Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni yesterday agreed to increase the rewards given to citizens who find antiquities on their property and hand them over to the authorities.

The rewards will be increased to a maximum of LE 50,000.

[More], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, December 05, 2004.

You may think the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra ended with their suicides in 30 B.C. It didn't. Their grandson, Ptolemy of Mauretania (1 B.C.-A.D. 40), had a worse fate: the Emperor Caligula invited him to Rome and murdered him. He was the last known descendant of the Ptolemaic dynasty, a family of Greeks originally from Macedonia who ruled Egypt from 305 B.C. to 30 B.C.

In its sale of antiquities on Thursday, Sotheby's New York is auctioning a fine bronze Roman portrait bust of Ptolemy at about age 15. It is seven inches tall. The presale viewing begins today and ends on Tuesday at 1 p.m. Sotheby's estimates it will sell for $300,000 to $500,000.

[More], New York Times, USA, December 03, 2004.

By Steve Martin.

It is fitting that so many major news organizations have asked me to herald the coming to the United States of the artifacts from King Tut's tomb. After all, I'm the one who wrote the silly song about him. I stepped over the backs of many Egyptologists who wanted to write this article, but it's better that they learn their lesson now: silly song writers are powerful and vicious people who will stop at nothing to write an article about subjects they have treated in a silly way.

[More], New York Times, USA, December 05, 2004, via Explorator.

NPR's Alex Chadwick speaks with Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, about a new exhibit featuring the remains and possessions of King Tutankhamun.

One of the most famous faces in antiquity is coming back to Hollywood — the artifacts buried with the young Egyptian king Tutankhamun, who died nearly 3,500 years ago, will again take a world tour...

[More], NPR, December 01, 2004, via Explorator.

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