Sharon Waxman is on leave from the Hollywood beat at the New York Times bureau on Wilshire to write a book about museums and the international antiquities market. She's currently in Egypt, checking out the pyramids for the book. While on the road, she is posting about her progress in a blog at her personal website.

None of us know the name of the man who designed what is perhaps the greatest monument ever built by mankind, the Great Pyramid, some 2500 years before the birth of Christ (his grave, unmarked today, overlooks his masterpiece, but consists of nothing but a pile of mud and sandstone). Hamiunu designed this for his pharaoh Khufu, or Cheops in Greek, who was buried within.

The pyramids, subject of poetry and legend for millenia, deserve every drop of ink and bead of sweat ever expended on them. Should the sole knowledge we have of its designer be located at the museum being built nearby? That's the question. On another front, I also interviewed a lawyer today who is working on a new law that would allow Egypt to sue for artifacts it believes were stolen, much as Greece and Italy have been busy doing.

By email Waxman discounts this week's Gawker report that she will be landing in Metro after her leave. It's a long way off and her next stop for the NYT has not been decided, she says.

Photo: Sharon Waxman