• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Egypt Travel Blog

  • Cities & Regions
    • Cairo
    • Giza
    • Luxor
    • Aswan
    • Abu Simbel
    • Alexandria
    • The Red Sea
    • Siwa
  • The Sites
    • The Pyramids & Sphinx
    • Downtown Cairo Sites
    • Luxor Sites
    • Aswan Sites
    • Abu Simbel
    • Alexandria Sites
    • Edfu
    • Kom Ombo
    • Abydos
    • Dendera
    • Siwa
  • Museums
    • All Cairo Area Museums
    • Old Egyptian Museum
    • Grand Egyptian Museum
    • National Museum of Egyptian Civilization
    • Abdeen Palace Museum
    • Royal Carriages Museum
    • Manial Palace Museum
    • Nubian Museum
    • Sharm el-Sheikh Museum 
  • Food & Dining
  • Hotel Reviews
    • Greater Cairo Hotels
    • Luxor Hotels
    • Red Sea Hotels
    • Alexandria Hotels
  • Travel Advice
  • Trips
  • News
  • The Podcast

“Dr.” Sherif and the Great Papyrus “Institute” Scam

March 3, 2017 by Egypt Travel Blog

The very first week after I moved to Egypt I met a guy named Sherif. I was walking around Tahrir Square in the center of Cairo with some friends, taking in the magical chaos of one of the largest cities in the world and getting accustomed to our new home for the next year. As we strolled along the street in front of the Egyptian Museum, a man approached us. His name was Sherif. He was famous, but we didn’t know it at the time.

Sherif was a true artist, of the con variety, but an artist nonetheless. He was skilled, crafty, and intelligent – a true genius. But he preyed on unsuspecting foreigners wandering around the streets outside of the Egyptian Museum like we were that lovely autumn day.

Sherif introduced himself and was quite a pleasant man. He spoke great English. He was intense but friendly. He seemed genuinely interested in who we were, where we were from, what the thought of Egypt so far, and what all we had seen. He thought we were just coming out of the museum, hence his eagerness to pounce.

Sherif said that he was an Egyptologist. Not just any Egyptologist, but the head of the “Papyrus Institute.” He explained that this research facility was involved in the study and interpretation of ancient Egyptian documents, as well as the restoration of ancient art and artifacts. He said that after 9/11, tourism to Egypt fell off sharply and that scientists like him had taken up tours, sales, and other means of side work to support their families.

Seemed legit. We were, after all, brand spanking new to Egypt and didn’t know any better. He could have said he was the heir to the Pharaonic throne and we’d probably have believed him. Even though we were living there now, we were only a week in, so for all practical purposes we were just tourists in terms of experience and gullibility.

The two friends I was with and moved to Egypt to study Egyptology, so they were eager to pepper Sherif with questions about his profession. Where had he studied? Where had he excavated? What materials did he use for his restoration work? I distinctly remember him uttering a quick reply of “uhh, plaster” to the last question and quickly changing the subject.

Sherif explained that the “Papyrus Institute” he headed was about to relocate to a new facility and that they were eager to downsize their collection, which could not be fully accommodated in the new facility. He offered to take us to see the institute’s storage facility, but first he insisted upon inviting us to tea.

He led us away from the open public areas of Tahrir Squre to the back alleys of a nearby neighborhood. As we meandered through the smaller streets of the hood, we tried to make conversation to mask our nervousness. It wasn’t a scared kind of nervousness, but more of a shy nervousness. After all, we were just out for an exploratory stroll, and now we were suddenly being invited to tea in a local area by an out-of-work Egyptologist. How strange yet cool.

Over tea Sherif got more and more anxious and energetic. He tried to avoid the conversations my friends wanted to have about the specifics of Egyptology and instead peppered us with more questions about where we were from and what we thought of Egypt so far.

Being from the southern United States, I was very unaccustomed to hot tea and opted for a cold soda instead. This seemed to be off-putting for Sherif, who passive-aggressively told my two mates all about how I was making a mistake by not drinking hot tea with them because the weather was so hot and I’d be hotter by drinking a cold beverage. It didn’t make sense then, and it still doesn’t today. But being Southern I was also polite and just smiled while sipping my delicious ice-cold Coca-Cola as we all dripped sweat even in the shade.

During the course of our conversation, Sherif mentioned that one of his sons was getting married the following week, and he insisted we come to the wedding as his guests. When we were done, Sherif also insisted on paying. The tab for three teas and one cola was only about twenty Egyptian pounds, but he wouldn’t let us even attempt to pay.

Sherif then walked us further into the hood to a back alley shop that was full of papyrus. There was papyrus on the walls, on tables, stacked on the floor in plastic sheaths, on tables in a second room. It was everywhere. It didn’t seem very institute-y, but it did seem like some sort of storage facility. As we browsed the hundreds of sheets at his insentience, he hovered and commented on each one we pulled out to look at.

After about 10 minutes, he began suggesting ones for us to take home, his voice becoming sterner and more commanding. We were polite for a while, commenting on the beauty of several nice pieces. But ultimately we were uninterested in shopping that afternoon and our disinterest began to show.

At this point, Sherif started becoming more desperate. Perhaps the thought of having spent a half-hour salivating over the potential spend of a fresh group of seemingly fresh tourists was too much for him and he began to crack.

“This piece. This piece is only twenty dollars, my friend. Twenty dollars is nothing to you, my friend. It is nothing.”

The pressure began to mount, both for Sherif and for us. He went around to each of us pressuring us to buy something.

“My friend, you can buy this one. This is one of a kind. Remember we are moving tomorrow. You will never have a chance to buy these pieces again. These prices are so cheap to you. This is nothing to you.”

After several minutes of being in the Egyptian pressure cooker, my friends and I looked at each other and mumbled some jokes under our breath, desperate to find a way to politely get out of this situation.

With Sherif’s continued hovering and whip-cracking, we finally cracked ourselves and agreed to buy one piece each. I can’t remember how much we paid, but it had to be around $15-20 per piece of papyrus.

After we paid, Sherif was as quick to usher us out the door as we were relieved to finally be released. When I asked Sherif how we were supposed to know where to go for his son’s wedding, he hurriedly muttered, “just email me at sherif at yahoo.com.”

I never tried the email to see if it was really him, but I’d bet twenty dollars and a piece of fake papyrus that it wasn’t.

That was my introduction to the highly advanced art of Egyptian tourist scams. Later throughout the year I’d often find myself strolling through Tahrir Square and occasionally I’d see Sherif intensely following a small group of tourists down the street and talking to them.

Sometimes I thought of approaching and warning them about his scam. But it seemed like it would be interfering with the natural process of a kill in the wild. Getting ripped off a little is a part of the experience of visiting Egypt. And Sherif is like a lion prowling the plains of Tahrir Square for unsuspecting American or English or German gazelles.

For the record, that same papyrus souvenir we bought for twenty dollars from “Doctor” Sherif can be acquired for a mere eighty cents from more honest salesmen outside of the museum’s exit gates.

You live and you learn, and the cycle of life – and tourism – continues.

Filed Under: Beware, Cairo, Scams

Other Neat Stuff

The Mystery of King Tut’s “Other Worldly” Burial Dagger Finally Solved

Although the entire field of Egyptology is only about 200 years old, dating back to the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone and the unlocking of the ancient hieroglyphic script in which the civilization’s history was recorded, the study of ancient Egyptian history and artifacts is still accelerating at an astonishing pace. With the application of […]

New archaeological finds in Egypt continue to astonish

Important discoveries out of Egypt have again been flooding the global news as archaeologists continue to explore beneath the sands of the Saqqara necropolis near Cairo, which is home to temples, burial grounds, and pyramids of the once-mighty ancient empire. Over the last year, researchers have unearthed at least 210 sarcophagi not touched since their burial two millennia ago, including the coffin of Queen Neit, […]

More Unsealed Mummies Discovered at Saqqara

If you’ve ever wandered around the rocky grounds of the Saqqara royal necropolis, the site of the Pharaoh Djoser’s famous Step Pyramid just south of the most famous pyramids at Giza, you’ve likely walked above hundreds of undiscovered treasures, mummies, and noble tombs still hidden in the ground beneath your feet. Frequent readers of the […]

Step Pyramid Interior Reopens to the Public

The Step Pyramid of Djoser at Sakkara is one of the most unique pyramids in Egypt and the oldest pyramid still standing anywhere in the world. While most of the other famous pyramids nearby at Giza and Dashur have been generally open for the public to go inside of them to explore the narrow passageways […]

Mummies on the Move

There have been quite a few recent developments about mummies in Egypt lately, including the largest discovery of mummies in over a century near Luxor, which was followed by the eruption of a minor a controversy over where those mummies will now be housed (national officials prefer the new Grand Egyptian Museum while local Luxor […]

Pet Mummies

We all know that the ancient Egyptians mummified the dead bodies of their loved ones with elaborate rituals and scientific rigor, whether they were a revered pharaoh or, if non-royal Egyptians could afford it, a beloved family member. But even in modern times, we can understand that human love and affection extend beyond just our […]

New Major Mummy Discovery Unveiled in Luxor

The largest new discovery of ancient Egyptian mummies in over a century has been revealed to the public by Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities at a ceremony in the southern city of Luxor, resting place to hundreds of ancient pharaohs, other royalty, high court officials, and evidently more middle class folks as well. The discovery, which […]

New Discovery Makes Pharaohs Look Modern, Sort Of

A team of archaeologists work in northern Egypt have discovered the site of an ancient settlement that makes even the Pharaohs and the Pyramids look young, relatively speaking. The discovery was made in the town of Tel el-Samara, which is located north of Cairo in the fertile Nile Delta region. Egypt’s most famous pyramids at […]

Tracing the Physical Legacy of Cleopatra

On this year’s International Women’s Day today, Egypt Travel Blog would like to pay homage to one of ancient Egypt’s most famous figures and a woman whose life and legacy are worthy of remembrance. Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in all of human history. She was a beloved queen of an ancient […]

New Discoveries

One of the amazing things about Egypt is that the entire country is still an active archaeological site. With over five thousand years of history under its sands, the slice that we know about and have uncovered so far is by no means all there is to be discovered. When you visit the Pyramids couples, […]

Ancient Knowledge and Modern Remembrance

It’s National Library Week in the United States, so it’s as good of a time as any to talk about one of the world’s most famous libraries – the ancient Library of Alexandria. After the death of Alexander the Great and the founding of the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt, the Library of Alexandria was created […]

Visiting the Pyramids of Giza

Egypt’s most popular historical site, and one of the most well known the world over, is of course the Pyramids, the most famous of which are located just outside of Cairo. The greater Cairo area is a sprawling metropolis of nearly 20 million people spread out over dozens of suburbs on both sides of the […]

Luxor Temple

Despite its prominent name, Luxor Temple is actually the second most famous temple in Luxor behind the much larger and greater Temple of Karnak just down the road. However, Luxor Temple has several unique features of its own that merit a visit and some independent attention. The first and most obvious aspect of Luxor Temple […]

The Valley of the Queens

The Valley of the Queens in the area of Luxor is a lesser visited royal necropolis in which various family members of several dynasties of pharaohs were laid to rest. As the name suggests, many queens were buried here in elaborate tombs befitting their status and wealth, but many princesses and even princes had dedicated […]

World’s Oldest Haute Couture

Anyone a fan of vintage fashion? How about 5000 year old couture? One of the neat things about Egypt is that its advanced civilization was good at both recording and preserving its own history. Unlike most other of the world’s great ancient civilizations whose moist climates caused the disintegration of its remnants thousands of years […]

Primary Sidebar

Check out our hit podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!

Join our “Egypt Insider” email list!

Loading

Beware – Scams, Taboos, Faux Pas, & Other Crazy Stuff

“Dr.” Sherif and the Great Papyrus “Institute” Scam

All About Camels… and the Pyramids Camel Scam

What NOT to Wear in Egypt

Cairo’s Chaotic Traffic

Taking the Right Type of Taxi in Cairo & Giza

The Super Aggressive “Taxi Jumpers” at the Giza Pyramids

Discoveries, Artifacts, and Unique Takes on Egyptian History

The Mystery of King Tut’s “Other Worldly” Burial Dagger Finally Solved

New archaeological finds in Egypt continue to astonish

More Unsealed Mummies Discovered at Saqqara

Step Pyramid Interior Reopens to the Public

Mummies on the Move

Pet Mummies

New Major Mummy Discovery Unveiled in Luxor

New Discovery Makes Pharaohs Look Modern, Sort Of

Egypt Travel Blog and the Egypt Travel Blog Podcast are produced in partnership with Jetset.Ninja and Egypt Elite.
. .