When King Tutankhamun first toured US museums in 1979-80, Hollywood actor and comedian Steve Martin seized on the Egyptomania unleashed by the exhibition by inventing a song that asked King Tut, “How’d ya get so funky?” Banking on the likelihood that Tutankhamun is still funky, rock concert promoter AEG decided to back a second US tour for the boy king, and LACMA is the lead venue in the US tour. The show, which runs until 15 November [2005], has been assailed as profit-motivated popular entertainment, or as Los Angeles Times critic Christopher Knight puts it, “an ethically dubious ode to the cash register”.

“I don’t know why there has been this uproar”, says LACMA deputy director Melody Kanschat. “I feel strongly–and the museum stands behind me–that this is terrific for Los Angeles”.

Los Angeles is the third leg in a three-year tour that began in April 2004 in [the Antikenmuseu m Basel und Sammlung Ludwig,] Basel, Switzerland, and continued in [the K unst- und Ausstellungshalle,] Bonn, Germany this spring. The show was first suggested by the Egyptian government, keen to raise money to build a new museum near the Pyramids. For the US run, the Egyptians have tacked on an additional $5-million fee for each of the four venues.

The Egyptians chose University of Pennsylvania Egyptologist David Silverman as the organising curator for the US tour, but individual venues have “curatorial input and oversight”, although the same 130 objects from the Basel show are on view in the US...

King Tut, from Pharaoh to “product” The Art Newspaper, UK, October 06, 2005.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni approved plans to hold a Pharaonic monuments exhibition in [de Young Fine Arts Museums of] San Francisco, from October 15 2005, to January 29, 2006.

The exhibition will be held under the title: "Hatshepsut from Queen to Pharaoh".

The same exhibition will move to [Metropolitan Museum of Art,] New York[,] on March 20 to July 9 [2006] and to [Kimbell Art Museum] Fort Worth[, Texas,] on August 19 through September 10 [2006].

Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) expected the exhibition to achieve returns amounting to $100,000 adding that the New York-based Metropolitan Museum, which is due to host the exhibition, will present Egypt with equipment and tools used in renovation works.

Culture Minister approves Hatchepsut exhibition in US, State Information Service, Egypt, October 06, 2005.

King Tut fever has infected the world of design. Get ready for everything from pharaoh heads to sarcophagus storage.

Egyptian has become the motif du jour, inspired by Tutankamum and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, a four-city traveling exhibit coming to the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art on Dec. 15 [2005].

The boy king may seem an unlikely design muse, but he has proven to be an inspiration since his burial chamber was discovered in 1922. The result back then was a worldwide craze for Egyptian design.

He inspired decor from the grave again in 1976 with The Treasure of Tutankhamun exhibit.

And now he promises to do it again. Savvy buyers — from specialty stores to discount home furnishings retailers — have recognized that King Tut's return to the museum circuit could mean a new epidemic of pharaoh fever...

Egyptian decor has a firm foothold in design circles, and Tut is king, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Florida, USA, September 30, 2005.

More on the CT scanning of the child mummy ‘Sherit’.

Two thousand years ago in the sands of Egypt, grieving parents put their tiny child to rest in a way that was customary even during the time of Christ. They removed all of the youth's organs except for the heart, packed the remains in salt to cure them and wrapped them in linen coated with perfumed resin. Like all Egyptians of the age, they were certain that their careful efforts would prepare their loved one to someday come back to life.

Today in Silicon Valley, a team of world-renowned experts proved those parents right — although the mummy's high-tech resurrection may not quite be what ancient Egyptians had in mind.

In a press conference at Silicon Graphics headquarters, researchers allowed attendees to literally come face to face with the rare mummified remains of the ancient Egyptian child...

SGI masters the curse of the mummy, Enterprise Networks & Servers, Texas, USA, September, 2005.

cf. Scientists Reach Back 2,000 Years to Bring Rare Child Mummy Back to Life, Silicon Graphics Inc., USA, August 03, 2005. Contains video and Audio footage as well.

Men have retreated to the desert for centuries in search of God, drawn by the quiet and the isolation, by a feeling of divine presence in the barren landscape, in the sand, the wind and the sun.

Maximous Elantony, a Coptic monk, knew that. He too was drawn to the desert in search of a relationship with God. But he could hardly believe it when he recently helped to discover some of the earliest physical evidence of Christians who made that quest as well...

In Egyptian desert, cells of earliest monks, International Herald Tribune, France, September 29, 2005.

An ancient mosque in Old Cairo will be reopened to the public after five years of restoration work, Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni announced Sunday.

The "mosque of al-Mu'ayyad Shaykh ... will be opened within the next few weeks after the completion of its renovation work" which cost up to 14 million Egyptian pounds (about 2.43 million US dollars), Hosni was quoted as saying by the official MENA news agency...

Egypt's ancient mosque to reopen after 5 years of restoration, Xinhua via People's Daily, China, October 03, 2005.