Bush and Mubarak - Archaeology Magazine Archive


Egyptian Immortality in Washington: Bush and Mubarak	July 1, 2002

Bush's brief and rather bland message ("Laura and I send our best wishes for a memorable exhibition") is overmatched by Mubarak's, which mentions interesting historical links between Washington, D.C., and ancient Egypt: the 555-foot-tall obelisk that is the Washington Monument was, in an earlier design, a 680-foot-tall pyramid with a 330-foot-tall obelisk at each corner, and in 1808 architect Benjamin Latrobe had submitted an Egyptian inspired design for the Library of Congress. It is too bad that the White House staff did not go to the same trouble as their Egyptian counterparts given the importance of the exhibition and of relations between the two countries.