STATEMENT FROM JOHN ANTHONY WEST AND GRAHAM HANCOCK
DATED 17 MAY 1998

   We're releasing this statement following our participation in a one-week conference on the mysteries of ancient Egypt. The conference was held on board the MS Statendam cruising from Vancouver to Alaska and back. The other speakers at the conference were Dr. Zahi Hawass, Director of the Giza Plateau, Dr. E.C. Krup, Director of the Griffiths Observatory, Los Angeles, and Dannion Brinkley, author and explorer of the afterlife. The conference was organized by Visions Travel Ltd., of Los Angeles and moderated by radio talk show host Art Bell.

   During the course of spirited debate, a posting on the internet was brought to our attention by Art Bell. The posting had been written by Larry Hunter and Amargi Hillier and asserted falsely that Dr. Zahi Hawass had been fired from his post by the Egyptian government. We are aware that this posting is one of many by Mr. Hunter and his friend Boris Said which have misrepresented the truth concerning Dr. Hawass and indeed slandered him.

   As is widely known we ourselves have had serious differences with Dr. Hawass over many years. However over the past six months we have been engaged in a civil and increasingly amiable dialogue with Dr Hawass. This dialogue has convinced us that our differences with him, however acrimoniously expressed, were largely due to mutual misperceptions. We therefore feel it incumbent on ourselves to set the record straight and to assure all who are interested in these matters that the statements made by Hunter & Co are utterly false, misleading and malicious and, most important of all, are backed by no evidence whatsoever.

   We would like to state, for the record, that while our disagreements with Dr. Hawass over matters Egyptological still continue, we are in the process of  exploring them with him in depth with the kind of civil and courteous debate that is appropriate for science and scholarship. We are now absolutely convinced that the precious monuments of the Giza plateau could not be in better hands than those of Dr. Hawass. We have seen him at work. We have seen his passion and genuine love for the pyramids and the Sphinx. And we have seen that above all else he is determined to ensure the preservation of these monuments for the future.

   There are no conspiracies. There are no hidden finds. There is no skullduggery. And we challenge Larry Hunter and his colleagues to produce one shred of documentable evidence that will support their assertions.

   We have met and talked at length to Mr. Hunter, who has frequently attempted to engage us in his agenda. We have reviewed his claims to have special access to and knowledge of the monuments of Giza, and found these claims to be utterly without substance. We fully respect Hunter's right to access the internet. We fully support everybody's right to access the  internet. But in our considered opinion Larry Hunter's postings are the
Egyptological equivalent of child pornography and are a great disservice to all of us who genuinely seek to unravel the mysteries of Egypt.

Signed,
John Anthony West and Graham Hancock

Also read:
Note to Larry Hunter from The Guardian


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