It's not every day that Melbourne receives a 2700-year-old visitor, but she's here at last. Keku, a magnificently adorned mummy from ancient Egypt, and other artefacts have arrived in town to show the splendour of that ancient civilisation.

The exhibition Mummies: Ancient Egypt and the Afterlife will run at the Melbourne Museum in Carlton from Friday week to October 2.

Keku and her elaborately inscribed coffins form the centrepiece of the exhibition, which will include mummified human heads, hands and feet, animal mummies and six different sarcophagi.   Spells, amulets and ancient linen bandages collected from tombs also feature...

Keku a wonder to behold, after 2700 years, The Age, Australia, June 15, 2005.

cf. All dolled up for a date with the gods, The Herald Sun, Australia, June 15,2005.

More on the glassworks discovery.

in ancient times, so those who knew how to make it possessed a powerful technology.

Glass fragments unearthed in modern-day Iraq suggest that glassmaking began around 1500 B.C. in Mesopotamia and was kept a closely guarded secret for many centuries.   Or so it was thought.

Now a new study suggests the ancient Egyptians mastered the art of glassmaking very soon after the Mesopotamians, using the technology to extend their influence throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East...

Ancient Egyptian City Yields World's Oldest Glassworks, National Geographic News, USA, June 16, 2005.

cf. Ancient Glassmaking Site Found in Egypt, AFP via Discovery Channel News, USA, June 17, 2005.

cf. Glassmaking in Bronze-Age Egypt, Caroline M. Jackson, Science, Volume 308, Number 5729, June 17, 2005, pp. 1750-1752.

cf. Late Bronze Age Glass Production at Qantir-Piramesses, Egypt, Thilo Rehren and Edgar B. Pusch, Science, Volume 308, Number 5729, June 17, 2005, pp. 1756-1758.

Zahi Hawass

Last month, Laura Bush returned to Egypt to visit the Pyramids.   The United States security came to see me at my office and told me that she personally asked for me to accompany her at the Pyramids.   I went at noon, and she was interviewed in front of the Sphinx for American TV.   This interview captured the hearts of all Americans because Laura was talking in front of the Sphinx and Pyramids. At 6pm she returned to the site, and I took her to see something new...

More secrets from Karnak, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 747, 16 - 22 June 2005.

The discovery of a life-sized dyad statue of a Middle Kingdom Pharaoh and the reconstruction of two prestigious monuments are among the latest achievements of the Franco-Egyptian archaeological team working at Karnak Temple in Luxor.   Nevine El-Aref tours the site.

Last week, during the annual inspection tour carried out by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) to check on the latest achievements of the French Egyptian mission at Karnak Temple, one part of a rare limestone dyad (pair statue) of the 13th- Dynasty Pharaoh Neferhotep I was announced.   After being buried for nearly 3,600 years in the temple ruins, the statue of Neferhotep, whose name means "beautiful and good", was uncovered by archaeologists from the Centre Franco-Egyptien D'Étude des Temples de Karnak (CFEETK) in a niche 1.5m below the foundation pit of Hatshepsut's obelisk at the Wadjyt hall...

More secrets from Karnak, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 747, 16 - 22 June 2005.

The golden treasures of Egyptian boy King Tutankhamun's tomb are set to dazzle America for the first time in three decades with today's Hollywood- style launch of a unique exhibition in Los Angeles.

Tinsel town will collide with the land of legendary King Tut when the block buster exhibit Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs begins' its 27-month US run at a gala in Los Angeles to be attended by a constellation of stars.

The show, which boasts 130 funerary objects some of which have rarely or ever traveled out of Egypt before, opens its doors 26 years after the last US display of artifacts from Tutankhamun's tomb ended in 1976.

Organizers are hoping the show will become a phenomenon and break attendance records set by the 1976-79 show that gave birth to blockbuster exhibitions and haul in nearly 30 million dollars for Egypt's government...

Tut's treasures to dazzle LA, State Information Service, Egypt, June 16, 2005.

Segments of Roman walls surrounding Luxor and Karnak temples have been discovered, announced the Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni.

He added that the two walls were built by the Romans early in the second century when Luxor Temple was turned into a Roman army camp...

Roman walls unearthed in Luxor, State Information Service, Egypt, June 16, 2005.

What may be one of the earliest glassmaking sites in ancient Egypt has been uncovered in the eastern Nile Delta.

Evidence at Qantir-Piramesses indicates that glass was made there out of raw materials as early as 1250 B.C., researchers from England and Germany report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

The reworking of already made glass into finished goods has been documented at ancient sites in the Middle East and Egypt, but the new report adds evidence for primary glass production at this location.

Thilo Rehren of University College, London, and Edgar B. Pusch of Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany, report finding a large number of crucibles with remains of glass inside...

Early Glassmaking Site Uncovered in Egypt, AP via Yahoo! News, USA, June 16, 2005.

cf. Early Glassmaking Site Uncovered in Egypt, AP via ABC News, USA, June 16, 2005.

cf. Early Glassmaking Site Uncovered in Egypt, Los Angeles Times, California, USA, June 16, 2005.