Airport authorities on Monday detained a British man for questioning after they found valuable manuscripts banned from export in his luggage.

Jim Douglas is believed to have been trying to board a flight to Paris with 66 Islamic manuscripts when custom officers stopped him for a detailed search of his luggage after an X-ray check of his baggage showed up "strange objects".

Antiquities experts called to the airport identified the manuscripts as being from the Islamic era and covered a wide range of topics from medicine to sorcery.   The manuscripts also included excerpts from the Gospels written in both Arabic and Coptic.

Egyptian law classifies manuscripts more than 100 years old as antiquities.

Newsreel: Archaeological arrest, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 757, August 25 - 31, 2005.

A profile of Zahi Hawass from Al-Ahram newspaper.

The walls of Zahi Hawass's office are covered with photographs, a great many of them of its occupant.   There he is in jeans, entering a narrow burial shaft in Saqqara.   And brushing sand from an exquisitely coloured mummy.   There are photographs of Hawass excavating in the Valley of the Golden Mummies, of Hawass sitting behind Champollion's desk in Paris, of Hawass lecturing President Hosni Mubarak and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at the opening of the Tutankhamun exhibition in Bonn.   The few gaps between these images are punctuated by 19th-century drawings of the Giza Plateau, the Valley of the Kings, Abu Simbel and the Egyptian Museum that seem somehow to have insinuated themselves into this personal hall of fame.

On the desk is a plastic replica of Tutankhamun's skull, a marble model of the Pyramid of Senefru, the father of Khufu, and the bank of telephones that normally ring incessantly.   Indeed, securing two hours with Hawass without him fiddling with his mobile, or being constantly interrupted by the bank of telephones is itself a feat...

Zahi Hawass: A hat is a hat, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 757, August 25 - 31, 2005.

As a regular visitor to the sites in Luxor, the amount of destruction is becoming more and more obvious.  Seeing a stone lintel at Medinet Habu the other day, literally crumbling away before my eyes, I wondered how much is going to be left for my grandchildren to see.

The problem is caused by rising ground water which is eating away at the monuments.  This is not a new story.  It has been happening for some time...

The Destruction of Luxor's Heritage, Jane Akshar, Tour Egypt, Texas, USA, August 24, 2005.

The Egyptian Embassy in Amman had contacts with the Jordanian authorities to bring back to Egypt a statue dating back to the Pharaonic era.

Jordanian Customs authorities seized the statue when a person tried to smuggle it on the Jordanian-Syrian borders.

Egypt's ambassador to Jordan Ahmad Rizq, said that contacts with the Jordanian officials were part of an agreement signed by the two countries last January.

Egyptian-Jordanian contacts to restore Pharaonic statue, State Information Service, Egypt, August 22, 2005.