At museum, pride is key to survival

After more than 1,000 people broke into the Egyptian Museum—home of relics of King Tutankhamun and other treasures—Zahi Hawass, overseer of the nation's antiquities, was sure all was lost.

"I feel that everything I have done in the last nine years has been destroyed in one day," he wrote on his blog on Jan. 30.

He was wrong. The museum and its world-famous contents have largely survived the upheaval gripping Egypt. Damaged skulls that he thought belonged to mummies he was working on turned out to be of little value.

Read more: The Wall Street Journal