Biography: Egyptologist – University of Vienna From 1966-69 and 1975-2009, Bietak was the director of the Austrian excavations at Tell El-Dab’a, the eastern Nile site identified as Avaris. Here he found evidence of a massive Semitic population including a unique pyramid-style tomb of a western Asiatic official. Bietak was the founder and Director of the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Cairo from 1973-2009 and has written dozens of important papers, many on the Hyksos period in Egypt.