By Hassan Saadallah

An urgent project will start soon to preserve the el-Deir el-Bahari Temple of Queen Hatshepsut in Luxor, on the instructions of Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni.

The project will cost LE7 million[*], as part of a grant from the US Research Centre to preserve and develop the Valley of the Kings. The total grant is estimated at US$10 million[*].

Supreme Council for Antiquities Secretary-General Zahi Hawass said that the project includes providing the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut with close circuit cameras to monitor visitors inside the temple for security purposes.

He explained that visitors will only be allowed in through one entrance, which will be an electronic gate for checking visitors' personal belongings.

Hawass added that lighting round the temple will be upgraded to allow visitors entry at night, especially in the summer.

Upgrading Queen Hatshepsut's Temple, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, October 26, 2005.

Sherwood Baker and Evan Cornelissen hope a vegetarian crocodile can teach students about ancient Egypt.

Sherwood, 13, and Evan, 12, both seventh-graders at Memphis Junior High School, read their children's book, which had facts about Egypt woven throughout the story, Oct. 17 to groups of fourth-graders in Penny Samp's class at Memphis Elementary School.

"We gave it a twist," Evan said. "The other crocodiles make fun of him, and his friends tell him it doesn't matter what people think..."

On the Nile, Port Huron Times-Herald, Michigan, USA, October 26, 2005.

Tutankhamen, the Egyptian boy king whose tomb was opened in 1922, was buried along with pitchers filled with red wine, according to Spanish scientists.

Tests on three jars housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and another three in the British Museum in London revealed traces of a compound found in red wine, said Maria Rosa Guasch-Jane, a member of a team of scientists from the University of Barcelona.

Egyptologists had previously been unable to determine what sort of wine was contained in the pitchers. Wine was a luxury drink in ancient Egypt and its production and consumption was often depicted in tomb paintings, Guasch-Jane said today...

I'm sure this is old news although it is all over the press?

Tutankhamen's Tomb Contained Pitchers of Red Wine, Study Finds, Bloomberg, UK, October 26, 2005.