Sayed Tawfik; Archeologist Led Egypt Antiquities Work

CAIRO — Sayed Tawfik, Egypt’s chief archeologist and chairman of antiquities, has died of a heart attack. He was 54.

Friends of Tawfik said he suffered the heart attack Thursday night and died instantly.

Tawfik, a former dean of archeology and professor of Egyptology at Cairo University, was the author of half a dozen books on Egyptian antiquities.

As chairman of the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, he was in charge of all restoration and conservation work on Egypt’s vast legacy of pyramids, tombs, temples and other relics threatened by time, pollution and the demands of an exploding population.

But among Egyptologists, Tawfik is remembered most as an excavator, especially for his work on a windblown bluff overlooking the ancient royal burial grounds of Sakkara south of Cairo.

He began the excavation eight years ago. In 1985, he uncovered an unknown burial ground from the time of Pharaoh Ramses II, tombs hidden 33 feet below the desolate hillside that yielded a rich store of data about some of the most important officials of the Egypt of 3,250 years ago.

Friends said Tawfik was at Sakkara on Thursday.

Tawfik spoke of his love for Egyptology and excavation in an interview on Tuesday, his last.

“Each time I excavate, I’m rewriting history,” he said. “Imagine that before I began the dig in Sakkara, we never knew Ramses II had a history there. History is a puzzle, and I’m helping to write new chapters.”

Tawfik became chairman of antiquities in December, 1988, after a 10-month battle over who or what caused a boulder to fall from the shoulder of the Sphinx, which cost Tawfik’s predecessor his job.

Widespread concern persists over the future of the half-man, half-beast statue at the foot of Giza Plateau.

But Tawfik remained optimistic that the Sphinx would survive. He made weekly visits, including one Tuesday morning.

Survivors include Tawfik’s German-born wife, Frieda; his son, Tarek, an Egyptology student at Cairo University, and daughter, Sophie, a pupil at a German school in Cairo.