Quite what the history department would have made, meanwhile, of Dan Cruickshank is anyone's guess. When he hove into view riding on an ass last night, it looked like a director's little joke. But as he proceeded to tell the tale of the heretical pharaoh Akhenaten and his queen Nefertiti, a familiar performance began to emerge.

Cruickshank could gush for Britain. He can enthuse to an Olympic standard. He is not an Egyptologist, as such, and much of his series is in any case being duplicated by BBC1's Egypt, but he can become awestruck at the drop of a Panama hat, a knack that is always hard to criticise.

Akhenaten believed that the ancient Egyptians needed only one god and decided that sun worship was just the ticket. This threatened to do the priestly class out of jobs. As history likes to remind us, and as Akhenaten discovered, religious phonies never go quietly.

It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it, The Herald, UK, November 14, 2005.

The Colossi of Memnon, two lonely sentinels, have greeted visitors to the Theban necropolis since Roman times. More recently, as you look beyond the seated monoliths, a temple can be seen progressively re-emerging from what, to an unprofessional eye, earlier appeared as no more than slight elevations and depressions in the packed earth. In this age of advanced technology, what is officially known as The Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project, simply "Memnon/Amenhotep III Project", under the auspices of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo and the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), is casting light on a great monument that was swept away soon after its completion. "Despite the difficulty of our task," announces Hourig Sourouzian — Egyptologist, art historian and project director — "I feel wonderfully privileged to be working on this project."
Interview by Jill Kamil

Summer is over. A new archaeological season is underway. And of the many missions, local and international, commencing work at Luxor, the Memnon/Amenhotep III Project is unquestionably the most extraordinary. To put it in Sourouzian's words, "whereas in other monuments we are in presence of walls, sometimes even ceilings, but nothing from the temple furniture remains — no statues, stelae, altars, etc. — what we have at this site is exactly the opposite; parts of the equipment and remains of statues survive, and their positions give us a clue to the locations of pylons and walls that are no longer there." Such thinking reflects the general assumption that the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III (1387-1348 BC), of which the colossi are part, was totally swept away by a particularly high flood or an earthquake some time after its completion. All that remained were collapsed pylons, walls, columns and statues, some of which were re-used by later Pharaohs for their own temples, or collected by modern travellers and scholars. The ruin was subsequently obscured — all, that is, but for the seated colossi, solitary relics of the Pharaoh's Golden Era — and, a quarter of a mile to the rear, a sandstone stelae inscribed with a dedicatory text.

The magnitude of this ancient catastrophe is best assessed by placing its construction in historical context. Amenhotep III reaped the benefits of his predecessors' conquests and Thebes was at the peak of its glory during his long reign. With economic conditions sound, wealth pouring in from the distant reaches of the Egyptian empire..

Hourig Sourouzian: Resurrection, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 768, November 10 - 16, 2005.

Egypt has halted the sale of 50 ancient Egyptian artefacts on display in Medousa auction hall in Canada. The pieces were part of a collection of Ushabti figures, or wooden statuettes, and Udjat eyes and amulets which had been stolen and sold by two antiquity traders. The pair, brothers, have since been arrested.

Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) said the SCA had found the objects while combing the websites of international auction halls known for possessing priceless archaeological objects. The SCA informed the Egyptian prosecutor- general who then asked the Canadian authorities to confiscate the objects on display. Hawass said Egypt would recover the collection within a month.

Newsreel: Sale stopped, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 768, November 10 - 16, 2005.

Behind its elegant façade, the state of Oxford's Ashmolean has long been an embarrassment — but a £49m rebuild is about to change that, says Giles Worsley.

The Ashmolean in Oxford is one of the great museum buildings of the world and arguably the most sophisticated classical building ever erected in this country. But as a modern museum it fails lamentably.

This is not the fault of the architect, CR Cockerell, whose galleries make a wonderful museum space. But venture behind them and you find a rabbit warren of later additions with none of Cockerell's distinction and every problem known to modern curators.

It is, quite simply, an unworthy setting for a museum whose collections are finer than some national collections — including the largest and most important group of Raphael drawings in the world, the greatest collection of Egyptian pre-dynastic material outside Cairo, the finest Anglo-Saxon treasures beyond the British Museum, and the only great Minoan collection outside Heraklion...

Heroic collections find a worthy setting, The Telegraph, UK, November 08, 2005.

cf. More about the Ashmolean Museum's Proposed Development, The Ashmolean, UK.

cf. Rick Mather Architects.

An Egyptian-Japanese team have completed the first phase of the restoration of the Tomb of Amenhotep III of the 18th Dynasty.

This first phase included cleaning the tomb and photographing the walls with their engravings of the King and the gods. Other work involved repairing some of the engravings that were damaged and strengthening the walls and columns.

Meanwhile, the fungi and bacteria on the walls were killed by the team, using chemicals that would not harm the engravings.

By taking X-rays of the monument, the Japanese members of the team were able to pinpoint the constituents of the paints used by the Pharaohs to colour their engravings, including the pigments orpiment (used to make a yellow colour), hematite (for white) and arsmeti (for orange).

The tomb, located in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, consists of a long corridor with three halls. The corridor descends steeply to a well surrounded by gods.

There is also a room with two square pillars, descending to 21 small rooms with damaged engravings. Meanwhile, there is a burial chamber with columns. It also contains parts of a broken coffin.

Some of the rooms were looted in the era of King Rameses IX. There is a papyrus in existence which records the confessions and names of the thieves.

Restoration of Amenhotep Tomb progresses, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, November 08, 2005.

This is satire, obviously!

President George Bush returned from the fourth Summit of the Americas held in Mar del Plata, Argentina on Monday with his tail between his legs, stung at being called “human trash” by Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona, and called “an imperialist” by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez...

“But I’m not really Jewish, since my lineage goes back even farther than that,” he exclaimed. “The Bush family line including Godfrey and Jesus extends all the way back to King David and before and then even back to that Egyptian sun king, you know, the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep IV who started monotheism and married Nefertiti and later renamed himself Akhenaten...”

George Bush Claims He is Descended from Jesus Christ and Akhenaten and is Not “Human Trash”, The Spoof!, November 07, 2005.

Museum directors hope the artwork they display will inspire visitors — but not necessarily to ask, "Did they steal that?" Yet that is precisely the question being asked at museums from New York's Metropolitan to California's Getty and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). The former antiquities curator of the world's richest museum, the Getty, goes on trial next week in Italy on charges that she helped the museum acquire stolen art.

Armed with new information from the memoirs of a controversial art dealer, Italian authorities want at least 42 items in the Getty collection returned. New York's Met may have to return a "supergem" of its collection, a 6th century BC painted vase. They want at least 22 items back from Boston's MFA, including a prized 2,500-year-old Greek vase.

The revelations have stunned the public, but cries of "Gimme my stuff back!" have been resounding through the art world for centuries — mostly falling on deaf ears. Greece still wants the Elgin marbles back from Britain ... Greece may well get them soon, say observers, because the political climate and national attitudes about culture have changed.

The bad old days of Indiana Jones-style museum acquisition no longer fly...

Ancient art, modern crime, The Christian Science Monitor, USA, November 07, 2005.

What does a visitor to Egypt recall on return- Pyramids, Sphinx, Tutankhamun, museums, temples, desert, food... Yes, certainly all this and so, so, so much more. ‘The Land of the Dead’ is made up of hundreds of monuments, each with a story to tell.

During my recent visit to Egypt, time was limited and our week's stay was packed with as much as was possible to, make the most of the seven days. Yet, what stays with me most vividly on our return was the visit to the Pharaonic village. Not listed in the guidebooks and travel literature, the village comes as a pleasant surprise. Situated in the heart of Cairo, the Pharaonic village is the private property of one Dr Hassan Ragab who decided to use his papyrus plantation to showcase life in an Egyptian village, as it would have been around 2000 B.C.

Work on the village started in 1977. As many as 500 trees were planted on the five acres to screen the village from the city. Canals and waterways were dug through leaving a central mound of an island. The village is created on the island, which is surrounded by narrow waterways- obviously in an attempt to recreate the Nile. “Welcome, travellers to Egypt,” a deep voice greets us as we seat ourselves on cushioned chairs on a beautiful wooden boat...

A village like no other, Deccan Herald, India, November 06, 2005.

... A hallway at the school was turned into the boy king's tomb. A bookcase — shipped from Egypt — borrowed from travel agent Don Hoffman that looks just like the tomb, sat in the centre of the hallway and student-made hieroglyphics like the ones inside his tomb adorned the walls, said art teacher Paige Gates. Even the bathroom doors had hieroglyphics to show who they were designated for.

This is the first time the school has borrowed the bookshelf/tomb and will keep the display up for a while.

Both rooms were decorated with pyramids made by the kids in everything from baseballs, to dice to candy boxes to Dr Pepper cans. Eleven-year-old Jimmy Essman pointed out a mummified chicken with separated heart and gizzard. Table salt was used for this process and Egyptians used sea salt...

Egypt Day a hit at Trinity School, My West Texas, Texas, USA, November 05, 2005.

One can imagine researchers' disappointment when they unsealed Khufu's sarcophagus and found a small statuette in lieu of a mummy.

The French scientist Lauert arrived in Egypt 60 years ago. He was going to unravel the mystery of the pyramids. The scientist is still in Egypt. These days the 90-year old researcher says he has to crack more mysteries than before. Pyramids still remain the world's wonder No.1 since everything we know about them is mostly guesswork and speculation. Tatyana Shakurova, an Egyptologist at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow, shared her views of some mysteries relating to the Egyptian pyramids.

Why pyramids?

On the face of it, the answer looks cut-and-dried. A pyramid is the simplest most complete structure. In the meantime, a pyramid may embody the myth about afterlife. The myth evolved along with the architectural concept as time went by...

Mummies of Egyptian pharaohs mysteriously disappear from pyramids, Pravda, Russia, November 08, 2005.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni approved to display Egyptian antiquities at the "Arts Centre Museum" in the Spanish capital Madrid under the title "The Pharaohs". Two similar exhibitions of the Egyptian antiquities in Italy and Paris have scored quite a success.

Hosni said 120 pieces of antiquities will be put on display in Madrid and that Egypt will receive one million and 330,000 euros in return.

Insurance for the antiquities against theft, acts of terrorism, quakes etc... is put at $220,890,000, Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Antiquities Dr. Zahi Hawass said.

Egyptian antiquities in Spain, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, November 06, 2005.

A plan to electronically secure the "Pyramids Plateau," implemented over the past 3 years, will be given the go-ahead by President Hosni Mubarak early next year. The plan is a collaborative effort of the Ministry of Culture and the National Security Agency.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said that the project cost LE55 million, and includes the establishment of a 15-km fence around the plateau, to protect against squatting. The fence is entirely away from the panorama of the pyramids, and does not have a negative impact on the aesthetic scenery of the Plateau.

Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Dr. Zahi Hawass said that the plan provides the area with about 20 electronic gates to regulate and control visits.

Pyramids plateau electronically secured by 2006, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, November 07, 2005.

On a 3-year mission, a research team from the National Institute for Geophysics and Astronomy, "Helwan Observatory" will resume its project to survey and determine sites to dig for monuments in the Kharga Oases region. This will be carried out in cooperation with the Computer Science Lab in Technology Institute in Tokyo as well as the Supreme Council for Antiquities.

Such enterprise aims at the detection of antiquities around Al-Zaiyan Temple in Polaq district in Al-Kharga Oases, in which state-of the art-technology will be used to determine and locate significant antiquities sites.

Notably, a similar field study was carried out before to locate the underground water surrounding Hebes Temple in the New Valley.

Egyptian-Japanese team to locate artefacts of the New Valley, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, November 08, 2005.

Egypt has managed to foil an attempt to sell 50 Pharaonic artefacts at the Medousa auction in Canada, said Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni.

Secretary of the National Council of Antiquities Dr. Zahi Hawass said that the Council has been monitoring 43 auctions all over the world to trace Egyptian artefacts on sale there.

Hawass said that the Prosecutor-General was notified and the Canadian authorities contacted in order to halt the sale and have the artefacts returned to Egypt.

He said that the Canadian authorities have already taken measures to impound the pieces until Egypt sends a technical and judicial committee.

Egypt foils attempt to sell 50 artefacts in Canada, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, November 08, 2005.

After a powercut knocked out the PC that hosts my blogging software I've had to perform major open-heart surgery on my machine to get back online.