The Third Annual Feast of Archaeologists

When I first became Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, I had the idea that there should be a special occasion each year to celebrate Egyptian archaeologists and their work. It took me two years to settle on the perfect date, but three years ago we decided to set January 14th aside as “Ahmed Pasha Kamal Day” in honor of the first Egyptian scholar of Egyptology.

Since then, each year, we have held a "Feast of the Archaeologists" on this day with a festive event at the Zamalek Opera House. We honor colleagues, both living and deceased, who have contributed to archaeology and heritage preservation in Egypt.

This year, in celebration of the third annual Feast of the Archaeologists, I decided that we should recognize past directors of the Egyptian Antiquities Service (known from 1971 to 1993 as the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, and since 1993 as the Supreme Council of Antiquities). I gave a speech about the progress that has been made in improving employment conditions for Egyptian archaeologists. I mentioned the fact that salaries are three times what they were only a few years ago, and that new monthly bonuses, unique among those available to government employees, are now awarded to our best archaeologists. Top SCA employees now travel abroad with exhibitions and receive generous stipends for this work. We are building a new social club for archaeologists, to give them a sense of community and identity, and we are making health insurance available to them for the first time. I know that our foreign colleagues have expressed concern in the past about the salaries and benefits available to SCA employees, and I hope that this will help to allay their worries.