But the source of the latest controversy to beset Mr. Hawass resembles something straight from the mouth of J. Peterman, the character on “Seinfeld” based on the clothing catalog retailer of the same name.
Mr. Hawass has lent his name to a men’s wear brand: a line of rugged khakis, denim shirts and carefully worn leather jackets that are meant, according to the catalog copy, to hark “back to Egypt’s golden age of discovery in the early 20th century.”
“Zahi Hawass is a novel fashion line, not just for the traveling man, but the man who values self-discovery, historicism and adventure,” says the Web site for the company that designed the line. Some detractors have said that the Hawass clothing, which was first sold at Harrods in London this month, commercializes Egyptian history, and some object to the catalog because they thought — incorrectly, according to the makers of the clothing — that models had sat on or scuffed priceless ancient artifacts during the photo shoot.
“You might be thinking that there is an ethical question surrounding a minister using 5,000 years’ worth of a country’s heritage as a backdrop for private enterprise in a crass fashion,” wrote the journalist Sarah Carr on her blog Inanities.
The furor over the photographs was large enough that Mr. Hawass responded to it on his own blog this week, defending himself against the accusations that antiquities were endangered in the making of the catalog, and also against the suggestion that he is profiting from the marketing of his persona and Egypt’s past.
Any profits he makes, Mr. Hawass said, will go to the Children’s Cancer Hospital in Cairo, which offers free care to children with cancer. The director of the hospital, Dr. Sharif Abul Naga, confirmed that in an interview, although he said that there was not yet a written agreement. He said that Mr. Hawass had contacted him about the possible donation this month.
The clothing line is just the latest development in the life of Mr. Hawass, who has been criticized for being imperious at times but is also respected for having popularized Egyptian antiquities.
In March, things became so difficult for him that he stepped down from his position as antiquities minister, only to be reinstated a few weeks later.
Now, after a little more than two weeks back in the job, he is embroiled in a legal dispute over the management of the Egyptian Museum bookstore in Cairo, in which a judge on Sunday sentenced him to a year in jail and ordered him removed from his job. Mr. Hawass said yesterday that the court’s decision had been stayed, pending an appeal.
In the clothing field, Mr. Hawass already sells a line that reproduces his trademark Stetson hat, which very much resembles the Indiana Jones hat. (Mr. Hawass claims that he has made the hat more famous than Indiana Jones and that he gave one to President Obama when he visited Egypt.) Those profits also go to charity, Mr. Hawass said.
The clothing line was actually initiated by John Norman and Andres Numhauser, executives of Arts and Exhibitions International, the American company that organized the King Tut show that recently appeared at the Discovery Center in Times Square. They have also arranged shows of artifacts pulled from the wreck of the Titanic and treasures from Cleopatra’s palace.
Mr. Norman said that half of the project’s profits would go to him and Mr. Numhauser and that the remainder would go to the hospital. He said: “I’m just not really sure what everybody’s all up in arms about. We’ve been selling Dr. Hawass’ hat in the gift shops of our exhibitions for many years now.”
Although the Hawass line has been in development since last year, it drew attention only recently, when Egyptians on Twitter came across a blog post by the American photographer who shot the Egyptian artifacts. In one image the model leans against a display case that holds a golden sarcophagus; in another, he appears to rest his foot on a wall covered with hieroglyphs; in a third, he sits in King Tutankhamun’s gold throne. The images, and the title of the blog post (“Night at the Museum”), led to rumors that the photographs had been taken in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and accusations that Mr. Hawass was endangering Egypt’s priceless heritage for his own commercial gain.
As it turns out, however, nothing was harmed in the making of the catalog. The photographs were shot in the Tutankhamun exhibition in Times Square, not at the Egyptian Museum, and while the artifacts in the display cases were real, the throne was a copy, according to Lora Flaugh, a designer and brand strategist whose company Art Zulu created the line. As for the wall covered with hieroglyphs, it was an image from a book, and the model was just Photoshopped in, she said.
“There were people there at the museum at all times, there were security guards, we were very careful,” Ms. Flaugh said.
The catalog that resulted resembles the humorously literary tone of the J. Peterman catalog, satirized on “Seinfeld.” Consider, for example, this description of a man’s shirt:
“Hand painted, washed and repaired, the Karnak shirt recalls the rugged experience of excavating the ancient tombs in Egypt.”
Somewhere adventurous men are resting easier.
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