David Silverman urges students to attend exhibit coming to Philadelphia in 2007.

He was the "Original King of Bling."

Or so reads the 40-foot billboard in Times Square advertising the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibit that is scheduled to open at the Franklin Institute in February 2007.

The blockbuster exhibit's curator, Penn Near Eastern Studies professor David Silverman, offered an insider's look at its creation last evening to a mostly non-student audience.

The presentation was appropriately held at the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, where Silverman serves as curator of Egyptology...

Prof plugs exhibit on King Tut, The Daily Pennsylvanian, University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, USA, November 17, 2005.

I found a spot just beyond the riverbank, well out of sight of the felucca, and answered the call of nature. That was when the camel came nosing around. It gave me a bit of a shock, as you can imagine. One second I was alone with my bodily functions, the next looking up at a pale, yellow mane and dark, mournful eyes. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Such an encounter is probably to be expected on a trip promising a duck’s-eye view of the Nile.

Egypt’s main artery is big business: about 2m people cruise this section of the Nile every year. Most choose one of the 260 river liners that plough the southern stretch between the ancient cities of Aswan and Luxor, stopping en route to view the antiquities that have made this one of the few countries on earth worthy of its own “ology”. And while these floating hotels certainly have their attractions (air conditioning, deck-top pools, on-board loos), to me they seemed out of place: too mechanical, too dirty, simply too big for this ancient land.

I wanted something different: the same antiquarian excitements, but a more intimate experience of the river along the way; the sort of experience you get by exploring the Nile in the simplest of sailing boats: the felucca...

Egypt's Nile in style, The Times, UK, November 13, 2005.

Egypt is to recover from the United States, Canada and Germany more than 100 stolen antiquities that had been smuggled out by a massive trafficking ring, said reports.

Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said some of the antiquities were located after Egypt's largest trafficking trial in August, which led to heavy prison sentences for seven people.

He said members of his Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) had found some of the missing pieces on the websites of several auctioneers across the world.

Hawass explained that the pieces to be recovered from Germany had been seized by police as they were being sold to a buyer in the US...

Egypt claims stolen treasures, News 24, South Africa, November 17, 2005.

TravelVideo have a round-up of the travel and antiquity news in Egypt.

Travel News from Egypt - November 2005, TravelVideo.TV, Canada, November 10, 2005.