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Zahi Hawass gives his reasons for resigning and reminds us of a fundamental truth, as an archaeologist in the current situation in Egypt he is unable to ensure the protection of the country’s antiquities from looting, vandalism and theft. The pressing need to work effectively for the protection of the archaeological record wherever possible from destructive exploitation should be at the forefront of the mind of every concerned archaeologist everywhere. Zahi Hawass has many loud critics in archaeological circles in Europe and North America, but somehow I cannot see any archaeologists there in protest about being unable to stop the commercial exploitation of the archaeological record. In Great Britain archaeologists call artefact hunters destructively selectively extracting all the “collectables” out of the accessible archaeological sites of the nation their “partners”. I do not see many of my British colleagues taking any sort of moral stand whatsoever on this erosion of the finite resource. Hawass did.