Dr. Kent Weeks

In 1995, Dr. Kent R. Weeks made one of the greatest archeological discoveries of the century, the tomb of the 50 sons of Pharaoh Rameses II. A vast complex, unseen by human eyes for over 3,0000 years, it is the largest tomb in Egypt's fabled Valley of the Kings. Kent Weeks was fascinated by ancient Egypt from childhood. He undertook his first field work in Egypt while earning a Master's degree in anthropology at the University of Washington. After conducting a groundbreaking x-ray study of mummies in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, he received his Ph.D. in Egyptology from Yale University. He has worked in the Egyptian collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, taught at the University of California, Berkeley and was Field Director of the University of Chicago's Epigraphic and Architectural Survey at Luxor, Egypt. Since 1988, he has been Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. Having previously explored and documented a group of tombs to the west of the Great Pyramid, Professor Weeks founded the Theban Mapping Project to survey and map the vast complex of tombs and temples on the West Bank of the Nile, across the river from the ancient city of Thebes. His 1995 discovery of the labyrinthine tomb of the sons of Ramesses, full of magnificent artifacts, captivated the world. This podcast was recorded the following year, when Kent Weeks was honored at the Academy of Achievement's Summit in Sun Valley, Idaho.