The Discovery Channel glams up mummies, pharaohs and infamous queens.

Conspiracy, intrigue, incest and murder.   Mind-altering drugs, ruthless violence, ritual killings and child sacrifice.   Ancient mysteries, forensic science, timeless riddles and criminal psychology.   Watching the previews for five new documentaries and a 13-part television series - all set to air in late March on the Discovery Channel's week-long celebration of ancient Egypt - is like catching a particularly racy set of blockbuster movie trailers.   All drama, suspense, action and adventure.   For a television channel with an established reputation for producing sober and serious documentaries, this is energetic stuff.   And while these programs return to Egyptology's predictable subjects - the Sphinx, Ramesses, Cleopatra, mummified pharaohs, looted ancient treasures and painstaking archaeological excavations - they do so with a high-tech, cinematic twist...

[More]  The Daily Star, Lebanon, February 10, 2005.

The Supreme Council for Antiquities has sent an appeal to UNESCO urging it to participate in saving the Mar Mina (Saint Mina) monuments in the North Coast.   The monuments, which include the site of an ancient Basilica, are on UNESCO's list of most important world monuments.   Another appeal concerning Coptic monuments was sent by the monasteries of Wadi El-Natrun (where the Pope often goes for meditation).   Most of the monasteries are suffering from the encroachment of underground water and from the advent of highways, which are causing cracks in the ancient walls surrounding them.

[Source]   Egypt Today, Volume 26, Issue 02, February 2005.

The following is an article that starts of sounding touristy and then gets a bit political but I thought I would post it anyway.

Aswan at Christmas time is a combination of the rocky Mediterranean and the sensuous Caribbean.   Sailboats run, cruise boats saunter, and people gaze at the beautiful sunsets over the rocky cliffs.   It was while looking at such a sunset that I met the old man.

Beside the Old Cataract Hotel, from whose balcony Agatha Christie conceived Murder on the Nile, there sits a three-tiered private park overlooking the gleaning river.   My companion and I stopped at this most romantic of settings to capture the essence of Aswan.   From the Middle Kingdom tombs in the distance to Lord Kitchner's Botanical Garden on the Elephantine Island sitting astride the Nile, a panoply of beauty spread before us...

[More]  The Louisiana Weekly, Louisiana, February 7, 2005.