Khawam was familiar with the antiquities trade from a young age, taking holidays at the pyramids and watching his father Joseph attend to rich Americans at his showroom at the Khan el-Khalili souq, but he only decided to become an Egyptologist after Emile Gaston Chassinat dissuaded him from becoming an aerobatic pilot instead. He had learned to fly while in Paris for his studies. Accordingly, from 1945 to 1950 he studied the skills required of an Egytologist at the Sorbonne's École pratique des hautes études and the Institut Catholique de Paris, such as Coptic, numismatics, hieratic, and German.