ML137967
People
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
- Playback
- Not specified
Media notes
Subject: (Interview). Subtitle: Douglas Preston. Timecode In: 00:00:05. Timecode out: 00:24:49. Notes: Egyptology; Kent Weeks. Equipment Notes: Stereo=1; Dual-Channel Mono. NPR/NGS Radio Expeditions Kent Weeks Segment Douglas Preston interview April 29, 1999 DP 00:19 Well this is Doug Preston and I write about archeology for the New Yorker magazine and I also write novels. DS 00:28 Now you spent some time with Kent Weeks for this New Yorker profile you did of him. How much time did you actually spend with him? DP 00:35 Well I was in Egypt for about two weeks, in the Valley of the Kings. DS 00:40 Well what's it like there, how hot is it? DP 00:44 When I was there it wasn't that hot, it was during the Egyptian winter there. I was hotter in the tomb than I was outside. I think in the tomb it was 100 degrees with a 100% humidity, brutal. So it was very nice to get outside in the Egyptian sun after being in the tomb. DS 1:00 It gets hot, though, in other parts of the year. DP 1:04 It does, it can get extremely hot, up into the 110-120 degrees quite often. DS 1:13 In two weeks you got to know Kent Weeks fairly well? DP 1:18 Yes, I spent pretty much every day with him. We'd go into the tomb early in the morning, the workman started very early in the morning and then quit around noon so we had a lot of fun together. We even stayed in the same hotel for a while. DS 1:34 Is he a fun kind of person, what kind of person is he? DP 1:38 He's an outrageously fun kind of person. He's very different from the tweedy, respectable archeologist that you might think he is. He's a wonderful raconteur, he's much beloved by his Egyptian workmen, he's got a terrific boyish sense of humor, he loves to tell off color stories, sometimes they're quite obscene, and he's very outspoken about his colleagues, both his friends and his foes. DS 2:08 What does he look like? DP 2:11 Well he's, let's see, how can I describe him, he wears a tilly hat, he's uh oh let's see...he's somewhat...I'm sorry, I'm having a little bit of trouble....he's got a face that's somewhat reddened by the sun, he's got a jovial manner, not a terrible excess of hair but he normally wears his tilly hat. He dresses perhaps a little bit like an explorer, in khakis. He's in his fifties, a physically fit person. He likes a glass of wine in the evening. What else can I say, he's a delightful person, he's great company. DS 3:25 The first thing that people notice about Kent Weeks is that he's a celebrity....can you talk a little bit about the aspect of his fame, about the media coverage that he's received. DP 3:42 Well he was, for most of his life, like most Egyptologists, an archeologist who absolutely loved his work and never saw any kind of fame. And I think when he discovered KV5 the uproar that ensued was bewildering and somewhat off-putting to him. And at one point he banned the press from KV5 because he wasn't getting any work done. He used to say that all the excitement was, I'm trying to remember the Arabic phrase, a lot of empty talk. He just didn't quite believe that the fame and the interest in KV5 would be enduring. But I think later he came to realize that one of the great problems with KV5 is that it's an absolutely gigantic tomb, it's the largest tomb discovered in Egypt, it's 5-6 feet deep in debris. And the cost of excavating that is astronomical, 100s and 1000s of dollars over a year for maybe 10 or 20 years will be necessary to clear the tomb out and so I think he saw that his fame was a great way to convert into money for pursuing this wonderful project which will last him the rest of his life, I have no doubt. DS 5:01 The day that he actually found the tomb...he really knew right then that he was onto something. DP 5:13 Well there were two stages, the first stage was the discovery o... (Notes truncated)
Technical information
- Recorder
- Microphone
- Accessories
Archival information
- Cataloged
- 23 Oct 2008 - Ben Brotman
- Digitized
- 22 Oct 2008 - Ben Brotman
- Edited
- 23 Oct 2008 - Ben Brotman