Did you watch the other night and do you know what I mean about how he treated people? I have seen him before and he didn’t act like that. Total jerk!
He’s the man in charge, and he has to deal with a culture where everyone relies on family connections to get employed (I didn’t say “get work”) and expects to be able to extract squeeze money for everything or going anywhere. This is a pretty old practice, as the pharaonic tombs (including the Great Pyramid) were often open for business as tourist attractions way back in Greek and Roman times. The Great Pyramid was finally resealed late in the Roman period, then some centuries later (during Islamic times) chipped open (I guess they couldn’t find the door, or they chipped open the concrete plug the Romans had put in, no one knows; there’s a non-Egyptian bit of graffito dating from Greek or Roman times over the original door, suggesting that the Muzzies were the chippers).
And I’ll also concede that, given what Egypt is (a Moslem country), it’s a good thing they have *anyone* capable of and willing to run something like an archaeological program. There are plenty of competent Egyptologists (including some Egyptians) working in Egypt because of Hawass. He is a meddler and interferer, but even he has to be careful, because literally nothing would get dug were it not for foreign money, and those sources aren’t going to put up with just anything.
But yeah, he is a great pillock.