Science Quote by Zahi Hawass

Granite doesn’t usually speak, but Hawass has a way of making it headline-ready. In two brisk sentences, he turns a pile of fragments into a national event: “many parts… were found” is the measured language of archaeology, but “the most important” is pure narrative triage. He’s not just cataloging debris; he’s ranking it for an audience that already understands the stakes of a name like Ramses II. “Features close to Ramses II” is deliberately cautious - an evidentiary hedge that signals scientific credibility - while still planting the irresistible possibility of identification. It’s the tightrope Hawass often walks: scholarship framed as spectacle.

The restoration note performs double duty. On the surface, it’s logistics. Underneath, it reassures the public (and funders) that the story will continue: discovery isn’t the climax, it’s the pilot episode. “Needs some restoration” implies future labor, institutional stewardship, and the promise of eventual display. The weight estimate - “between four and five tons” - sounds like a technical aside, but it’s also an awe metric. Tonnage is a proxy for significance: not just an artifact, a monument.

Context matters: Hawass speaks from modern Egypt’s high-pressure intersection of science, tourism, and cultural sovereignty. The subtext is custodianship. By emphasizing Ramses-like features and manageable restoration, he’s effectively saying: this past is ours, it’s verifiable, and it’s coming back into view.