Japanese-Egyptian team hunting for new tomb at Giza

[quintessentone]

No, governments don't fund digs.  If a site is small, it can be cleared in a few months.  For a big site, you're talking about decades of work (like Gobekli Tepi.)

Archaeologists are generally professors, who are getting funds for the dig from the university.

Governments occasionally fund digs (Texas state government will fund an archaeologist to determine if a site is of archaeological interest...but won't fund a full dig there.  Just an exploration to see if it's a notable site) but most are funded through public grants from universities... and, if involving students, are partly funded by the diggers themselves and the course fees that they pay for the course.  Diggers ("shovelbums") and students also pay for their own food and housing.

The current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_o...es_(Egypt) is being run by a businessman - previously it had been run by Egyptologists.  I don't know what rules changes there are in place now.

As I was digging (pun intended) for more information, the Egyptian government is funding this - Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. I can only assume the Japanese government is funding it also, but it's difficult to find out exactly who or what from the Japanese side is involved. Like this article for example, it only refers to 'Japan' funding this dig. What is 'Japan'?

https://www.egyptindependent.com/japan-t...-official/

Anyway, all signs point to this dig being funded by both governments and I still don't get what Japan gets out of it.