[A] mummy's head, dating back thousands of years, is being scanned by specialists at a North East hospital to find out how its owner died.

The ancient head is one of four Egyptian skulls which form part of an ongoing study into the Hancock Museum's historic Egyptian Collections.

Now a team of top scientists at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary will use the latest medical equipment in a bid to delve back in time and discover its origins...

Murder on the Nile in 2000 BC?, Newcastle Evening Chronicle, UK, June 30, 2005.

IFILM have the Steve Martin King Tut skit from Saturday night live available on their site in RealPlayer format.

Steve Marting King Tut Skit, via ArchaeoBlog.

Life in ancient Egypt was very civilised — until you needed a dentist.   New Scientist gets to the root of the matter Amenhotep III was one of ancient Egypt's greatest pharaohs.   His rule was a golden age, when the Egyptian empire was powerful, peaceful and fabulously wealthy.   He built palaces and temples and raised statues to the gods.   He wanted to be remembered.   And he is, but probably not the way he intended.   More than 3000 years after he died, Amenhotep is famous for his terrible teeth.   X-rays of the pharaoh's mummy reveal a gruesome set.   Amenhotep must have endured years of pain.   His teeth gave him hell — every mouthful was agony, every meal an ordeal.   So why didn't he see a dentist?

The explanation is simple, says Judith Miller, a dental surgeon turned Egyptologist: there were no dentists in ancient Egypt, at least none that did more than prescribe a potion or recite a spell.   Her exhaustive study of skulls spanning more than 4000 years turned up no trace of...

Why the pharaohs never smiled, New Scientist, UK, Issue 2506, July 02, 2005.

The Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center is working to bring a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy to town in spring 2006, in hopes of renewing the wave of tourism generated by the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, Exploreum director Mike Sullivan said Monday.

Nesperennub, the mummified former priest of Karnak, is currently housed at the British Museum in London, and starting in mid-September will embark on a tour that includes stops in Houston, Tokyo and possibly Mobile...

Exploreum works to lure mummy, The Mobile Register, Alabama, USA, June 28, 2005.

I stumbled across this whilst looking for Tutankhamun material.   A nice site about the discovery of Tutankhamun including a paper with the above title.

While the greatest archaeological find of the century helped spawn a fad, it also prompted Americans to examine their own culture and place in the world.

"No finer human interest story, no more thrilling drama, no greater archaeological revelations could be summoned from history or the most vivid imagination than is told by the mute objects in this tomb of King Tutankhamen — mute objects that speak with golden eloquence and whose message is now being revealed to the world." ...

Old World, New World: America Meets King Tutankhamun, Mary Rekas, University of Virginia, Virginia, USA, May 1, 2000.

A large sarcophagus dating to the reign of King Rameses II (1279-1213 BC) was discovered in Saqqara, south of Cairo, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Tuesday.

The sarcophagus, made of red granite, bears hieroglyphic text and different titles of the deceased. It belongs to an overseer of stables during the reign of Rameses II...

Cairo heralds discovery of large sarcophagus, SAPA-DPA via IOL, South Africa, June 28, 2005.

More on the Edinburgh Thutmosis III exhibition.

A Replica of an Egyptian burial chamber is expected to attract thousands of visitors as part of a major exhibition in Edinburgh.

The tomb of Pharaoh Thutmosis III, which was discovered in 1898, will be recreated in the City Arts Centre.   It will be the first ancient Egyptian exhibition to be held in Edinburgh since The Gold of the Pharaohs was displayed in the centre in 1988.

Herbert Coutts, the city council's director of culture and leisure, said: "There has long been great interest in ancient Egypt and it is anticipated that The Immortal Pharaoh: The Tomb of Thutmosis III will be a successful event."   The exhibition opens on 1 October for 14 weeks.

Egyptian chamber recreated , The Scotsman, UK, June 25, 2005.

Fantasies about chatting up legendary figures have come closer to reality in Japan where researchers have developed a mannequin with a built-in projector that can resemble a face of one's choice.

Company president Jun Ishikawa said he wanted to produce historical figures such as ancient Egyptian queen Cleopatra...

Japanese get a chance to chat up Cleopatra with DVD-powered mannequin, AFP via Space Daily, June 22, 2005.

A sarcophagus of more than 3,200 years old has been discovered by a mission of Cairo University's Faculty of Archaeology in Saqqara, southwest of Cairo, the official MENA news agency reported Tuesday.

Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said the big sarcophagus dating back to the reign of King Rameses II (1279-1213 BC) was made of rosy granite, bearing hieroglyphic signs and different titles of the deceased...

Egypt uncovers 3,200-year-old sarcophagus, Xinhua via People's Daily News, China, June 29, 2005.

The CSIRO has teamed up with the National Gallery of Victoria to reconstruct and conserve the last resting place of a teenage Egyptian priestess who died around 700BC.

The coffin lid, one of the first major Egyptian antiquities to arrive in Australia, is in a fragile state.

About 60 per cent of the wood, and even more of its painted surface, are lost, but the original bright colours on the remaining pieces survive under layers of dirt — gallery officials think...

Microprobe makeover for museum's mummy, Australian IT News, Australia, June 28, 2005.

Those folks in L.A. just don't have the celebrity-handling expertise of us desert dwellers.   They've been fighting traffic, long lines, parking and other indignities just to get a glimpse of the nation's hottest new celebrity show: King Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Conversely, here's how 50 art-loving members of desert society handled it:

They waited until the third day of the exhibit and then, at the civilized hour of 2 p.m. Saturday, they boarded a luxury Cardiff Coach in Rancho Mirage at the offices of Northern Trust Bank, one of the national sponsors of the exhibition...

Road trip to Tutankhamun, The Desert Sun, California, USA, June 26, 2005.

A transcript is available of the 60 minutes, Channel Nine Australia, programme ‘Who Killed King Tut’ mentioned on this blog the other day.

TARA BROWN: Early morning and you can see why the River Nile is considered Egypt's life blood.   It's a fertile strip of cool green in a hot, desert country.   Half an hour's drive away and the landscape turns lunar, desolate, unearthly.   But this is the Valley of the Kings, and here, the treasures are out of sight.   And like always, everything exciting happens underground here, doesn't it?

DR ZAHI HAWASS: Yes. This is a very mysterious place...

And so it goes on.

Transcript - Who killed King Tut?, 60 Minutes, Channel Nine MSN, Australia, June 27, 2005.

Popular traveling exhibit, currently in Los Angeles, expected to bring in king's ransom for artifact preservation...

What is it about Tut that makes hard-core museum-goers and the arts- indifferent alike shell out a mini king's ransom to see his stash?

Theories abound.

There's the mystery of the boy king (born around 1350 B.C., lived to be 19 years old), the history, curses and legends — some of it true, much of it simply a great yarn (or the subject of a Steve Martin ditty)...

TUT, TUT, TUT, Monterey Herald, California, USA, June 26, 2005.

Titled "Jesus in Egypt," the film is based on a book of the same name by Arizona author Paul Perry...

The meeting will be held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, according to Hawass.

...the film focuses on the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt from Israel after King Herod threatened to "destroy" the boy Jesus, as St. Matthew wrote in the New Testament (2:13).

It was prepared by a team led by Perry that includes Indialantic archaeologist John de Bry, 61...

Film chronicles Jesus in Egypt, Florida Today, Florida, USA, June 27, 2005.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Secretary-General Zahi Hawass heads to Paris today to attend the meeting of 15th session of the executive committee for Nubia museum in Aswan and the civilization museum in Fustat "ancient Cairo".

The meeting will be held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, according to Hawass.

Hawass pointed out that the committee will discuss what have been implemented of construction works for setting up the civilization museum.

Hawass attends Nubia museum committee meeting in Paris, State Information Service, Egypt, June 27, 2005.

The Los Angeles leg of the King Tut exhibition, "Tutankhamen and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," will be open 24 hours a day for the last two months of its run at the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts, an organizer said.   Andres Numhauser, vice president of Arts and Exhibitions International, said that to accommodate the demand for tickets, the galleries would be open all night before the exhibition closes on Nov. 15. A spokeswoman for the museum said that while night time viewing was under consideration, no decision had been made.

Round-the-Clock Tut?, New York Times, USA, June 22, 2005.

A newly found poem by Sappho, acknowledged as one of the greatest poets of Greek classical antiquity and seen by some as the finest of any era, is published for the first time today.

The poem which is now her fourth to survive had a tortuous and not unromantic discovery. It was found in the cartonnage of an Egyptian mummy, the flexible layer of fibre or papyrus which was moulded while wet into a plaster- like surface around the irregular parts of a mummified wrapped body, so that motifs could be painted on...

After 2,600 years, the world gains a fourth poem by Sappho, The Guardian, UK, June 24, 2005, via David Nishimura'sCronaca.

cf. A new Sappho poem, Times Literary Supplement, UK, June 21, 2005.

cf. Fourth work of Sappho is revealed to the world, The Telegraph, UK, June 25, 2005.

To most people, Egyptian mummies are a handful of dead pharaohs wrapped in linen bandages and buried in pyramids outside Cairo.   In reality, virtually everyone in ancient Egypt who could afford it — as many as 70 million people over 3,000 years — wound up going through the elaborate two-month mummification process.

Additionally, millions of animals were mummified and buried alongside their owners.   They were, says Richard Sabin, curator at the Natural History Museum of London, something of a send-off status symbol, much like large bouquets of flowers at funerals today.   “In the 1800s there were literally tons of them dug up from old and new dynasty burial sites,” says Sabin. So many, in fact, that Sabin began to suspect some may have been mass-produced for sale.   “They were wrapping anything they could get their hands on,” says Sabin, including cats, birds, antelopes, and even livestock...

Ancient Egyptians Loved Their Dead Animals, Discover Magazine, USA, Vol. 26, No. 07, July 2005, via Explorator.

Pesed has called a western Pennsylvania college home for about 120 years, but her caretakers don't know what she looks like.

But that might change now that researchers have a CT scan of the 2,300- year-old Egyptian mummy.   Officials believe the scan will provide enough information to allow a forensic artist to construct a bust of Pesed, a mummy from the Nile River town of Akhmim, about 350 miles south of Cairo.

Pesed has been the property of Westminster College, located about 40 miles north of Pittsburgh, since the Rev.   John Griffin, an Egyptian missionary and a Westminster alumnus, gave the mummy to the school in 1885...

Scientists may soon get glimpse of mummy's face, Patriot News, Pennsylvania, USA, June 26, 2005.

... [Dr. Colin Hope,] an adviser to the National Gallery of Victoria on Egyptian art and research associate of Museum Victoria, he has helped co-ordinate the new exhibition, Mummies: Ancient Egypt and the Afterlife.   Despite his fascination, he has understandably found his time in tombs "somewhat unpleasant" due, he says, to "a distinct aroma".

"My major interest is not in funerary archaeology," says Hope, who began his study of ancient Egyptian settlements in 1974 and continued investigations at two excavations in Dakhleh Oasis, in the Egyptian Sahara and about 450 kilometres west of the Nile, after settling in Australia five years later.

He has explored temples, homes, administrative buildings and cemeteries at the remains of a village at Ismant el-Kharab occupied from the Ptolemaic period (332 to 30BC) to the end of the fourth century and Mutel-Kharab, the ancient capital where the Temple of Seth, Lord of the Oasis, stood from at least the end of the New Kingdom (1550 to 1069 BC)...

Tales from the crypt, The Age, Australia, June 24, 2005.

Old flax mill could be the temple of boom.

Multi-million pound plans to regenerate one of the most historic — and eccentric — buildings in Leeds have been unveiled by developers.

London-based SJS Property Management wants to invest £180m to transform the Egyptian-style Temple Works building in Holbeck and surrounding land, creating up to 3,000 full-time jobs.

The building would be reborn as what the developers call a "cultural retail" centre — a mix of shops and more highbrow attractions such as art and sculpture — following a trend already established in Europe.

Temple Works is a Grade I listed former flax mill built between 1836 and 1840.   It was based on the Temple of Horus at Edfu, reflecting a craze for ancient Egypt which swept Europe in the first half of the 19th century...

£180m 'cultural retail centre' plan to regenerate Egyptian-style building, Leeds Today, UK, June 24, 2005.

A very short taster article dated 26th(!) which says more information will be available on the 27th.   This appears to relate to an Australian TV show presented by Tara Brown for 60 minutes.   You may recall Tara Brown's name being mentioned in the recent attack on Zahi Hawass in The Times, UK, which referenced another programme of hers relating to the so-called Nefertiti mummy discovery.

Who or what killed King Tut, the magnificent boy king, ancient Egypt's most famous pharaoh?   His death more than 3000 years ago has been one of the world's most intriguing mysteries – until now. Now we know exactly how King Tutankhamen died.   It's a wrap on history's most fascinating cold case, much more gripping than any episode of CSI.   For not only have these forensic detectives nailed the culprit, in a way they've brought King Tut back to life.   And if you always thought that iconic golden death mask was true to life, wait until you see what he really looked like.

Who killed King Tut?, 60 Minutes, Channel Nine MSN, Australia, June 26, 2005.

...There's plenty more to see.   The exhibition covers 11 galleries set up in chronological order, from Egypt before Tut to January medical scans of his mummy.   The shimmer of the display is staggering, with gold and gilded wood everywhere.<.p>

Items are well displayed, but it's questionable how accessible they'll be with the expected crowds.   The best bet might be to go mid-day, mid-week after the hoopla has died down.

For non-Egyptophiles, it would be worth the extra charge to rent the accompanying audio tour, because understanding the symbolism behind Egyptian beliefs and burial rituals enhances the experience...

Egyptian royalty returns, Riverside Press-Enterprise, California, USA, June 23, 2005.

...Of all the people or fads to make a comeback, Tutankhamun is the biggest.   Returning to the United States after over 25 years, King Tut returns with his treasures, in exhibits new and old.   Of course all his treasures are ancient, but there is something new.   The actual mummy is not at the exhibit, rather the findings of a CT scan done to get a better look into Tut's body and solve why he died.   Known as history's greatest murder mystery, it was once thought that the boy king died at 19 from a blow to the head, suggesting foul play.   New studies find that he died from a leg injury, possibly from a chariot accident.   The injury got infected and proved fatal...

The Boy King Is Back Better Than Ever, La Cañada Valley Sun, California, USA, June 23, 2005.

You may feel a bit like Indiana Jones as you make your way through the brooding colonnaded entrance of "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," on display through Nov. 15 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

And that's exactly the way the creators and corporate sponsors of this eagerly awaited King Tut sequel want you to feel.

They've conceived a museum going experience that achieves the academic and artistic level you would expect from a world-class museum, while displaying some of the most remarkable archeological artifacts in the world in a way that evokes the spirit of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with state-of-the-art visuals worthy of Las Vegas...

Show me the mummy, Los Angeles Daily Breeze, California, USA, June 24, 2005.

An exact replica of an Egyptian burial chamber is to form the centrepiece of a major new exhibition in Edinburgh.

The tomb of Pharaoh Thutmosis III, known as the Napoleon of ancient Egypt, is to be built in the City Arts Centre.

More than 60,000 visitors are expected to flock to the exclusive UK exhibition when it opens in October...

...The Edinburgh exhibition, entitled Immortal Pharaoh: The Tomb of Thutmosis III, was due to be announced by the council this morning...

Pharaoh's tomb to be mummy of all shows, Edinburgh Evening News via The Scotsman, UK, June 24, 2005.

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said the Grand Egyptian Museum, to be built at the Pyramids area in Giza governorate, is the biggest cultural project of the 21st century.

At a press conference held at the museum's site, Hosni said the first stage of the project has already started, adding that most of the world organisations concerned have contributed to it...

Grand Egyptian museum biggest cultural project in 21st century, State Information Service, Egypt, June 24, 2005.

The night before the King Tutankhamun exhibit was unveiled for reporters, I sat at home debating the best way to study the history of the boy king who had been dead for 3,300 years.

After reading a slew of articles on the history of the boy king, I decided there was no fitting manner to prepare for an Egyptian-themed blockbuster than to watch one.

Popping “ The Mummy” into the DVD player, I eagerly absorbed the lore of Hollywood’s fictionalization of the curse of the mummy for two hours late into the night, watching the carved stone tombs and gilded treasures of Hamunaptra (City of the Dead) as ancient mummies came to life...

Revenge of The Mummy: Why Tut Intrigues, Los Angeles Independent, C