In a step received the French people's appreciation, President Hosni Mubarak sent a congratulation cable to the 92 years old French archaeologist Christiane Desroches Noblecourt, the specialist in the Pharaonic civilization on the occasion of her obtaining the highest French decoration for her distinguished contributions in Egyptology.

In this message President Mubarak expressed full congratulations for the French archaeologist on behalf of the Egyptian people, confirming his own evaluation for her achievements...

[More], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, February 20, 2005.

When Egyptian Queens Got Elaborate Tombs of Their Own

A sudden, dramatic change in Egyptian queens' burials occurred at the beginning of the 19th Dynasty (1292-1190 B.C.).   On the west bank of the Nile at Thebes, a Y-shaped valley that had served as a cemetery for male officials was adapted as a burial place for royal women.   The necropolis was then re-named the Place of the Beautiful Ones (Ta Set Neferu), echoing the site's modern name: the Valley of the Queens...

[Excerpt]   Heather Lee McCarthy, Archaeology Odyssey, March / April 2005.

An Australian archeological team working in Egypt has unearthed three ancient wooden coffins in the past two months.

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni told reporters Saturday that the coffins, which he described as "wonderfully beautiful," were uncovered in [Saqqara], 10 kilometers south of Cairo.

He said the coffins, shaped like human bodies, go back to the 26th Pharaoh Dynasty that ruled from 672 BC to 525 BC.

The minister added the coffins contained mummies wrapped up in cloth and decorated with colorful beads.

Hosni said that other ancient artifacts were found near the coffins, including statues of Pharaoh gods.

[Source]   World Peace Herald, District of Columbia, USA, February 26, 2005, via Archaeologica.

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said the Australian archaeological mission that practices activities north of Teti Pyramids at Saqqara unearthed four important archaeological excavations namely, 3 wooden coffins that date back to the 26th dynasty and a sarcophagus that dates back to the 5th dynasty, most likely to have belonged to the leader of King Peppy I, son of King Teti as will as two wooden statues for the god of Saqqara area and a fabulous door dating back to the ancient state.

Meanwhile, Supreme Council of Antiquities Secretary-General Zahi Hawass said the three coffins are some of the most beautiful Coffins found in the area of Saqqara tombs.

[Source], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, February 27, 2005.

The Egyptian Embassy in London yesterday received seven pieces of antiquities that date back to the pre-dynasty era from Bonham after intensive contacts with the British authorities and the auction hall officials.

Egyptian Ambassador in London Gihad Madi said these pieces were stolen from the museum of the Cairo University, Faculty of Arts in 2002, adding that documents and evidence proving Egypt's rights were offered to the British authorities and the auction hall thanks to coordination with Zahi Hawass, the Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities SCA).

[Source], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, February 25, 2005.

A tantalising snippet from Egypt Today magazine.

Approved, by Supreme Council for Antiquities head Zahi Hawass, a joint US-Egyptian expedition to map the bed of the Nile in a first step toward recovering monuments submerged beneath the river's depths.

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

I wonder how many obelisks the Ancient Egyptians lost en-route down the Nile between the upper-Egyptian quarries in Aswan and lower-Egypt?

Livonia firm's X-ray system will help unravel ancient Egypt's mysteries.

Livonia-based distributor of X-ray equipment met with an improbable opportunity recently: the chance to help unravel some of the mysteries of ancient Egypt.

Mikron Digital Imaging Inc. has developed a portable system for digitally X-raying artifacts and some researchers believe the technology will become an indispensable tool at museums and archaeological digs...

[More]   The Dertroit News, Michigan, USA, February 23, 2005.

Somber workers in turbans pulled the mummy of King Tutankhamen out of its tomb in the Valley of the Kings last month and carried it outdoors for the first time in 70 years.   Suddenly, gusts of wind swept dust up through the canyon.   The high-tech machinery put in place to probe Tut's 3,000-year-old remains broke down.

There he goes again yet another event in a long string of weird happenings that have made Tutankhamen the most storied of mummies.   He is the boy king who died young in a tumultuous period of ancient Egyptian history.   By luck, his tomb lay undisturbed for millenniums and stored a collection of marvels: gold masks, jewelry, alabaster vases for his preserved organs, sarcophagi within sarcophagi, graceful statuary of gods and animals alike, and furniture...

[More]   Santa Fe New Mexican, New Mexico, USA, February 23, 2005.

Earth is showered constantly by particles called muons that are created by cosmic rays, and clever scientists are finding ways to use them as probes of dense objects, including a massive pyramid in Mexico and volcanoes in Japan.   American researchers also have proposed using the energetic particles to detect smuggled nuclear materials in vehicles and cargo containers.   Muons are formed when cosmic rays from deep space interact with the atmosphere.   The particles, which strike earth's surface at the rate of about 10,000 per square meter per minute, pass through large amounts of rock or metal with ease, yet their charge makes them easy to track.

...

...In the late 1960s, Alvarez placed muon detectors in a tunnel beneath the Great Pyramid of Chefren in Egypt in search of hidden burial chambers. None were discovered...

[More]   PhysOrg.com, February 21, 2005.

No expense is spared in recreating ancient Egypt in this big-budget drama. Tony Davis reports.

"Often when you see ancient Egyptians on TV, it is recreated in a way that is almost as if Ancient Egyptians were some sort of extraterrestrials who landed in the desert and built pyramids," Ben Goold says.   "In fact, all the great monuments that have survived were part of a living and breathing culture that was very grand and monumental and, as we look back, glamorous, but with real people with passions and emotions and ways of living that we could recognise..."

[More]   Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, February 25, 2005.

Excavators are finding surprisingly late signs of intellectual life in the ancient capital of Hellenistic Egypt and discovering that geology played a dramatic role in the city's fall.

[More]   Andrew Lawler, Science, 307, 2005, pp. 1192 - 1194, requires subscription.

Also Oxford Center Raises Controversy

Scholars are hotly debating a controversial agreement that gives a nonscientist control over underwater archaeological data collection in Alexandria's port for Oxford University.

[More]   Andrew Lawler, Science, 307, 2005, pp. 1192 - 1193.

Museums rely on patronage and patrons, and for Willamette University's Hallie Ford Museum of Art, its essential benefactor is Hallie Ford, a university alumna and lifetime trustee who helped establish the museum with a $1.85 million gift in 1997.

The museum just announced that Ford has given it another hefty sum -- $1 million -- to endow a major art exhibition fund in perpetuity.   The gift raises dramatically the potential for the modest-sized museum at one of the best liberal arts colleges in the West.   It increases its endowment to $4.5 million and allows it to produce a major exhibit each year.

The museum was founded in 1998 and is known for its eclectic programming focusing largely on regional artists.   The strongest part of its permanent collection are more than 250 Indian baskets and roughly 200 artifacts collected by Egyptologist/art historian Mark Sponenburgh and his wife, the late artist Janeth Hogue Sponenburgh.   The museum's director is John Olbrantz.

[Source]   The Oregonian, Oregon, USA, February 25, 2005.

Schwabtis [Shabtis] and lotus blossoms may well be the top two items on Mattacheese Middle School students' Christmas lists this year.

Molded from mud, schwabtis are small replicas of a mummified person that come to life as the person's servants in the afterlife.   Lotus blossoms, composed of pure serotonin, a hormone secreted by the brain, provided ancient Egyptians with an intense boost of happiness and well-being.

Egyptologist Paulette Morin fascinated sixth graders last Friday as she supplemented their year-long social studies unit on ancient lands and cultures, including Egypt, with a program on the practices and beliefs of the ancient people with a special focus on jewelry, clothing, customs, mummies and tombs...

[More]   Yarmouthport Register, Massachusetts, USA, February 24, 2005.

Also Paulette Morin, Tewksbury Advocate, Massachusetts, USA, February 23, 2005.

Experts from Manchester University are trying to unravel the mysteries of an Egyptian mummy.

Using X-rays, DNA testing and an endoscopy, Dr Rosalie David and her team from the Centre for Biomedical Egyptology have looked inside the body of the mummy.

Dr Caroline Wilkinson, from the university's school of art in medicine, will produce a three-dimensional reconstruction of its face...

[More]   The Manchester Evening News, UK, 24th February 2005.

THE Farmer and the Breadwinner have made it back to one of the magic places.   They are in Aswan, in Upper Egypt, where it hasn't rained for 10 years.   And yet there is unlimited water from the Nile and the enormous Lake Nasser they have made there by damming it...

[More]   The Herald, UK, February 21 2005.

Traveling through Egypt: From 450 BC to the Twentieth Century, ed Deborah Manley and Sahar Abdel-Hakim, American University in Cairo Press, 2004.

Walk through the second court of the mortuary temple of the Ramasseum on the West Bank of Luxor and behold the compelling fallen colossi of Ramses II.   Know, then, that you are not the first to be moved by the sight of unabashed self- glorification in ruins, which inspired Shelly's famous sonnet, Ozymandias :

"On the pedestal these words appear:

'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look upon my words ye Mighty and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."

...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 731, 24 February - 2 March 2005.

I will tread the valleys and climb the hills, I will brave floods and fire to reach a desolate cliff, battling with day and night, struggling to the death.   But I will never forsake my quest, and neither boredom nor exhaustion will deter me, for I am the hunter of my tribe.   -- Maybe the exact words of the hunting incantation coursing through these valleys were different, but the gist can only have been the same.   The words were inescapably present in my mind when I first laid eyes on the amazing rock art of Wadi Al-Reshrash...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 731, 24 February - 2 March 2005.

A stolen antiquities collection is unearthed at a downtown apartment after 34 years in hiding, reports Nevine El-Aref.

At No. 8 Al-Alfi Street downtown last week, the scene was more bustling than usual.   A large number of police officers, archaeologists and journalists were on hand as a huge cache of artefacts … hidden since 1971 … finally saw the light again.

The collection includes a number of anthropoid sarcophagi, painted mummy masks, Ancient Egyptian ushabti figurines (wooden statuettes), limestone reliefs, necklaces, amulets, and scarabs, as well as a group of Graeco-Roman statues, Islamic vessels, clay chandeliers and coloured textiles.

[More]   Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 731, 24 February - 2 March 2005.

The usually sedate town of Abu Simbel was abuzz with Ramses fever as the sun's rays penetrated through the temple to illuminate the eternal king's face.   Nevine El-Aref was there.

A crowd of over 4,000 people descended on Abu Simbel, 280km south of Aswan, on Monday and Tuesday to witness a phenomenon that only takes place twice a year, during the equinox.   On February 22 and October 22 every year, the sun's rays travel through the temple of Ramses II to illuminate the eternal king's face.

The visitors stayed awake all night waiting for sunrise, entertained by a musical troupe performing Nubian folkloric songs and dances.   French tourist Françoise Hubert told Al-Ahram Weekly that the performance was "magnificent".   Hubert was there with 200 of her colleagues from an NGO that was on a four-month tour of Mediterranean cities. Egypt was their third stop...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 731, 24 February - 2 March 2005.

K. Kris Hirst has posted an entry about pottery seriation on About.com's Archaeology blog.

The technique of dating archaeological sites and materials by seriation was invented by William Flinders-Petrie.   Seriation is a relative dating technique, which uses percentages of types of artifacts within a particular assemblage relative to another assemblage...

[More]   Archaeology at About.com, February 24, 2005.

...The Kusha hall is being restored as part of an overall plan to restore the Gawhara Palace at the Salah Eddin Citadel. The Kusha is supported by four gilded columns, linked from above by a gilded network bearing the initial F. The thrones of the bride and bridegroom are placed under the columns. Among the items displayed in the hall are a wedding photo, crystals and watches dating back to the l8th centuries, in addition to a French styled salon.

Al Gawhara palace was established by Mohamed Ali Pasha in the period between l811-l8l4AD and was named after Gawhara Hanem, the last of Mohamed Ali's wives. The palace lies in the southern part of the citadel and includes Al Kiswa Hall. The hall contains parts of the cover of the Kebba in Mecca which Egypt used to send every year to Mecca in an awesome parade. Six pieces of the cover, made of pure silk and embroidered with silver threads in botanic patterns and Quranic verses, are on display.

The palace includes guest quarters that embrace the throne room where the throne of Mohamed Ali is exhibited. The throne, made of ebony and covered by gold, is one of the finest worldwide and was presented by Italy as a gift. It is said that the only throne its equal is the peacock throne that belonged to Shah Iran.

The guest quarters also include a bedroom containing pieces of furniture prepared for Queen Eugene, the wife of Napoleon III, during her visit when the Suez Canal was inaugurated in 1869.

[Source]   The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, 24 February 2005 .

Dr Hawass revealed that the SCA has suspended the archaeological agreement signed with the Qatari Antiquities Authority because the latter failed to fulfill its commitment of subsidising the translation of foreign books released in Tel El Amarna.

During a lecture at a two-week archaeological festival in Alexandria, he said that despite Egypt's keenness to cooperate with all Arab countries, Qatar has not provided the agreed LE7 million for the said project.

Hawass also talked about the success of recent efforts to retrieve a collection of rare antiquities from London after preventing their sale at an auction. He said the pieces dated to prehistoric times and were stolen from Cairo University's Faculty of Arts' storehouse. He also mentioned that an Italian lady was going to return a rare statue that was in her possession to the Egyptian authorities.

Dr Hawass said that he had spoken to the director of the British Museum about borrowing the Rosette Stone for a limited period of three months to display it in Egypt, but as yet has not received a firm answer.

The Ramses II Colossus will likely be moved from its downtown location to a less polluted place sometime in May. Since the government does not know how much weight the bridges it will cross during its journey support, the transit will take place after conducting a mock transfer using a rock of the same mass. This will determine if the bridges will support the 100 tonne statue without collapsing and, if not, the statue will have to be split into one or more pieces for the journey.

[Source]   The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, 24 February 2005 .

A Polish team working in Luxor have unveiled three papyri books bearing Coptic writings. The site where the find was made bear remains of a sun-dried brick monastery that dates back to the 6th century AD.

The books, found buried in sand, are the second most important Coptic find ever made. They follow the texts of Nagaa Hamadi, found within a pot in a cave on Homrat Dom Mountain in the Qena Governorate.

Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA), Dr Zahi Hawass, said that the books reveal how the early Christians performed their services. The first book has a plain square wooden cover, ornamented on the inside with Greek text. The second book has a leather cover, decorated on the inside with circular patterns. The cover of the third book is also leather, but contains a piece of wood which probably functioned as a lock.

Dr Hawass said that Polish experts will work on restoring the books soon.

Meanwhile, the UNESCO has formed an international committee to study l3 volumes of Coptic manuscripts found by a farmer in the Homrat Dom area of Nagaa Hamadi in l945. These documents are of particular importance, explaining the philosophy of a group of monks that once lived on Tarek Mountain. These documents belong to the Coptic Museum in Cairo.

[Source]   The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, 24 February 2005 .

By Hassan Saadallah

Only six Egyptian archaeological sites are on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites, despite the fact that Egypt embraces one third of world antiquities. However, at the last meeting of the UNESCO held in China, members asked to be informed on the maintenance and protection plans for these sites in order to determine any aid needed to support or upgrade the sites. The report is to be reviewed at the South African conference in June 2005.

According to Abdallah Al Attar of the SCA, St Catherine's Monastery was the last Egyptian site placed on the UNESCO list, in 2002. Since then, an information centre has been built there for tourists and a parking lot is currently under construction nearby in order to protect the structure from exhaust fumes.

Icons and other acquisitions of the monastery are being registered and restoration project is underway in some of the monastery halls, the dining room, the kitchen, the monks' cells, the chapel and the eastern wall. Moreover, a study is to be conducted to determine the course of rain running off the mountain in order to install a system that will prevent the rising of underground water.

Among the UNESCO sites is Abu Mina on the north coast. This is a small village where Saint Mina was buried in the late Roman age. Abu Mina has a church above the saint's tomb and was the most important Coptic centre for pilgrimage until the Middle Ages. The village, unearthed in l905, was found to have shops, workshops and two public baths dating back to the 6th century AD.

The Director of Lower Egypt Antiquities, Dr Abdul Maqsoud, said that the Abu Mina site is endangered by subterranean water which has been rising since the late l980s as a result of land reclamation projects adjacent to the site. While the draining canal surrounding the area was deepened in l998 to withdraw excess water, the problem is not fully solved. Consequently, studies have been taken to find ways to lower the water level, but they still need to be implemented.

Dr Maqsoud said that the Pyramids Plateau is naturally on the UNESCO list, noting that the pyramids area was part of Memphis which became the official Egyptian capital in the third dynasty, remaining so until the end of the Old Kingdom. Memphis includes pyramid complexes and tombs in Abu Rawaash, Abu Sir, Saqqara and Dahshur.

The other sites on the list are Islamic Cairo which is currently undergoing a restoration project, launched in 2000; Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis; and the Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae.

[Source]   The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, 24 February 2005 .

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.

...

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.