having problems reading these texts. Would you please take on that aspect of this work for me? And we will give you full credit for having done this." In other words, I'm not trying to put my name on the cover of the book and exclude everybody else from getting any credit from it. I think that would be wrong-headed. It would be destructive, not just of the quality of the book, it would be destructive of our ultimate goal, which is to protect and preserve these monuments. That's the single most important goal that we have. I think that along with this -- and this has been a hard lesson for me to learn -- but I think it's extremely important to be kind and to be considerate. I have learned the hard way, over many years, that you don't make headway by being mean or nasty or vindictive. You don't make headway by ignoring people, or failing to inform them of what you're doing, or how what you're doing might be of value to them. Again, this goes back to collegiality. Again. We're all here in the same boat. I mean, my boat is an Egyptological one, let's say, and my ultimate goal is to protect these monuments, excavate this tomb and make sure that it's going to be there safe and sound and well documented for the next thousand years. I can't possibly do that alone. This is a group effort, and the older I get, the more I think that group efforts are basically what most of life is all about. Even if you're a poet, or a painter sitting in a darkened room -- or in the case of a painter, a well-lit room -- composing, nevertheless, what you're doing is ultimately the result of your interactions with other people. Those are extremely important. And the way in which you deal with those, and the way in which you help other people to deal with similar things in their own work, I think is crucial.
Kent Weeks: I think probably the most significant things are the importance of a degree of self-confidence, a willingness. Certainly, everyone has self-doubts. Every day of the week we all have asked the question, "Are we doing the right thing?" But I think a degree of self-confidence is crucial. I think perseverance is crucial. I think a willingness to share with other people. And probably the single most important thing, in fact, revolves around other people. One cannot operate in a vacuum. Even Henry David Thoreau did not operate in a vacuum. You are interacting constantly with other people, contributing to their lives, they to yours. And to the extent that any of us are going to succeed in life, I think the way in which we interact with other people is probably one of the most crucial aspects of our lives. Now, the joy of knowing that is that it is also one of the most pleasant parts of our lives. We're very social creatures, we human beings. And the more we are able to interact with people, to talk to people, to benefit, to listen -- not just to talk to, but to listen to other people -- our lives are going to be a lot fuller, a lot richer. Is there anything that you've thought about doing that you haven't done, that you would like to do? Kent Weeks: There are several things I would like to do. Some archeological and some not.
Archeologically, I would love to finish off this work, which I seriously doubt I'm going to be able to do in my lifetime now, the tomb is just so big. And we have a moral obligation, not just to leave this tomb in proper shape, but to finish the archeological database of the whole Valley of the Kings that started this project to begin with. That's going to be several years, and it's going to mean a lot of fundraising and all the rest of it to be done. But were that done, I would love to go off and excavate a site in Egypt that has fascinated me for years, a site called Coptos, which lies right at the mouth of a valley that connects the Nile River with the Red Sea, through which -- for the last probably ten- to 15,000 years -- major caravans, trading expeditions have traveled. It was the main route in Roman times to India. The quarries in this valley were the source of much of the stone used to build St. Peter's. In ancient times, it was the route to Somalia and to the spice markets of East Africa. In more recent times, it has been a major route of invasion and trade. This city, which goes back probably into the Neolithic period, lies right at the mouth of this valley, and I think is stratified layer upon layer with a history of Egypt for the last 10,000 years, and a history of Egypt's relations with foreign countries for the last 10,000 years. I think it could be a spectacular site.
Now, as far as non-Egyptological things, I'd like to do some more salmon fishing in Alaska. My son and I went up there last year, had a wonderful time. I would like to be able to have a little more time to finish a grandfather clock I started building about ten years ago and still haven't managed to put together. I'd like to do a whole lot more reading. I'd like to do some more traveling. And I'd like to do some more writing. I'm very interested in doing both books and television, or videos that would be designed for the younger reader, or the younger viewer.
When I was eight or nine, I was fascinated by ancient Egypt. The frustration at going to our local public library in this small town and finding there were only six or seven books, it was terrific. I mean, you went so far, and bang! You had to stop. Now it's possible -- for example, with a map of the Valley of the Kings that we're doing, with a CD-ROM -- we could produce something that would provide all of the technical information on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings that a professional Egyptologist would need, that a conservator would need, or that a planner for tourism would need. But at the same time, we could include other materials, so you do a fly-through of a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. You stop and look at a wall, zoom in on a figure of a god, push a button, and say, "Tell me about this god. Who is it?" In other words, it's not a CD specifically for the professional, neither is it a simple-minded CD that is great for the eight- or nine-year-old, but doesn't allow him to proceed. I would like to see something that would allow the eight- or nine-year-old to go as far as his imagination would carry him. To go through the simple material, learn it, but then move on into more complex, more detailed aspects of ancient Egyptian history, the history of the Valley of the Kings. I think that could be a really, truly exciting educational tool. And I think it could be a fun one as well.
Archeology aside, as we approach the 21st century, what do you see as the greatest challenges facing our society? Kent Weeks: I think we have a couple of problems. You say "archeology aside," but let me hit archeology for the moment.
One of the biggest problems we have is conservation. Some of my colleagues have told me, and I believe them, that if something isn't done, for example, with the Valley of the Kings now, those tombs are not going to be around in 200 years. And other of my colleagues have said, "That's too optimistic. If we don't do something now, they're not going to be here in 50." That was one of the reasons we started this project to begin with, to make an archeological database so that we could set up a system to conserve and protect these monuments. Because I can't think of anything that would depress me more than knowing that the Valley of the Kings was no longer around. And my grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, or great-great-grandchildren could not get the same pleasure, the same thrill that I have enjoyed over the last years by seeing the Valley of the Kings, or reading about it. And that's just one site among many. You have thousands of sites in Egypt that are in desperate need of conservation. And here in the United States we have thousands of sites that are in desperate need of protection. I think our cultural patrimony is so important, that we're going to have very soon to come to grips with the problems of protection, or it's going to be gone. People are going to read about this in old, dingy library books written in the 1950s, going back through National Geographics and saying, "Gee, wouldn't it have been nice to have been able to see these things? What a pity they're gone." I think that would be an awful thing to have happen.
On a broader scope, we've got a real problem with the environment. Not just the conservation of tombs, but the causes of their deterioration: pollution, rising ground water, irrigation schemes and so forth. Increase in population, the problems of urban sprawl, all of these things that are having a negative impact, not just on archeological monuments, but upon the natural environment, natural resources like parks and reserves and so forth. These too I think are crucial. We have to come to grips in a very serious way. We're going to wind up having to pay big bucks to deal with it, I'm sure, but we've got to come to grips in a serious way with trying to protect these for future generations. Looking back from this vantage point, what advice do you have for young people starting out?
Kent Weeks: If you're lucky enough to -- at an early age -- know what you want to do, go for it. But don't allow yourselves to become so narrow that you fail to look at all of the other wonderful things there are in this world to study. It may very well be that mathematics to you is heaven. You want nothing more than to be a mathematician, you love it with all your heart and soul. But give yourself the opportunity to look at music, at art, at literature. To look at the sciences, the natural environment, geography, what have you -- foreign languages -- and give yourselves as good a liberal arts background as you possibly can. You can go into electrical engineering, you can go into architecture, you can go into whatever you want, but remember, a lot of the tools that you're going to spend three of your four years in college learning are probably going to be tools that are totally out of date within ten years of your beginning to practice. What won't be out of date is what you've learned from literature and art and music, and all of these other areas that are going to provide you with not only your leisure hour activities -- something to do perhaps in your old age -- but they're going to give you the breadth of knowledge that will make everything you do more meaningful.
I cannot imagine ever wanting to hire an architect to build a home for me if that architect were strictly a draftsman who had no concern about human needs, human emotions, about the environment, you name it. I would rather hire an architect who was a good musician than an architect who was really strong at getting proper mixes in concrete. He can always go out and find somebody to do that, or a computer program to do it, but I want somebody with the human side to him. Somebody who has human emotions, has read, has listened, has looked at the products of humankind for the last several thousand years. Because that's the kind of person who will be able to come to me and say, "Sure, I can build you a house. This is the sort of thing that I know is going to work for you. Now, let's sit and talk about it. What do you think about this? What do you think of the proportions? What about the design? This is a place for you to live in, this is not a box where you come and sleep six hours, eight hours a night, and then leave." That's not the person for me. Give me a person with a liberal arts education and I can make an archeologist out of him. Give me somebody who has done nothing but courses in archeological method and theory for four years, there's no way in the world I can make a good, nice, pleasant human being.
Could you tell us one or two books that you would choose to read to your grandchildren?
Finally, what does the American Dream mean to you? Kent Weeks: In my own case I think it's doing what I'm doing. Thank God, I was very fortunate. I do consider myself to have been very fortunate to have known what I wanted to do. But at the same time, to have had mentors who kept saying, "Look at the broader picture. Don't get too focused. Don't get too narrow at this point. You can always narrow your perspective down to the proper shape of a trowel for removing pot shards from the ground later on. Keep it broad, take broader courses. Look at the bigger picture." The opportunity to have that happen, a society that permits it to happen, the willingness of people, teachers, friends, relatives -- except my aunt! -- teachers, friends, relatives to encourage it to happen. I think that is truly the American Dream. It sums up in one word, I guess: Freedom. Thank you, Dr. Weeks. It's been fascinating.
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