Recently I went to visit the Great Pyramid of Khufu and observe the work of the Djedi team. Djedi is a joint international-Egyptian mission, which I named after Djedi, the magician who Khufu consulted when planning the layout of his pyramid. The purpose of this project is to send a robotic tunnel explorer into the two “air shafts” that lead from the Queen’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid of Khufuto gather evidence to determine the purpose of the shafts. 

I would like to thank the Spanish Ambassador, Antonio Lopez Martinez and wife, Nichole, for their hospitality and service to the Egyptian people. I became a very good friend of them when I went to give a lecture in Seville in 2009. I will never forget this visit and the kindness of all the people that I met in Spain. Last week Ambassador Martinez and Nichole hosted a dinner in my honor. It was a great time and several other ambassadors attended.

Recently the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo (DAIK) held a two day conference at the Supreme Council of Antiquities’ Ahmed Kamal Pasha Hall in Zamalek. The conference was entitled “Rituals and Sanctuaries in the Archaeology of Egypt” and addressed many interesting topics including origin of ritual, sacred space, and ritual offerings. I was very happy to open this conference and to acknowledge the DAIK for their extensive contributions to the field of Egyptology, especially their ongoing excavations at Elephantine near Aswan.

I had a very nice visit with the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila. He contacted my office and requested to meet with me while he was visiting Cairo and so I went to see him at the pyramids. The President was very interested in seeing several of the monuments at Giza and we spent nearly an hour there.