Cut-price flights to Egypt from UK's Doncaster airport have been announced only days before the airport opens for business, said the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism.

According to EMOT, South Yorkshire tourists will be able to jet off to the land of the Pharaohs, with weekly direct flights leaving the €80m Robin Hood Airport, at the former RAF Finningley site, every Sunday, starting in November.

"Sun seekers will fly directly to the holiday resort of Sharm El Sheikh", EMOT said.   " Thomson will operate the service."

"We are ready and waiting to open our doors for the first flights on April 28," airport managing director David Ryall said...

[More]   TravelVideo.TV, Canada, Apr 27, 2005.

by Zahi Hawass

I was 33 years old and an Inspector of Antiquities.   After years of working at several sites throughout Egypt, I finally became the chief inspector at the Giza Pyramids.   I decided to continue my studies in Egyptology in the United States.   At first, I did not want to receive a fellowship from an American university.   However, I saw a newspaper advertisement to the effect that the Fulbright Commission in Cairo was offering a fellowship for two years to study in the field of science or humanities.   I applied, writing a proposal that stated that it was important for an Egyptian to receive good training in the US, and then to return to Egypt and help protect Egypt's heritage by improving sites and museums and training young people, as well as establishing rules and regulations to protect the monuments and modernise the facilities.   I further suggested they needed to give this fellowship to someone who would use it to benefit Egypt.

The committee was chosen to select the most deserving applicant.   The candidates were from Egypt and America.   I was awarded the Fulbright scholarship to continue my studies, and applied to a few universities in US.   After much thought I decided to attend the University of Pennsylvania for my doctorate studies, since they have an excellent archaeology programme...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Issue No. 740, 28 April - 4 May 2005.

The Coptic Museum is approaching the last stage of structural restoration prior to its official re-opening this year as a state-of-the-art museum.   Jill Kamil looks into what's going on.

It was no easy matter to gain access to a building that was being restored -- or transformed, rather -- and even more difficult to find someone able, or willing, to talk about progress, plans and deadlines.   The Coptic Museum has been off-limits to visitors for a long while now, and with rumour circulating that some galleries would re-open this year, Al-Ahram Weekly sent a team to investigate...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Issue No. 740, 28 April - 4 May 2005.

The temple of Serabit el-Khadem, 55 kilometres southeast Abu Zneima is the only surviving pharaonic temple in Sinai.   In order to place the area on the tourist chart the Supreme Council of Antiquities has launched a huge project to upgrade the area, which is associated with Safari Tourism and is surrounded by turquoise mines exploited since the Pharaonic period.   The total cost of the project is estimated at LE 10 million.

The temple, which belongs to the 12th dynasty, is situated on a sandstone plateau about 1200 metres above sea level.   The temple was established for the worship of goddess Hathor in her respect as the lady of turquoise.

The temple comprises a main chapel and several rooms, while the surrounding areas embrace rock-cut and freestanding stelae dedicated by mining expeditions to Hathor.

In the vicinity of the temple, there are turquoise mines that were exploited since the early 12th dynasty till the 20th dynasty.

Petrie was the first archaeologist to examine the site in 1905 and found an old Kingdom hill-top miners' settlement.   Archaeological missions, the most important of which was a French team, examined the temple, but the missions were most interested in the turquoise mines.

The first restoration of the temple took place in 1987.   Further restoration of the inscriptions and stelae was maintained periodically.

[Source]   The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, April 28, 2005.

The Russian Institute for Alexandrian Studies is currently engaged in drawing a map of old Alexandria, the city that was planned by the Greek architect Deinocrates.

According to Dr Ezzat Qadous, a professor of Greek Archaeology and dean of the Faculty of Tourism at Alexandria University, the projected chart is an attempt to revive and modernise the old chart drawn by archaeologist Mahmoud Pasha Falaki, which defined many streets and quarters.

Dr Qadous explains how the idea of establishing the city of Alexandria tantalised Alexander the Great when he noticed a piece of land separating the Mediterranean from [Mareotis](1) Lake.   He assigned Deinocrates to plan the city, which was named after the great leader.

Dr Qadous said that Al Falaki's chart showed the city to be five kilometres long with 11 main streets that crossed the city vertically and seven horizontal ones.   The apparent balance of length and crosswise streets amazed Dr Qadous.   The black and grey stones used for paving streets were all alike in dimensions about 20 cm thick, 30 cm wide and 50 cm long.   Some of the stones are still in place, especially in the Shallalat area.

According to Al Falaki's chart, Faros isle was detached from the land, however there was a road linking the isle and the shore.   Today, Faros (Al Manshia area) is part and parcel of modern Alexandria.

The chart also displayed a harbour known as the eastern harbour.   Royal palaces occupied a distance of 2300 metres.   The amphitheatre was an essential feature of the city built following the Greek style, and it became a cultural centre.   The chart determined the place of the apostases, storehouses containing commodities to be sold in the market.   Among the important landmarks of old Alexandria was the museum, or the house of muses, which included a park, a meeting hall and a dining hall.   The director of the place was a priest appointed by the king.   The gymnasium was also one of the most beautiful places in Alexandria, with a 200 metre-long roofed lobby with gardens and an arbitration room in the middle.

The nucleus of the old city, according to Falaki's chart, was the Rhakotis quarter inhabited by the Egyptians.   The largest quarter and the least dwelt-in was that of The Racing Square, situated in the eastern part of the city.

[Source]   The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, April 28, 2005.

(1)   The article originally named the lake Marriut, I have substituted the Ancient Greek name.   A quick search on the web also throws up the following spellings for the modern name - Mariot, Mariut, and Mariout.

By Hassan Saadallah

A team of archaeologists excavating the Khufu (Cheops) site in the Western Desert uncovered 26 seals belonging to King Cheops.   The seals, each 3.2 x 4.3 cm, are made of a special formula of clay, soft sand and limestone.   Among the find was a collection of pots bearing the stamp of Cheops.

Initial examination of the find revealed that the seals belonged to one of the missions sent by Cheops to collect mefat, a red metallic powder used in painting.   The powder was needed for ornamenting the pyramidal complex of the fourth dynasty and its funerary annexes.   The seals affirmed the official nature of the mission dispatched to the desert area.

According to a hieroglyphic text on one of the pots one of the dispatched missions comprised 400 men accompanied by an administrative staff to supervise the provision of food.

Members of the team unearthed a number of leather bags filled with mefat gathered from surrounding areas which were most probably hidden away from playful hands.   The site of Khufu also contained stone tools dating back to pre-historic times (6000-5000 BC) such as knives and arrowheads.

King Cheops was known to despatch several missions to copper and turquoise mines in Sinai.   He also sent vessels to Phoenicia (Lebanon) to get cedar wood and liked to make use of diorite found at Abu Simbel.

About king Cheops, Dr Zahi Hawass writes in his latest book, published this week, The Giza Plateau Through Ages, that Cheops will always be remembered as the builder of the greatest structure on earth: the Giza pyramid of that name.   Its splendour is not only attributed to its gigantic nature but also to its amazing interior planning.

Hawass' book includes a chapter on the opinion of Greek and Roman travellers from Herodotus to [Strabo] about the Giza Pyramids.   Hawass reviews important finds in Giza beginning 1821 at the hands of Mariette and Petrie up until the present time.

The last chapter of the book is dedicated to research relating to the pyramid by the Italian Maragioglio, who worked from 1963 up until the 1990s when a French team dealt with air pollution inside the king's room.   The most recent of the pollution studies was conducted in 2002 using a robot.   It revealed more secret doors within the pyramid.   The book includes a collection of photographs of the Pyramid Plateau from 1890 to 1925.

[Source]   The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, April 28, 2005.

During the 56th annual meeting of the "American Research Center in Egypt" in Cambridge Saturday, Boston University archaeology professor Kathryn Bard and project co-director Rodolfo Fattovich presented evidence of ancient Egyptian sea-faring expeditions about 4,000 years ago to the southern Red Sea.

A team of researchers - led by the two archaeologists - found pieces from several ancient Egyptian sea-faring boats off the coast of the Red Sea during a joint project with Italy's University of Naples "L'Orientale" last December, Bard said.   The facts included two cedar steering oars, the first whole pieces of a pharaonic sea-faring ship ever recovered...

[More]   The Daily Free Press, Boston University, Massachusetts, USA, April 27, 2005.

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a number of rare Pharaonic seals of soldiers sent out on desert missions in search of red paint to decorate the pyramids, Egypt's culture minister said Thursday.

The 26 matchbox-sized seals belonged to Cheops [Khufu], who ruled from 2551 to 2528 BC, in whose honour the greatest of the great pyramids of Giza southwest of Cairo was built, and show Pharaonic soldiers' ranks, the MENA news agency quoted Farouk Hosni as saying.

"These seals were used by a mission sent by Cheops to collect ferric oxide, which is necessary to make red paint," said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Higher Council of Antiquities...

[More]   Turkish Press, Turkey, 28/04/2005.

The Senusret [also Senwosret and Sesotris from Greek] collection of ancient Egyptian art was gathered from private collections and shown briefly in the 1970s.   It has never again been seen by the public -- until now.

At www.virtual-egyptian- museum.org, the contents of King Padibastet's tomb are once again on display...

[More]   News 14, North Carolina, USA, April 25, 2005.

The face of "Bess," an Egyptian woman who died 3,000 to 3,500 years ago, is once again visible as technology brings to life what an artist's hand used to.

"The Egyptians obviously put a huge amount of effort into preparing their bodies for eternal life," said Stephen Humphries, director of business development at Medical Modeling LLC of Golden, [Colorado], where the reconstruction took place...

[More]   Discovery Channel News, USA, April 27, 2005, via Zinken.

cf. Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Brussels museum is to return a stolen 5th dynasty relief

A Brussels museum will hand over to Egypt a limestone relief that had been smuggled out of the country more than 30 years ago, an Egyptian antiquities official said Monday.

The Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels, Belgium, agreed to return the relief, which was stolen from the Giza tomb of a 5th dynasty priest, Senenu, said Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.   In return, an archaeological mission belonging to the museum will be allowed to continue its work in Egypt, he said.

"Exerting scientific pressure is the most important way of getting back our stolen antiquities," Hawass said.   "We will start a fierce battle with the museums and the private collectors who have these antiquities.   We won't scientifically deal with those who don't return them..."

[More]   AFP via The Daily Star, Lebanon, April 27, 2005.

... "We discovered huge quantities of books in the synagogues," says the founder of the [Israel Academic Center in Cairo], and its director during those years, Prof. Shimon Shamir. "We discovered that a large percentage of the books came from private collections that Egyptian Jews had thrown out for fear that 'propaganda material' in Hebrew would be seized in their homes."

In the early 1990s, the books, about 15,000 of them, were stored in three libraries belonging to the Jewish community, which are located adjacent to the Sha'ar Hashamayim synagogue on Adli Street, the Ezra synagogue in the Fostat quarter and the Karaite synagogue. Most of the books are from recent centuries, but among them are also three rare religious books from the early 16th century...>/p>

The Ezra synagogue in Fostat, the quarter from which Cairo began to develop in the seventh century CE, is the only synagogue in Cairo that has been fortunate. Originally, the synagogue was a Coptic church, which was sold to the Jews in 882 CE. The synagogue was rebuilt a number of times, the last time in 1890. During that construction work, the Cairo Geniza was discovered in the attic, containing hundreds of thousands of documents written by the Jews of Cairo over a period of almost 1,000 years...

[More]   Haaretz via Egypt Election Daily News, Egypt, April 23 2005, via PaleoJudaica.

Police said they found what appear to be ancient Egyptian artifacts in the home of a man accused of molesting several boys over a 25-year period.

Charles Weinberg, 58, was arrested on child abuse charges in Hermosa Beach, California, over the weekend.   Officers said they searched Weinberg's home and found several items, which the suspect admitted to looting while on Egyptian archaeological digs with the University of Chicago...

[More]   NBC News, USA, April 26, 2005.

A review of the Discovery Channel producation "Rameses: Wrath Of God Or Man?" on DVD.

This is the story of Rameses, one of the most powerful men the Earth has ever seen.   His kingdom in Egypt grew so vast that temples the sizes of cities were built in his honor.   As he grew older, he declared himself to be a god, leaving the day-to-day leadership of the kingdom to his eldest son.   But along came Moses, demanding freedom for his people.   Moses brought with him plagues, debilitating Rameses' land with frogs, locusts, blight and darkness. But it was the final plague that did Rameses in, killing all the first born children in Egypt, including Rameses' own beloved son.

This is also the story of Dr. Kent Weeks, famous Egyptologist who has made the study of Rameses his life's work.   Described as a real-life Indiana Jones, Weeks lives in a houseboat on the Nile River and spends his days digging through ancient tombs.   A recent discovery of a mammoth burial site has turned up an artifact so significant, it has the potential to change how the world looks both at history and religion.   Weeks has unearthed a human skull which may or may not be Rameses' son.   What follows is an autopsy thousands of years in the making.   Will the cause of death be revealed as God's plague or something else entirely?

[More]   DVD Verdict, USA, April 27th, 2005.

Buy the DVD from Amazon.co. uk, Amazon.com or Amazon.ca.

By Zahi Hawass

People have often said that tourism is the enemy of archaeology.   The problem in the past has been that the tourist authorities seldom talked to the antiquities authorities.   Scholars from all over the world have begun saying that the great monuments of the world could be gone within 200 years, and the damage caused by mass tourism to man-made and natural sites is now well documented...

[More]   The Rising Nepal, Nepal, April 27, 2005.

A new website called Glyphdoctors has been launched with the aim of providing easy online lessons in Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

The Egyptologist running the online course is University of Chicago Ph.D. candidate Nicole B. Hansen who is also a staff member of Kent Weeks' Theban Mapping Project.

The site includes a glyph gallery and a discussion forum split into fourteen topics and is looking very promising.

cf. Continuity and Change of Reproductive Beliefs and Practices in Egypt from Ancient to Modern Times, Nicole B. Hansen, Ph.D. dissertation proposal, University of Chicago, 1999.

More on the Oxyrhynchus papyri first mentioned in the Independent article.

Classical Greek and Roman literature is being read for the first time in 2,000 years thanks to new technology.   The previously illegible texts are among a hoard of papyrus manuscripts. Scholars say the rediscovered writings will provide a fascinating new window into the ancient world.

Salvaged from an ancient garbage dump in Egypt, the collection is kept at Oxford University in England.   Known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, the collection includes writings by great classical Greek authors such as Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides...

[More]   National Geographic, District of Columbia, USA, April 25, 2005.

Queen Cleopatra, celebrated for her love affairs with Roman rulers Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, inherited the throne of Egypt at age 17 and dodged assassination to rule for over 20 years.   But to this day, her death on Aug 12, 30 BC, at the age of 39 remains shrouded in mystery.

As the last Pharaoh to rule Egypt, her extraordinary life was filled with enigma and intrigue, as was her strange and untimely death. For two millennia, historians have recorded only one cause of death - suicide by snakebite.

Now, criminal profiler Pat Brown and a team of experts that includes an underwater archaeologist and a toxicologist are re-examining the circumstances of her alleged suicide, which marked the end of the Egyptian monarchy...

[More]   The Star Online, Malaysia, April 26, 2005.

National Geographic Channel World Premiere Special Features First-Ever Bust of the Pharaoh Created from 3-D CT Scans Exhibition of Tut's Treasures to Include Bust and CT Scans.

Begins June 2005 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

He is the most famous Egyptian king in history.   He became pharaoh at the age of nine -- and ruled for nearly a decade before his mysterious death.   Since his tomb was discovered in 1922, King Tutankhamun and the circumstances surrounding his death have been a source of intrigue worldwide.   Why did the famed "boy king" die so young? Was he murdered? Is there truth to the legendary curse set upon those who would disturb his final resting place? And what did he really look like?

On Sunday, May 15 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, the National Geographic Channel premieres "King Tut's Final Secrets," a high-tech forensic investigation unveiling new findings related to his death and the first-ever reconstruction of his face and head using revolutionary 3-D CT scan imaging -- revealing what he looked like on the day he died.   This groundbreaking research is also featured as the cover story of National Geographic magazine's June issue...

[More]   PRNewswire via Yahoo! News, USA, April 25, 2005.

TourEgypt has a good article on the US Tutankhamun exhibition written by Jimmy Dunn.

It will come as no news to most ancient Egypt enthusiasts that the treasures of the New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty pharaoh, Tutankhamun, perhaps better known to the world as King Tut, are coming to the US in June of 2005...

[More]   TourEgypt, Egypt, 23 April, 2005.

More on the Oxyrhynchus papyri.

A vast array of previously unintelligible manuscripts from ancient Greece and Rome are being read for the first time thanks to infra-red light, in a breakthrough hailed as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail.

The technique could see the number of accounted-for ancient manuscripts increase by one fifth, and may even lead to the unveiling of some lost Christian gospels.

A team at Oxford University is using the technology to bring back into view faded ink on thousands of papyrus scrolls salvaged from an ancient rubbish dump in the 19th century...

[More]   Sci-Tech Today, April 19, 2005.

There has been lots of discussion about these 'discoveries' first announced in the Independent.   See David Meadows' rogueclassicism and Jim Davila's Paleaojudaica weblogs for more information.

The largest and most comprehensive collection of mummies and funerary material outside of Cairo is permanently housed at the British Museum in London. A portion of these world famous antiquities will soon go on display at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California, just 35 miles south of Los Angeles.

The extensive exhibition features ancient 140 objects, including six mummies and 14 coffins. The exhibits will also include examples of embalming tools, sarcophagi, amulets, papyri and the process of mummification, to illustrate the story of the Egyptian ritual of preparing and sending the dead to the afterlife.

When the six mummies arrived in Southern California in early April, a team of radiologists and curators conducted a computed tomography or CT scan of each one...

[More]   China View, China, April 21 2005.

On the occasion of Holy Week and forthcoming Easter Sunday, Jill Kamil talks to Egypt's famous iconographer and pays homage to his work.

...

He noted that in ancient Egyptian art, depictions of important people were always accompanied by their names, and this continued with Coptic icons where these were sometimes in Coptic, sometimes in Arabic, and at other times in both languages.   The main figure was also invariably shown larger than the others, whether in Pharaonic paintings and reliefs or in Coptic art.   "When I was still a student studying the artefacts in the Egyptian Museum and the Coptic Museum, I recognised strong elements of continuity in Egyptian culture," Fanous said, noting especially that the techniques employed in the painting of icons on wooden panels had changed little over the millennia.   These included encaustic on gesso -- which is to say molten beeswax made into an emulsion soluble in water -- developed to a high standard during the early Roman period; this is clear in the beautiful Fayoum portraits, the immediate predecessors of the Christian icon...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 739, 21 - 27 April 2005.

It all began with an indescribably beautiful woman falling for a chivalrous and powerfully-built beau.   But everything went so horribly wrong so soon. She was to be betrothed to another -- a poet, the proverbial philosopher- king. (He was unique among the Pharaohs of Egypt -- the man credited with introducing the very notion of monotheism to the world.   A pathetically forlorn figure, he set out to destroy all traces of the religion of his ancestors.   He moved the country's capital, made his favourite queen his equal and systematically razed the temples of the fearful gods -- to the consternation of the hitherto powerful priesthood).

An almost impossible task lay ahead for Nefertiti, for her dashing paramour was none other than the Pharaoh's own commander-in-chief.   The king, not quite as physically appealing as the head of his army, may have had big ideas of his own.   But, so much to Nefertiti's distaste, perhaps, he was not the least interested in military matters...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 739, 21 - 27 April 2005.

cf. Nefertiti's 'love affair' with Moses to hit the silver screen, AFP via The Daily Star, Lebanon, April 12, 2005.

Second chance

Controversial plans to renovate Bab Al-Azab have been revived: Nevine El-Aref attends the launching of a new phase in the history of Islamic Cairo.

A meeting of the ministers of culture and tourism concluded a decade-long saga last week, with plans to realise Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni's vision for Bab Al-Azab, a historical neighbourhood in the vicinity of the citadel, finally made.

It was in the early 1990s that Hosni first thought of developing this largely neglected setting -- the site of Mohamed Ali Pasha's massacre of the Mamelukes -- by, among other measures, exploiting its tourism potential: a luxury hotel modelled on local 18th-century architecture and interior design, a shopping complex, a conference hall and an Islamic art museum as well as a restoration school were all on the cards.   So was an Italian grant, offered to the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) in 1988...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 739, 21 - 27 April 2005.

"Giza at the turn of the century" was the theme of this year's Egyptian World Heritage Day celebration.   Nevine El-Aref took part.

As one of the seven ancient wonders of the world, one of the most unique monuments on the globe -- and one that must be protected -- the Giza Pyramids are listed on UNESCO's World Heritage list.   To mark this year's World Heritage Day, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) chose "Giza at the turn of the century" as the theme of an exhibition of photographs and artefacts that attempt to shed light on this distinguished archaeological site, its controversial history, and recent discoveries there.

Last Monday, the Egyptian Museum's backyard was the stage for the telling of the history of the three main Giza Pyramids, and their neighbour, the Great Sphinx...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 739, 21 - 27 April 2005.

By: MOHAMED HAMZA

This season the Alexandrina Bibliotheca, one of the major cultural edifices in Egypt, held an exhibition entitled "Faces from Egypt", following which it released a book under the same title written by Mustafa Al Razaz and Ahmed Abdul Ghani.   The book includes a panorama of Egyptian faces through history.   The book inspired this week's article.

The art of portrait in Egypt extends back more than 7000 years, since pre- historic times.   The diverse creative abilities of the Egyptians, their experimental and expressionistic approaches and fine expression of human feelings have been clearly evident in their heritage of portraits through Pharaonic times, the Graeco-Roman ages, the Coptic era and Islamic age up until modern times.

The faces inscribed or drawn denote tolerance and kindness.   Some were pictured as dreamy while others were burdened with responsibility.   But in all cases never is there a face filled with anger or violence because tolerance has always been an intrinsic trait of the Egyptians.

The items that belong to the pre-dynastic period and which are on display at the Egyptian Museum show how the ancient Egyptians pictured people hunting or rowing boats sailing on the Nile.   They also left behind small statues of clay and ebony, statues of human figures with rounded or hazelnut eyes.   Their features are realistic, accomplished with an instinctive style.   These items represented a popular trend parallel to the official artistic trend.

The genius of the Egyptian artist in the age of dynasties was apparent in reliefs, sculptures, textile weaving and pottery making.   The faces of that age are diverse showing royalties, noblemen, farmers, men enjoying vigour and health, charming women, funerary faces; they all had piercing eyes and deep human expression.   Some of these have become so familiar in modern times like the mask of Tutankhamun, the budding face of Nefertiti, the silent face of the Sphinx on which the sun rises every morning.   We Egyptians feel that the likes of these faces still live among us.

The ancient Egyptians believed that Betah the god of Memphis was the creator of the world and as such he inspired ancient Egyptian artists in their manifestation of human shape.   The chief priest of Betah bore the title of master of masters of artisans.

Artists in ancient Egypt took atelier and studios in royal palaces or temples under the personal supervision of the king.   Such kings gave orders revealing high awareness and understanding of the nature of artistic production.   Artists showed control over anatomical proportions of faces and bodies.   Archaeologists excavating monuments found remains of oxides, sculpturing tools, analytical studies of faces on stone, ostraca and papyri scrolls showing proportional rules used to magnify a picture.   With the advent of Alexander the Great, the Greeks influenced the Egyptians ultimately leading to a Hellenistic culture in art, philosophy and science.   The Greek faces enjoyed the standard beauty of Aphrodite.   Pictures of Greek gods started to replace those of the ancient Egyptians.   There were also faces of toiling workers.

The mastery of the art of portrait was very evident in the discovered Greek and Roman faces excavated at Fayyum.   They were found extracted from mummies.   For more than 600 years the ancient artists used to draw magnificent faces on wood using the encaustic technique, with coloured dyes melted in wax to give colours lustre and vitality.   The colours were fixed with a thermal effect and more colours were added with a knife instead of a brush.   The faces of Fayyum were sometimes drawn on linen covered with a layer of gypsum using oxides mixed with egg white.   At times the face and the bust were sculptured and then coloured.   They were basically made for nobles during their lifetime.   They hung them on walls but upon their death the portraits were placed on their coffins.   The faces were characterised by amazing diversity.   And because the portrayed model and the artist knew that the portraits were primarily made for a funerary purpose, the eyes bore a gloomy straying look and spiritual feelings.   The eyes were protruded in silent alertness.   The faces however, were drawn in a facial position, unlike the ancient Egyptians who usually drew profiles.

In the Coptic era, there were no mummified bodies hence no sculptured or drawn faces were preserved with the dead.   However, there were Coptic sculptures of stone, wood, bone and ebony.   There were also icons of saints and Coptic figures with wide eyes, round faces and wavy plaits.

In the Islamic age, despite the prohibition on drawing human figures artists did handle human and animal shapes in such diversity and skill that pinpointed their creative abilities.   These shapes were woven in textiles, engraved on metal or ebony and coloured with oxides of metallic lustre on pots.   Nevertheless, we find pictures of men and women with brief facial features.   Human pictures going back to the Islamic age were found to be made of fresco and tempera bearing genuine Egyptian features.

The advent of the Ottomans caused all artistic features to dwindle because they took all craftsmen and artists to their capital, Istanbul, leaving behind only a few number of folk artists.

The opening of the School of Fine Arts at the early 20th century qualified a number of Egyptian artists who studied at the hands of Italian and French artists and they were very influenced by European schools.   The portraits produced by the first generation of graduates resembled paintings of European salons but the experience of those artists and their influence by the national sense of the 1919 revolution in addition to the discovery of the Tutankhamun treasures caused them to change course, returning to their genuine roots.

[Source]   The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, April 22 2005.

Excavators find seven corpses and an intact flint figurine of a cow's head.

Archaeologists digging in a 5,600-year-old funeral site in southern Egypt unearthed seven corpses believed to date to the era, as well as an intact figure of a cow's head carved from flint...

[More]   The Daily Star, Lebanon, April 22, 2005.

cf. Archeologists discover pre-Pharaonic necropolis in Egypt, AFP via Yahoo! News, USA, Apr 21 2005.

cf. Ancient cemetery found in Egypt, UPI via The Washington Times, District of Columbia, USA, Apr. 21 2005.

Ancient Egyptian ritual protected animal's body, soul.

Inw-Mnw, a mummified dog, followed his master into eternity, as Egyptians made sure they had everything for the afterlife.

"They didn't want anything to pass them by," said Salima Ikram, professor at the University of Cairo and director of the Animal Mummies Project.

In her sold-out talk about mummified animals at the Hibben Center, she described how animals were part of life in ancient Egypt...

More, Daily Lobo, University of New Mexico, USA, April 21, 2005 .

More on the recent boat discoveries.

Discovery includes steering oars, other evidence of Egypt's sea-faring past.

When Kathryn Bard reached through the small hole that opened in a hillside along Egypt's Red Sea coast, her hand touched nearly 4,000 years of history.

The opening that Bard, an associate professor of archaeology at Boston University, and her team's co-leader Rodolfo Fattovich, a professor of archaeology at Italy's University of Naples "L'Orientale," discovered was the entrance to a large, man-made cave.   Two days later at a site about 30 meters beyond this cave, the team removed sand covering the entrance to a second cave, one that held the well-preserved cedar timbers of an ancient Egyptian sea-faring vessel...

More, EurekAlert!, USA, 21-Apr-2005.

This time from Reuters.

Egyptologists Find Tomb of Ancient Southern Ruler, Reuters, UK, Apr 20, 2005.

A selection of stories below.

Archaeologists Find Ancient Egyptian Tomb, AP via ABC News, USA, Apr 20, 2005.

Ancient necropolis found in Egypt, BBC Bews, UK, 21 April, 2005.

Prehistoric Egyptian tomb discovered, AP via MSNBC, USA, April 20, 2005.

7 corpses found in ancient Egyptian tomb, AP via Lexington Herald Leader, Kentucky, USA, Apr. 21, 2005.

An Egyptian-American archaeological mission found the biggest pre-history cemetery which dates back to 360BC.   The cemetery was found in Al Kom Al Ahmar area in Edfu town, Aswan.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said the cemetery was owned by ruler of Hierakonpolis town in the area at the time.

Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities said four bodies were found under the lower rock ceiling of the cemetery.

[Source], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, April 21 ,2005.

Archaeologists digging in a 5,600-year-old funeral site in southern Egypt unearthed seven corpses believed to date to the era, as well as an intact figure of a cow's head carved from flint.

The American-Egyptian excavation team made the discoveries in what they described as the largest funerary complex ever found that dates to the elusive five millennia-old Predynastic era, Egypt's Supreme Council of antiquities said Wednesday...

...

In the area of Kom El-Ahmar, known in antiquity as Hierakonpolis, some 370 miles south of Cairo, the team working for five years in the area excavated a complex thought to belong to a ruler of the ancient city who reigned around 3600 B.C...

[More]   AP via Yahoo! News, USA, Apr 21, 2005.

cf. Pre-dynastic graveyard has experts buzzing, Sapa-DPA via IOL, South Africa, April 20 2005.

cf. Archaeology Magazine's interactive dig website.

The two tombs of Kings Thutmose III and Merenptah in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor will be re-opened to tourists this Friday after a six-month closure for restoration.   The two tombs of Kings Ramesses III and Ramesses VI, in the meantime, will be closed for regular rejuvenation works.   King Thutmose III's tomb is one of the most important royal ones considering his undisputed role in founding the Egyptian empire during the New Kingdom era.

[More]   TourEgypt, Egypt, April 20th, 2005.

The Ministry of Culture has established a cultural festival at the Egyptian museum on the occasion of International Heritage Day.   Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass and a number of Arab and foreign diplomats attended the festival...

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

The current areas of Ain Shams and Mataryia were known in ancient Egypt as On, the capital of the 13th nom (province) of Lower Egypt.   In the Greek age, the name was changed into Heliopolis, which means the city of the sun.

Heliopolis had a religious and historic significance as the centre of the worship of the sun.

In the mid 1980s a tomb with coloured inscriptions and pictures that belonged to a senior statesman of the 26th dynasty called Banahs was uncovered.   The tomb was found submerged in subterranean water, and it was left untouched until recently, when the Supreme Council of Antiquities decided to have it dismantled and reinstalled on higher grounds to protect it from damage.

Recently, several tombs have been uncovered in the area and the SCA has decided to move them to the new site in the vicinity of the Banahs tomb.

The present suburbs of Ain Shams and Mataryia are considered housing agglomerations that seem to have been built without regard for their rich archaeological potential.   The most important of the sites there is that of the obelisk.

According to Sabri Abdul Aziz, the finds made in these areas include the tombs of Wagahor and Ankh Khonsu, which are within the residential area in Ain Shams.   The SCA will therefore reinstall these tombs at the site of Banahs under a year-long project.

At the same site of Banahs, an outdoor display of some sarcophagi found at Mataryia and Ain Shams is to be organised.   The site will also have a souvenirs' shop, a cafeteria and an administrative building.   The area leading to the incomplete statue of Ramesses II will be paved to secure easy accessibility to it.

[Source]   The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, April 21 2005.

A billboard bearing the slogan of international heritage will be placed on Egyptian archaeological sites included on the UNESCO list of international human heritage.   The slogan symbolises the link between natural and cultural heritage.   It comprises two united geometric shapes: a square in the middle representing a shape created by man and an outer circle that represents the globe and symbolises protection as well.

Placing the slogan as such goes in line with regulations of the International Heritage Centre.

Egypt has six sites on the UNESCO list, including Memphis, extending from Giza to Dahshur, the tombs of Luxor, Nubia, Islamic Cairo and Abu Mina, which were all registered in 1979.   The monastery of St Catherine is the most recently recognised site, added to the list in 2002.

The billboard will not only bear the slogan but an explanation of criteria according to which each site was chosen as part of human heritage.   A brief account of features of each site will also be available in other languages than Arabic.

Dr Zahi Hawass Secretary General of the SCA said that a booklet on these six sites will be soon released.

[Source]   The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, April 21 2005.

By Hassan Saadallah

Hidden Treasures of Ancient Egypt is a new book by Dr Zahi Hawass Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.   The author takes his readers on a tour of some of the most exquisite artifacts in the Egyptian Museum and acquaints them with adventures that led to their discovery in the mid 19th and 20th centuries.

Many of the antiquities featured in the book were left to languish in storerooms all over the country and were only recently rediscovered.

Hawass writes in the introduction to his book that the centenary of the Egyptian Museum had incited him and the assisting crew to make the rediscovery.   Some 250 objects which were either lying neglected in the basement of the museum or stored in storehouses across the country were brought into focus.   Some of these are now displayed in special galleries in the basement of the museum as a new exhibit given the title of Hidden Treasures of the Egyptian Museum.   The re-exploration of these items had actually inspired Dr Hawass to write a book on some carefully chosen objects of the collection aided by an equally marvellous collection of photographs.

"Working with these objects has opened my eyes to the tales that artifacts have to tell, from stories about men and women who made and used them to adventures of archaeologists who dedicated their lives to finding them," he wrote.

The stories involve the history of Egyptian archaeology over the past century and a half.   The book is divided into three parts.   The first covers the period from 1850 to 1950 focussing on excavations of the first century of the Egyptian Antiquities service, now the SCA.   Among the first finds made at that period was August Mariette's uncovering of 1,200 stelae in Saqqara, spanning the years from the late New Kingdom (1390) to the end of the Ptolemaic era (31 BC).

The second part tells the story of the more recent past from 1940 till the present time while the third part is dedicated to excavations Dr Hawass has personally initiated and which are still ongoing.

[Source]   The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, April 21 2005.

Discovery [India] will premiere a special series Egypt Week, from 24-27 April at 8 pm.

The show will revisit the absorbing controversies surrounding Egypt's history, and their foregone conclusions.   It will also investigate using new facts, discoveries and scientific techniques.

A team of investigators, Egyptologists, historians, archaeologists and toxicologists together examine the theories and present new possibilities on controversies.   These include the death of Cleopatra, the riddle of the Sphinx, life along the Nile, and, based on a recent discovery in an Egyptian tomb, a 3,000-year-old mystery that could have ties to the story of Exodus...

[More]   Indian Television, India, 20 April 2005.

Just Mobile Games have release Curse of the Pharaohs for the Pocket PC.

See the following reviews on the Dell Axmin site and the Ipaq HQ site.

by Bob Brier

Royal riches discovered during World War II rival those of Tutankhamun, but remain virtually unknown.

Millions of Americans were dazzled when the treasures of Tutankhamun toured the country in the 1970s.   Now, as preparations are being made for a new exhibition, a new generation is eagerly awaiting a chance to see the boy king's royal paraphernalia.   But there is another royal Egyptian treasure, from the ancient city of Tanis, in the Nile Delta northeast of Cairo, that in many ways is more spectacular yet remains virtually unknown to the general public.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, an entire complex of royal tombs was found intact at Tanis, yielding four gold masks, solid silver coffins, and spectacular jewelry, some even once worn by a pharaoh mentioned in the Bible.   The treasures are one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time.   But because it was discovered during World War II, and published only in French, it went unnoticed.   Even today, visitors to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo gather around Tutankhamun's gold mask and gawk, but walk right past the room in which the treasures of Tanis are displayed.   And while everyone knows Howard Carter's name, that of the excavator of Tanis is Egyptological trivia. It's Pierre Montet...

[Abstract]   Archaeology Magazine, USA, Volume 58 Number 3, May/June 2005.

Among the peoples of the ancient world, the Egyptians occupy a unique position with their approach to death and the possibility of resurrection, particularly since so much of the evidence that has survived over thousands of years comes from a funerary context.   The largest and most comprehensive collection of ancient Egyptian funerary material outside of Cairo is housed at The British Museum.   As part of its joint venture with the British Museum, the Bowers Museum has drawn upon this world-famous collection of mummies and funerary objects to present Mummies: Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt... Treasures from the British Museum, opening April 17, 2005...

[More]   Art Daily, Mexico, not dated, via Explorator.

University of Michigan palaeontologist Philip D. Gingerich and colleagues at the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) announced April 10 the successful excavation of an unusually complete and well-preserved skeleton of the 40 million-year-old fossil whale Basilosaurus isis...

[More]   University of Michigan, Michigan, USA, April 12, 2005.

cf. 'Footed' whale unearthed, News 24, South Africa, 08/04/2005.

cf. Whale found in desert, Reuters via ABC News, Australia, 19 April 2005.

An ancient Egyptian at Auckland Museum has had the benefit of that most modern of medical inventions, CT scanning, to help solve the mystery of her identity.

The name, gender, occupation and probable age of the mummy were revealed during a four-year process to preserve the remains, which also involved repositioning some of the bandages and building a special low-oxygen display case.

"It's nice to be able to give the mummy more of a personal history," said museum curator Julia Gresson. "That's been one of the bonuses of the CT scan..."

[More]   New Zealand Herald, New Zealand, 16.04.2005, via Explorator.

There is in the British Museum an enormous mind ... hoarded beyond the power of any single mind to possess it," wrote the author Virginia Woolf, describing the vast collection of nearly 7 million cultural artifacts held by the museum.   The reputation of the renowned institution, whose history dates back to 1753, is largely based on this collection.   Now, more than 300 of those items have come to Seoul for an exhibit at the Seoul Arts Center [, Korea]...

[More]   JoongAng Daily, Korea, April 15, 2005, via TourEgypt.

cf. Hangaram Art Museum.

"An offering which the King gives to Osiris [God of the Dead].   He may give an offering of bread and beer, ox and fowl, for the soul of the estate manager Khnumhotep, son of Nebut."

Dr Bill Manley reads out the mass of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics on the front of one of the ornate coffins on display at the Royal Museum as if he were reading words written in English.

...

...Bill is at the forefront of work unravelling the mystery of one of the most exciting exhibits there - the only royal Egyptian burial outside Egypt.

The skeletal remains of a woman and child found by eminent archeologist Sir Flinders Petrie during a dig at Qurneh on the banks of the Nile almost a century ago have long been suspected to be those of royalty because of the splendour of the gilded coffin and the luxurious gifts, including gold jewellery, left in the tomb.

However, the symbols on the unidentified coffin stop at the point where the person's name would be given...

[More]   The Scotsman, UK, 15 Apr 2005, via Archaeologica.

Scientists begin to unlock the secrets of papyrus scraps bearing long- lost words by the literary giants of Greece and Rome.

By David Keys and Nicholas Pyke

For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure - a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation.   If only it was legible.

Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.

...

The original papyrus documents, discovered in an ancient rubbish dump in central Egypt, are often meaningless to the naked eye - decayed, worm- eaten and blackened by the passage of time...

[More]   The Independent, UK, 17 April 2005.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said he will Friday re-open the two tombs of Kings Thutmose III and Merenptah at the Valley of the Kings in the ancient Upper Egyptian archaeological city of Luxor to tourists after a six-month closure for restoration.

Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said the two tombs of Kings Ramesses III and Ramesses VI, in the meantime, will be closed for regular rejuvenation works.

Sabri Abdel-Aziz, Chief of the SCA's Egyptian Antiquities Sector, said King Thutmose III's tomb is one of the most important royal ones considering his undisputed role in founding the Egyptian empire during the Modern Kingdom era.

[Source], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, April 16, 2005.

Visitors can sample life in ancient Egypt at a new museum exhibition.

A decorated mummy case is just one of many exhibits now on show at the Royal Pump Room Museum, in Harrogate.

The Discover Ancient Egypt exhibition also includes many objects used in everyday life - and death - by Egyptians living thousands of years ago.

The museum is running trails for younger visitors. Also for the visitors, there are clothes to try on, objects to handle and a mummy book to investigate.

Visitors watched a poetry drama on the death of Tutankhamun, while sampling food served by a local Egyptian restaurant, at the launch on Saturday.

The Discover Ancient Egypt exhibition runs at the museum until September.

[Source]   This is Northallerton, UK, undated, via David Beard's Archaeology in Europe weblog.

The 1960 UNESCO spearheaded an international campaign to save the monuments of Nubia and the remarkable success in doing so showed the world how international solidarity could work together to serve noble objectives and save the heritage of mankind, Egypt's Ambassador to UNESCO Ahmed Refaat said.

Addressing world diplomats, dignitaries, archaeologists and Egyptologists at the opening of the Nubia "Campaign: Yesterday and Today" exhibition at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris Wednesday night, Refaat thanked the international organisation for all its past, present and future contributions to preserve Egypt's national patrimony...

[Source], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, April 15, 2005.

You can't be more royal than the king that was the message Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni sent his critics last month.

In many ways, his words ring absolutely true.   After all, we've never heard of Ramsis II complaining about his crowded neighborhood.   In fact, rumor has it the down-to-earth king loves the company.   And if you're wondering about the pollution he has been exposed to for the last 50 years, it's no secret Ramsis has become so addicted to the fumes belching from the cars and minibuses that the first thing he asks for in the morning is his daily fix...

[Source]   Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume #26, Issue 04, April 2005.

Unravelling the Mystery of the Boy King's Murder

The remains of King Tutankhamen came crashing into the 21st century earlier this winter when they were subjected to a non-evasive CT (or CAT) scan which scientists say may have helped them answer a question that has long captured the public's imagination: Was the boy king murdered?

After an extensive investigation, a group of scientists determined that there is no evidence suggesting King Tut met his end with foul play.   Although Swiss and Italian scientists helped with the initial CT scans, an all-Egyptian team of radiologists and pathologists reviewed the 1,700 images of the mummy taken in a brief, 15-minute CT procedure in an attempt to answer some of the lingering mysteries about the ancient King's lineage, health and untimely death...

[Source]   Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume #26, Issue 04, April 2005.

• 'Our Antiquities Abroad' was the title of a symposium held in collaboration with the Greek Embassy at Helwan University's Faculty of Arts this week.
• A restoration and expansion project is currently being implemented at Sedi Shebl Al Aswad in Menufia at a cost of LE17 million.
• The second stage of Sharm el-Sheikh museum's construction project has been initiated.   The museum has been designed to occupy an area of 12,000 square metres and will cost some LE90 million.
• Fayyoum Antiquities Zone has published a blue print of several projects including the upgrading of Al Lahun Pyramid and the restoration of the Workers' Village.   The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) has endorsed the budget required to maintain excavations at Al Lahun Pyramid site.
• Three projects are underway to lower subterranean water beneath Osirion tomb at Suhag, Ashmonien tomb at Minia and Ihnasia beni Sueif.
• A team from the Russian Antiquities Institute is currently conducting an underwater survey from Al Anfushi to Agami on the north coast off Alexandria with the purpose of drawing an archaeological chart.
• An Egyptian owner of a private collection has handed over Coptic stones belonging to an archaeological church in Ihnasia to the SCA.

[Source]   The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, April 15 - 2005.

By Zahi Hawass

I spent four years studying at the University of Alexandria for my undergraduate degree, which is why I have a special relationship with this beautiful city.   A few weeks ago Mirvat Seifeddin, director of Alexandria's Graeco-Roman Museum, informed me that the American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE) , in cooperation with the Supreme Council of Antiquities ( SCA) and with funding from USAID, had finished the restoration of three mosaics.   The three mosaics took approximately six months to restore and are now on display in the museum as masterpieces.   The magnificent pieces date from the early history of Alexandria.

I arrived at the museum to meet my colleague, Ahmed Abdel-Fatah.   Although he has reached the retirement age of 60 we have asked him to continue working because it is impossible to think of the monuments of Alexandria without him.   The museum was filled with members of the press and my colleagues from the Faculty of Arts at Alexandria University.   We paused to view the first piece, which shows children hunting gazelles surrounded by mythical animals.   This piece has been stored in the museum since being discovered, and this is the first time that it has been shown to the public.   Now tourists can witness the beauty of this piece...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 738, 14 - 20 April 2005.

The planned erection of the colossus of Queen Merit Amun, wife of Ramses II at Tel Basta is unlikely to do much to attract visitors to the site, says Jill Kamil, who looks to the records for the greatness that was.

Sometimes an archaeological site is more interesting for what is not there than for what is.   The small open-air museum at Tel Basta near Zagazig, where a large statue of Ramses II's consort (discovered some years ago) is soon to be erected, contains no more than a dozen or so objects; even a century ago the area was so ruined that guide books -- including Baedeker's -- wrote that it was a waste of time to go there when there were so many more worthwhile places to visit.   The fact is that the history of the devastation of Tel Basta -- ancient Basta, classical Bubastis -- situated where the Pelusiac and Tannic branches of the Nile join the Wadi Tumilat in the eastern Delta -- is more interesting than its surviving objects.   But let us first recall the greatness that was...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 738, 14 - 20 April 2005.

The new issue of Ancient Egypt Magazine is out now.   A brief summary of its content follows.

• Film Review: "Alexander"
  Mark Walker reviews the recent major film on Alexander the Great.
• Letters from the Desert
  Jan Picton reviews Margaret Drower's new book on the correspondence of Flinders and Hilda Petrie.
• The Riddle of the Pyramids
  New research on the Great Pyramid and other developments at Giza are revealed by Dr Zahi Hawass.
• The Luxor Museum gets bigger and better!
  AE visits the major extension to the already excellent Luxor Museum of Ancient Egyptian Art.
• Dogs in ancient Egypt
  Working dogs, pampered dogs, divine beings?   Malcolm Hobson investigates.
• The Egyptian Exploration Society in Nubia
  Christopher Naunton delves into the EES archives of the 1900s and 1960s to find out about the lighter side of excavating in Nubia.
• The Dubrovnik Mummy
  Mary and Alan Carter discover an unusual mummy on their holiday.
• Inspired by Egypt: Wafi City, Dubai
  Cathie and Tony Bryan visit a new and remarkable shopping complex in Wafi city in Dubai, which features Egyptian-influenced architecture and designs.
• The Friends of the Petrie Museum
  The latest news from the Petrie.
  The Friends of the Petrie Museum can be found on the internet here.

Ancient Egypt Magazine, Volume 5 No. 5, Issue 29, April/May 2005.

At the beginning of spring each year, the ancient Egyptians used to celebrate the beginning of creation, considering this time as the beginning of their religious year.   They called spring 'Shamu', in reference to the season of harvesting.   The word 'Shamu' has evolved over the years into the word 'Sham' and seen the word 'Nessim' added to become 'Sham Al Nessim'; meaning 'breathing the breeze'.   The people today still celebrate the advent of spring on this day.

The time coincided with the exodus of the Jews with Moses from Egypt.   It later coincided with the Last Supper of Christ, his death and resurrection.

Because the day celebrated the harvesting of crops and the reproduction of animals - symbolising the continuity of life - the occasion was celebrated by everyone: the pharaoh, ministers, noblemen and ordinary people.

People flocked to gardens and fields to smell the sweet pollen of flowers and enjoy the spring breeze; leaving behind their everyday troubles.   They woke up particularly early in the morning and, carrying food and beverage, went sailing on the Nile; spending the day outdoors in a jubilant mood.   These same rituals are actually continuing today.

The most popular items in their lunch-box were eggs, salted fish, scallion, lettuce, green chick peas and grilled geese meat.   The ancient Egyptians considered scallion as sacred, hanging it around their necks and touring the city of Memphis in order to ward off evil spirits on that day.

Particularly fond of greenery and interested in gardening, the Egyptians were keen to grow flowers.   Wine glasses were also decorated with small garlands and women wore roses in their hair.   The interest in flowers was not confined to the rich strata but was shared by the poor as well.   Roses had a role to play in funerary rituals, they were put in the tomb with the mummy and were carried by mourning women in the funeral procession.

Gardens, which usually had ponds in the middle, were planted with all kinds of roses, such as narcissus, white tulip and opium.   There were trees, including acacia, nabk, sycamore, fig and willow.   Poets in ancient Egypt used to compose verse describing orchards and parks as the meeting place of lovers.

The ancient Egyptians divided the year into 12 months, each 30 days long, and three seasons, each season was related to agriculture.   The first was called 'Akht' and was the season of the flood, lasting from mid-June until mid-October.   The winter season, known as 'Bert', which means 'coming out', referred to the reappearance of the land after the flood, and lasted from mid-October until the beginning of February.   The last season was 'Shamu', lasting from February until mid-June.

Because the year was made of 365 days while each month consisted of 30 days, there remained five days which the ancient called 'the days of Al Nassie'.

[Source]   The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, April 8, 2005.

By Hassan Saadallah

According to the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), Dr Zahi Hawass, the continuous rising level of the Nile and underground water as a result of irrigation projects could damage archaeological monuments.   Thus, studies have been undertaken to determine the effect of the water.

Referring to the double Nagaa Hamadi Barrages which are under construction, the Director of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector, Sabri Abdul Aziz, refuted that the barrages would have an adverse effect on nearby archaeological sites, the nearest being Dendera temple.

Abdul Aziz said that huge projects are underway to lower underground water, such as those at Karnak and Luxor temples, Kom Al Shoqafa in Alexandria, the pyramids of Fayyoum and Esna temple.

Disagreeing with Abdul Aziz, Abdul Hamid Qotb of Engineering Affairs said that the construction of Nagaa Hamadi Barrages is bound to raise underground water level.   This will inevitably have a harmful effect on monuments including Abidous, Ramesses II and Senwosret III temples, and Shunat Al Zabib in Suhag.   To solve this problem, there has to be a wall separating the two barrages; a difficult and costly project, he explained.

Qotb said that there is also a possibility that Naqada, which is about 31km south of Qena, would be affected.   Naqada is one of the richest sites in southern Egypt, containing seven monasteries dating back to the 4th century AD.   Rising underground water usually leads to the disintegration of foundations and the appearance of salts on walls, badly affecting inscriptions.

Despite executive steps taken by the Environment Protection Administration to carry out projects to lower underground water level in 22 sites believed to be affected by the Nagaa Hamadi barrages, Nasr Oweida of the Central Administration of Islamic Antiquities, calls upon the SCA to conduct updated studies on the potential impact of the barrages.

However, a ministry of information source said that the Nagaa Hamadi barrages feasibility studies, which lasted ten years, did not indicate any potential harm to nearby sites.

Yet the controversy continues, and not until the project is completed will the truth be revealed; we hope that by then it will not be too late to solve any problems.

[Source], The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, April 8, 2005.

Original X-rays of Tutankhamen's body, taken by scientists at the University of Liverpool, could throw new light on the mystery of the young King's death.

Robert Connolly, Senior Lecturer in Physical Anthropology from the University's Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology, is working with the Egyptian authorities to analyse recent findings from a CT scan of the mummy and has been asked to comment on suggestions by scientists that Tutankhamen died as a result of an infection following an injury to the femur bone...

[More]   Science Daily, USA, April 1, 2005, via Explorator.

Egypt gets a mention in this article.   Also it should be noted that climate change has been suggested as the cause of the downfall of Egypt's Old Kingdom.

Harvey Weiss, professor of archaeology at Yale University, says climate change was a fact of life for earlier civilizations.   From pharaohs to the medieval Vikings, swift and sometimes violent changes in weather patterns sparked mass migrations and technological innovations like irrigation.

"Those episodes proved to be the single most important stimulus for the major transformations in human history," said Weiss, who digs through the traces of vanished empires for evidence of these climatic events...

[More]   CNN, USA, April 8, 2005.

The latest edition of GeoTimes has the following article.

The highs and lows of the Nile River have shaped the course of Egyptian civilization for more than 8,000 years.

Fekri A. Hassan

A River Runs Through Egypt: Nile Floods and Civilization, Fekri A. Hassan, Geotimes, Virginia, USA, April 2005.

At the Bowers in Santa Ana, six Egyptian mummies arrive and remain intact as experts use CT scans to get the inside story.

Six mummies and other Egyptian artifacts arrived in Santa Ana this week for a two-year exhibit at the Bowers Museum.   And they made their debut in the parking lot.

In an effort to publicize the upcoming exhibit, museum officials had the mummies CT-scanned in a truck just outside the building...

[More]   Los Angeles Times, California, April 8, 2005.

Under the title of 'The Nile and Water Resources in Egypt through the Ages', the fifth Fayyoum conference took place this week at Cairo University's Faculty of Archaeology, Fayyoum Branch.

At a key address, Dr Abdul Halim Nur Eddin, Chair of the conference and Dean of the Faculty, said that water has always played a major role in the life of nations...

[More], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, April 7, 2005.

This much experts know: One was a priest from a wealthy family.   Another was a young girl who sang during religious rituals. A third was a child, buried in a finely carved wooden coffin.

But there is much more to learn about the six Egyptian mummies that were wrapped and buried in strips of resin-encrusted linen thousands of years ago to protect them from the elements...

[More]   AP via Yahoo! News, USA, April 7, 2005.

I'm sure this is old news?

Ancient Egyptians believed in properly equipping a body for the afterlife, and not just through mummification. A new study reveals that King Tutankhamun eased his arduous journey with a stash of red wine.

Spanish scientists have developed the first technique that can determine the color of wine used in ancient jars. They analyzed residues from a jar found in the tomb of King Tut and found that it contained wine made with red grapes...

[More]   Science Daily, USA, April 3, 2005.

"Culture Minister Farouk Hosni unveils next month the Sobek temple in Kom Ombo, which bas been restored at a cost of LE 15 million," the Secretary- General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) said yesterday.

Dr. Zahi Hawass said that Minister Hosni will also inaugurate a new museum displaying mummified crocodiles and built near the restored temple, dedicated to the principal deities of ancient Kom Ombo...

[More], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, April 10, 2005.

Al-Arish National Museum for North Sinai history will be opened by the Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, next month.

The museum occupies 2km square and will contain over 300 antiquities taken from eight other national museums, the Head of the Museum Sector, Mahmoud Mabrouk, said...

[More], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, April 7, 2005.

"The Wadi el-Hitan area in Fayyoum is to be developed into the country's largest open museum for whales and fossils," said the Minister of State for Environmental Affairs, Maged George.

He noted that this was part of a larger project to develop Wadi el-Rayan protectorate in order to conserve the environment for both scientific and tourism purposes.

The project team consists of experts from Michigan University in the United States, the Egyptian Ministry of Environment, the Geological Survey Authority and Fayyoum Governorate.

[Source], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, April 7, 2005.

Farouk Hosni, Minister of Culture is to inaugurate in mid May "Amheteb Museum" in Saqqara area to be ready for receiving visitors for the first time after completing the restoration works as well as equipping it with state-of-the-art systems.

Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Antiquities said the project lasted for about three years and cost LE.11 million.

The museum will house about 2000 pieces including artifacts and statues that were unearthed since starting of excavation in Saqqara area last century, added Hawass.

[Source], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, April 3, 2005.

An Egyptian Antiquity delegation will soon fly to Paris to participate in the "Nubia Campaign: Yesterday and Today" exhibition.   It has been organized by UNESCO headquarters in Paris on 13 April.

This exhibition gives a retrospective look at the Nubia Campaign, which began with a drive to safeguard Nubian monuments and has since seen the opening of the Nubia Museum in Aswan and the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo...

[More], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, April 6, 2005.

A fund-raising campaign to support the planned Grand Egyptian Museum was launched last week by the Ministry of Culture, reports Nevine El-Aref.

A dozen journalists and photographers sit glued to a large TV screen as a computer simulation takes them on a virtual tour of the projected Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), the most ambitious archaeological museum ever planned.

The GEM will be situated on the Giza plateau, and the design of the museum makes more than a nodding pass to landscape of the desert.   The museum complex will centre on the Dunal Eye, an area containing the main exhibition spaces around which will spread a network of streets, piazzas and bridges, linking together the museum's many sections...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 737, 7 - 13 April 2005.

A Hollywood flick on an alleged love affair between Pharaonic Queen Nefertiti and the Biblical Prophet Moses is soon to begin shooting in Egypt, renowned British producer John Heyman has revealed.

"Nefertiti married perhaps one of the first monotheists in history and the film will tell their story, which logically enough should be set in Egypt" said Heyman on a brief visit to Cairo...

[More]   AFP via Middle East Times, Cyprus, April 8, 2005.

Apologies for the lack of updates for the last week, I have been on holiday to Sicily.   Lots of rain and only two days of sunshine!

I'll attempt to catch-up on the articles I have missed.

Mark.

By Zahi Hawass

The Arab World Institute in Paris traditionally hosts exhibits on the history and archaeology of Arab countries. They even have a permanent exhibit about textiles in the Arab world. The institute's objective is to explain Arab culture to the French. Nasser El- Ansari, the institute's director- general, visited me the other day, expressing an interest in creating an exhibit that will attract the French public and tell the story of the Pharaohs. We agreed to set up an exhibit called the Glory of the Pharaohs; later it was changed to Pharaon. The title "Pharaoh" first appeared in the New Kingdom (1550 BC). Before the New Kingdom the ruler was called "king". The word "Pharaoh" is from the hieroglyph word "pr-aa" and in Arabic Pharaon. It means "the king who lives in the palace"...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 736, 31 March - 6 April 2005.

The overall plan for the development of the historic core of Old Cairo is still not apparent. Jill Kamil evaluates a work in progress.

When the Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni announced during the millennium celebrations that Old Cairo would be turned into a Mogamma Al-Adyan or Religious Zone, it was confidently expected that a comprehensive plan would be drawn up, and adhered to, for the restoration of the religious buildings (both within and beyond the surviving walls of the old Roman fortress of Babylon) and at the same time for the development of appropriate tourist facilities.

Four years down the line, however, there is still no evidence of such a plan.   Meanwhile, some scholars are expressing dismay at what they perceive as the irreparable destruction of large parts of the area as one of the most historically important and hitherto relatively intact mediaeval zones in Egypt, if not the world, is converted into something more akin to a stage set...

[More]   Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 736, 31 March - 6 April 2005.