The Orphaned Egyptologist
Victor d'Alethea is an archaeologist who has been working in Egypt for over twenty years. He went on his first dig when he was still an undergrad at the age of twenty when one of the members decided to cancel at the last minute. He was a wealthy Turkish student that eloped and ran away to Italy with a girl from Persia. It was a very strange situation. Ali Ibrahim was a student in political science. His father thought that the field lacked enough hard labor, so he decided to fund an expedition to Egypt provided that his son was a member of the team. Well Ali was no idiot. He knew his father's methods inside and out. He simply told Professor [British Name] that he could "double" the funding, so to speak, if he just kept his mouth shut about his plans to elope and never set foot in Egypt.
Victor is also an orphan. The only thing that he knows about his roots are that he was born in a small town. The medical and adoption records were destroyed in a fire (Alexandria VA or LA?) shortly after he was born.
Victor is the stereotypical Egyptologist. He doesn't speak any Arabic and considers the Egypt of today to be somewhat a backward society. He despises Islam and believes the Christians of Egypt to be the true descendants of the pharaohs. Victor is truly at his happiest when he is far away from modern Egyptian society and close to the antiquities. When Victor is not excavating, he teaches Art History at a small liberal arts college on the east coast. He has an unorthodox approach to ancient art. He believed that the ancient Egyptians invented art and Literature. He believed that it was the Egyptian concept of the afterlife that served as the muse for the visual arts and the craft of fiction.
Unbeknownst to him, Victor is about to embark on the journey of a lifetime. He and his team are caught in the middle of the country's revolution on January 25th and have to change their plans in order to protect their work and findings so far.