ARTINFO has run out of jokes about the industriousness and media savvy of Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, so we will just tell you what the irrepressible archaeologist has pulled off this time. Yesterday, Hawass and his team announced that they had discovered a previously unrecorded set of two tombs with bright wall paintings in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, near Cairo, according to the Associated Press.

Hawass has said that the new tomb is the first find in what could be a massive cemetery that had previously escaped the attention of researchers. He told the wire service that these new structures were “the most distinguished tombs ever found from the Old Kingdom,” and added that he believed that it could be part of the largest burial site in all of ancient Egypt. Another archaeologist working on the site Abdel-Hakim Karar said of the paintings, some of which depict architectural features: “The colors of the false door are fresh as if it was painted yesterday.”

For those interested in keeping up with the multitasking master of Egyptology, here are some highlights from Hawass’ recent exploits:

• January 2009: Hawass asks Sweden’s stergötland County Museum to return 212 objects that were removed from Egypt during the 1920s. The museum politely declines, asking the archaeologist to file a formal request.

• January 2009: Hawass celebrates the apprehension of Lebanese antiquities dealer Ali Abu Taam, who was accused of smuggling almost 300 artifacts out of Egypt. He calls it a “concrete step toward stopping the trade in illegal antiquities around the world.”
• February 2009: Hawass announces the discovery of a 4,500-year-old statue of a man wearing a wig.
• October 2009: Hawass receives a fragment from an ancient shrine, allegedly smuggled out of Egypt, as a gift from New York’s Metropolitan Museum, and declares it a “great deed.”
• December 2009: Hawass renews long-standing demands from the Egyptian government that Germany return the bust of Nefertiti, which currently resides in the Neues Museum in Berlin.
• January 2009: Hawass makes the claim that the ancient pyramids were not, as is commonly believed, built with slave labor.
• February 2010: Hawass touts the $14.5-million restoration of a Christian monastery as an example of his nation’s religious tolerance. “The announcement we are making today shows to the world how we are keen to restore the monuments of our past, whether Coptic, Jewish or Muslim,” he tells reporters.
• April 2010: Hawass sits down with ARTINFO’s Anthony Haden-Guest to discuss the traveling exhibitions devoted to King Tut that the archaeologist organized.
• July 2010: Hawass declares that ancient blueprints had been unearthed during the excavation of a never-completed tunnel.