The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Secretary-General Zahi Hawass said that the Tutankhamen artifact will tour four American cities.

Zahi Hawass added that the artifact will be ferried from the German city of Bonn to the US city of Los Angeles at the outset of a US tour during the coming few days.

[More], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, May 15, 2005.

An article and interview with Matt Adams the excavation director at the Abydos dig.

When Matt Adams was 8 years old he knew what he wanted to do with his life.

Since the 1990s he has been living his dream of uncovering an Egypt that existed in the days of the first Pharaohs - an Egypt before they were mummified and before the pyramids were built.

Adams, a 1980 Parkersburg High School graduate, said he found archaeology interesting from a young age...

[More]   Parkersburgh News & Sentinel, West Virginia, USA, May 16, 2005.

Archaeology Magazine's Mark Rose has reviewed the National Geographic Channel special "King Tut's final Secrets" / "King Tut's Curse" show.

... "King Tut's final Secrets" is actually pretty good and is certainly worth watching.   The most immediate problem is that it covers several subjects all at once, using a back and forth technique -- three minutes in Tut's tomb, three minutes on the facial reconstruction, two minutes on the curse, then back to the tomb.   Each time you are left hanging, and after a couple hours I was tired of it.   I mention this at the beginning of this review because it makes better sense to ignore that (annoying) structure and take the subjects one at a time...

[More]   Mark Rose, Archaeology Magazine, USA, May 13, 2005.

The modern perception of the legendary Egyptian Queen Cleopatra as a beautiful and manipulative diva is opposed by a new study that suggests that the real Cleopatra was in fact far more respected for her intellectual prowess than for her physical beauty.

In his new book, Egyptology: The Missing Millennium.   Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings, Dr Okasha El Daly presents substantial new evidence from studies of a neglected thousand-year period of Arab scholarship which uncovers a Cleopatra in stark contrast to the popular image of a hedonistic, deceiving and over-ambitious ruler...

[More]   50 Connect, UK, undated, via Explorator.

Buy it from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, or Amazon.ca.   Also available in paperback from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, or Amazon.ca.

A different perspective on the Tutankhamun CT scans from Alan Attwood in The Age newspaper, Australia.

Can't a man get some sleep?   Even after 3300 years Tutankhamen isn't able to rest.   He's been mapped and measured, scanned and sculpted.   Now scientists have come up with 3D models of what the boy king would have looked like.   Frankly, I was less impressed by his oddly shaped head than the realisation that Andre Agassi's haircut was big in Egypt all those years ago.

It's guesswork anyway.   Don't be fooled by anthropological mumbo jumbo about the images being based on multiple CT scans and computer-modelling.   Show me someone who resembles their skull and I'll show you an extra in a horror movie...

[More]   The Age, Australia, May 14, 2005.