Serene Assir travels through the Upper Egyptian governorate of Sohag to find that her understanding of the town was defied to its very core.

... Sohag is also, in and of itself, intensely beautiful, both in terms of its impressive, varied natural and historical scenery and in terms of the warmth, genuine hospitality, frankness and cultural integrity of its inhabitants, who genuinely wanted us to be there and to talk and write about their region when we returned home. Most Egyptian tourism websites and guidebooks catering to the global traveller tend to skip Sohag altogether, while the few that do include it only do so insofar as mentioning two or three of its historical sites, while failing to mention places to stay and less frequented and obvious sites of great artistic and cultural interest to anyone with a taste for beauty, politics, history or culture...

It's not what you think, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 766, 27 October - 2 November 2005.

Traveller's notes, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 766, 27 October - 2 November 2005.

This weekend sees the start of two new BBC TV series on Egyptology. The first, Egypt, has been getting quite a bit of press due to filming difficulties and budget overruns, whilst the second has snuck in without the slightest mention!

Egypt

Sun 30 Oct 2005, 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm 60mins

The Search for Tutankhamun

Part 1 of 6

Six-part dramatised documentary about the discovery of Ancient Egypt. Carter was an irascible Englishman who travelled to Egypt to work as a painter but soon became an archaeologist, being fascinated by Ancient Egypt and determined to make an important discovery. When evidence for Tutankhamun's tomb came to light, he became obsessed with finding it and after years of searching with his patron, Lord Carnarvon, eventually gazed at a sight not seen for thousands of years. Interwoven with Carter's adventure is the mysterious story of the boy king Tutankhamun who, aged eight, became king and married his sister.

And the second...

Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank

Sun 30 Oct 2005, 10:00 pm - 10:30 pm 30mins

First in a new six-part series in which Dan Cruickshank explores some of the most intriguing stories from Ancient Egypt.

In this programme, Dan visits the magnificent underground tombs in the Valley of the Kings in search of clues about the unsung heroes of this ancient world - the mysterious community of craftsmen who spent their lives building lavish burial chambers for the Pharaohs.

The tombs are wonderful feats of art and engineering and Dan finds a wealth of intriguing evidence about the lives of the supposedly anonymous people who built them. Given rare access to the most complex tomb of all - the 150-room necropolis built for the sons of Rameses II - Dan speculates on the skill of the men who designed and excavated this tomb thousands of years ago.

By Zahi Hawass

People say I live dangerously because they have seen my exciting adventures in many documentary films. They see me entering shafts and tombs, and also pyramids. In one section of a live show I did few years ago with FOX TV I entered one of the queens' pyramids located south of the Menkaure Pyramid at Giza.

The interior of this pyramid is unique. The width is about 20 to 30cm. and it slopes down about 20m. After that you reach the entrance of the burial chamber, which is secured by a granite door. Only about 15cm. lies between the bottom edge of the door and the ground.

I entered the pyramid on live TV with Suzie, a TV presenter. She was very slim and could easily enter the pyramid. She had a camera on her head so that the audience could see me. They had put the camera batteries on my back, and that made it much more difficult for me to move. I managed to enter the 20m opening and proceed down the shaft, but when I reached the entrance of the burial chamber and began to enter the 15cm shaft I got stuck...

Dig days: Adventures in the Step Pyramid, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 766, 27 October - 2 November 2005.

Can the new antiquities law put an end to the antiquities trafficking business? Nevine El-Aref looks at the issues.

Grave robbing has thrived in Egypt from the days of the ancients. The tombs of royals and the elite were most at risk, since they contained great riches in the form of valuable funerary objects including gold jewellery and domestic objects inlaid with precious stones, alabaster and faience. Even the graves of the poor, however, were prey to robbery for the sake of the meagre offerings and adornments entombed with the deceased.

Despite the curse-invoking texts engraved on tomb walls, certain architectural steps taken to prevent theft, severe punishments and warnings that robbers would be judged by the gods in the afterlife, grave robbers continued to plunder tombs.

Robberies reached a peak in Roman times. Many ancient Egyptian monuments and other objects were smuggled from their original location to Europe, especially to Rome...

New law on the way, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 766, 27 October - 2 November 2005.

Egyptian antiquities were often the price paid for building modern Egypt, writes Jill Kamil.

Muhammad Ali used antiquities as a diplomatic lever. His ambitious plan to modernise Egypt required foreign expertise, and sensitive as he was to Western fascination with the country's ancient monuments, he charmed professionals to Egypt by offering them a free hand to collect whatever they wished. It was no difficult task to gather beautiful objects in those days -- statues or parts of statues, painted reliefs from collapsed walls of tombs and temples lay all over the place, and the desert winds revealed burial grounds that could be dug up for mummies, sarcophagi and funerary objects.

This uncultured Albanian, who rose to powerful command in the Ottoman army in Egypt through sheer ability, had no interest in "blocks of stone". He assembled a small personal collection of antiquities, not because he appreciated them but in order to have a supply at hand to pay for foreign expertise or hand out bribes. He ordered one of his officials, Youssef Diya, to find a suitable location in which to store the treasures, and when they outgrew the space afforded them in a small building in Ezbekieh, they were transferred to a hall at the Citadel...

Treasures for the taking, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 766, 27 October - 2 November 2005.