Ahem, tongue firmly in cheek :-)

Archaeologists working at a dig 30 kilometers southeast of the Pyramid of Cheops have discovered what is believed to be the oldest known Steely Dan song, dating from the XXVIII Dynasty (2580-2475 B.C.) during the reign of Funkankhamen IV.   The song was inscribed on the funeral cartouche of a high priest of Ra and was written in a form of hieroglyphics peculiar to that Dynasty.

"It's an amazing discovery," said Dr. Dewey Sarbanes, professor of Egyptology at Columbia University and one of the world's leading experts on the pop music of the ancient world...

[More]   Broken Newz, May 17, 2005.

McWane Center's latest big exhibit has taught a valuable lesson to its organizers: think interactively.

"Tutankhamun: Wonderful Things from the Pharaoh's Tomb," did not meet the science museum's attendance expectations, the museum's president said.

Although well-done, the exhibit was better suited for an art museum and needed to be more interactive to draw in visitors, said Tim Ritchie, president of McWane Center...

[More]   Birmingham Post-Herald, Alabama, USA, May 16, 2005.   Scroll down.

Egypt's boy pharaoh has fascinated the world since the first glimpse of his tomb in 1922.   Now modern forensics and high-tech imaging offe= r new insights into his life—and death.

An angry wind stirred up ghostly dust devils as King Tut was taken from= his resting place in the ancient Egyptian cemetery known as the Valley of= the Kings.   Dark-bellied clouds had scudded across the desert sky all day and now were veiling the stars in casket gray.   It was 6 p. m. on January 5, 2005.   In a few moments the world's most famous mumm= y would glide headfirst into a CT scanner brought here to probe the lingering= medical mysteries of this little understood young ruler who died more than= 3,300 years ago.

...

When the valley closed to the public at dusk, Egyptologists in jeans and laborers in long robes and turbans got to work....

[More]   National Geographic Magazine, USA, Vol. 207, No. 6, June,= 2005.

Modern technology puts a face on the famous Pharaoh and -- curses! - - lays to rest a 3,300-year-old murder mystery.

The fearsome mummy that spawned a legendary curse and a generation of horror movies turns out to have been a slender, buck-toothed teenager who probably died after a serious accident.   A team of Egyptian scientists recently put King Tutankhamen through a medical scanner, generating 1,700 highly detailed three-dimensional images of the boy king's remains.   Using an exact model of Tut's skull, three forensic teams then reconstructed the face behind the famous golden mask...

[More]   TIME Magazine, USA, Vol. 165, No. 21, May 23, 2005.

Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni agreed to assign a delegation from the ministry under Ibrahim Abdul Meguid to restore three pieces of antiquities.

The pieces are the portraits of the faces of three ancient Egyptians, said Zahi Hawass, Head of the Supreme Council for Antiquities, asserting that this wooden portrait was to be placed on the tombs.

The pieces were given to Egyptian embassy in Athens by a Greek national.

[More], Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, May 17, 2005.

The tourism industry in Egypt is keeping a close eye on business following two recent attacks that appeared directed at Westerners.

Some operators have reported cancellations, while others see no change. Tourism is Egypt's premier foreign currency earner.

"The effects were very limited.   It lasted two days, and now it's over," ministry spokesperson Hala Khatib [said]...

[More]   IPS via allAfica.com, South Africa, May 16, 2005.

Supreme Council of Antiquities SCA Secretary General Zahi Hawass stressed that the pharaonic bronze statues of the Egyptian embassy in Jordan received are in good condition and were placed at the Egyptian Museum for restoration in preparation for the display.

Hawass added that the statues that were found inside onions sacks comprise 16 ancient Egyptian artifacts of lengths ranging between 11-7 cm.

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

Humans have been downing beer for millennia.   In certain instances, some drinkers got an extra dose of medicine, according to an analysis of Nubian bones from Sudan in North Africa.

George Armelagos is an anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.   For more than two decades, he and his colleagues have studied bones dated to between A.D. 350 and 550 from Nubia, an ancient kingdom south of ancient Egypt along the Nile River.

The bones, the researchers say, contain traces of the antibiotic tetracycline...

[More]   National Geographic News, USA, May 16, 2005.