It's quite easy to forget what is in the loft, especially after retiring and winding down after working for so many years.   Lofts offer many pleasant surprises, and if the structure is sound, the contents should be very saleable, like the selection of tribal pieces under offer in Greenslade Taylor Hunt in Taunton on Tuesday, which vary from clubs and shields to a Polynesian weapon with a circular head made of a flat stone and shaft bound with cane.

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A collection of Egyptology tomb relics suggest interest of £100-£200, and these include part of a carved wood coffin panel, a bird figure, a New Kingdom parchment fragment and a spearhead in bronze.   There is also a figure of Teti in this 13th century collection, the first king of the VIth dynasty and whose pyramid is the only one open to visitors at Saqqara in Memphis in Egypt...

[More]   This is Cornwall, UK, 12 February 2005.

More on the discovery of Coptic manuscripts in a Cairo tomb.

Polish experts excavating in the southern city of Luxor have discovered three ancient Coptic manuscripts in a pharaonic tomb, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Saturday.

The find was the single most important Coptic discovery since 1945 when a pair of Bedouins stumbled onto the Coptic codices in Nag Hammadi in Egypt's western desert, it said.

The manuscripts date to the sixth century and were concealed in a Middle Kingdom (2000-1800 BC) tomb in Luxor, about 710 kilometres south of Cairo, the council said...

[More]   AFP via Hindustan Times, India, February 19, 2005, via Mirabilis.ca.

About 4000 multi-national tourists rush today to Abu Simbel temple to see the sun perpendicularity on Ramses II statue in his great temple.

The phenomenon happens twice a year.

A major cultural celebration will be held in the presence of Culture Minister, Farouk Hosni, a number of archaeologists and officials in Aswan governorate.

[Source], Egypt State Information Service, February 22, 2005.

A South African woman, owner of a piece of jewellery believed stolen from the tomb of King Tutankhamen, has asked the government in Cairo for help in breaking King Tut's curse after two members of her family suffered untimely deaths.

In a letter to the ministry of culture, the owner of an antique scarab attributed the tragedies that befell her and a previous owner of the artefact to the so-called curse, a ministry official told the Cairo daily Al Akhbar...

[More]   IOL, South Africa, February 21 2005.