Unknown: The Lost Pyramid

The title is a bit misleading and was not really aspecting to spend time in following the whole excavation. Worth watching if you do not have much expectation based on the title. Very Americanized. I loved watching the Saqqara documentary. Intriguing the part in which some items are really discovered at the end of the documentary.

I hope that will be a sequel and some more items and history will be discovered/revealed. I admire the tenacity of all the archeologist that took part on the excavations and the perseverance of the people that helped.

I would have rather seen more of the actual discoveries.

I absolutely love anything to do with ancient Egypt. Anytime a new documentary comes out I'm on it like a fly on $hit. So as soon as this came out I settled down for an hour and a half of informative archaeology.

That is not what I got.

Now, I will preface this review with the fact I'm not a great fan of Hawass. His ego and inability to work with international archaeology teams is pretty well known. But he is an expert, so I didn't go into this expecting to get particularly annoyed at all.

So it starts off okay, he's looking for a lost pyramid and his colleague/student is doing a dig in another location. All good. Now I wont go into the whole synopsis of this film, I'll just convey what I took away from it.

This lost pyramid, is supposed to belong to a Pharoah called Huni. Perhaps we will learn a bit about him or that time period? Maybe we will learn how this period fits into global civilisations? I hope we get a bit of context as to why his pyramid is missing?! No, you get nothing. Because this search for a pyramid has absolutely nothing to do with the find, and everything to do with Hawass. As far as this documentary is concerned, this is more about having Egyptians make a 'great' find under his tutelage than anything else.

And there is nothing wrong with having pride in your nations history and wanting to make your own discoveries, of course. But you don't shrug other experts off because they happened to come from overseas.

So there is a fair amount of time spent on the 'evil' foreigner that arranged digs and 'stole' all these artifacts. He seems to conveniently forget that the 'evil' foreigners were the ones funding these incredibly expensive digs, and the terms with the Egyptian government at the time was that any spoils would be shared between them as reimbursement. But lets just ignore that, shall we?

So, he ends up with 2, rather extraordinary finds, unrelated to the main dig. Pin that in your mind.

His colleague has a far more interesting dig, unearthing a tomb with amazing artifacts - one unlike any other. Now pin that also.

Now, you would be correct in assuming these amazing artifacts, their discovery, their conservation, their meaning and significance, would take up the main bulk of this documentary right? Nope. You get a couple of scenes of onsite, and lab, conservation, and that is it. Literally, you barely see anything. I was wondering if we would actually see anything at all! You do get a small glimpse at the end, in the form of the previous 'Egyptians made a find' motif. Some of the discoveries you only see when they pull them out of the sand, and never again!

I came away from this feeling like it was a big missed opportunity. That somewhere, down the line, it stopped being a documentary about a missing pyramid and tombs, and morphed into a ego driven vanity project...and that's a shame. Because the finds were truly fascinating. I would have much rather had learned about the finds then listen to Hawass and his protégé wax lyrical about how amazing they are.

This isn't about Egypt and her historical mysteries. It's about her extremely egotistical head of antiquities Dr Zahi Hawass. He's absolutely insufferable. I understand having pride in your nations history however his way of going about it is more about him and his love for himself than the good of Egyptian archaeology. He is the extreme opposite of early archaeology, the era of foreign excavators. He hogs everything for himself and refuses to work with others. He needs to find a middle ground and stop making it the Hawass show. Egypt deserves better than him. The world deserves better.

Besides Hawaas and the obviously staged aspects of the show it does let you glimpse into the beauty that is and was Egypt. For that it gets 4 stars.

It is odd that Zahi Hawass decries the looting colonial archaeologists of Egypts recent past while styling himself on Indiana Jones, opossibly the worst example fo the kind. It's never easy watching his self-publicising style but there is no doubt of the passion he feels for his country's past or of the value (as portrayed in this film) of the Egyptians themseves taking the lead in excavating their past.

Two projects are followed each delivering differently for their lead archaeologists and the different reactions of Waziri and Hawass paint an interesting contrast.

Perhaps more problematic for those that believe in archaeology as a unifying discipline, is the political dimension and the way in which the film looks more like a quest for artefacts and glory than for answers in spite of this being a criticism that these current excavators level at their predecessors.

There is a film to be made about the changes in scholarship as peoples explore their own heritage, but this isn't it. There is also a film to be made about the challenges of the archaeology of early dynastic Egypt and this isn't that either.

It looks beautiful though.

If you know anything about modern Egyptology, you know Dr. Zahi Hawass. He makes it hard to miss who he is. Is he arrogant? Absolutely!! And that's why so much has been getting done in the deserts. Dr. Hawass, and his signature hat, is an educator who is open to teaching whoever is passionate about learning, so you will see women of all colors in his pack - and he is always teaching

You will see all that in this documentary. But it isn't about him!!

It's about a find by one of his former students, Dr. Mostafa Waziri. He picked up all the arrogance but none of the compassion of Dr. Hawass.

Parts of the dig are obviously staged, but it is still a fun watch. Look beyond the bravado and arrogance and it's a good documentary on an exciting period of time in the Egyptian dessert. And you might learn something!!