Normally, the skin colour of a young man who died nearly 3,330 years ago wouldn't be a hot political topic, but we live in strange, quarrelsome times.

The boy-king of Egypt, Tutankhamun, is back in the United States after nearly three decades. It took an act of parliament in Egypt to authorize his trip.

But this time, the upcoming King Tut exhibit, which is scheduled to open at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art on Dec. 15 and run through April 23, has travelled around the U.S. trailed by a cloud of controversy over whether the young pharaoh was white or black.

There were street protests on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles over this issue when the show, "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," opened there June 16 [2005].

"King Tut's back, and he's still black!" the protesters chanted...

Pharaoh furore, Palm Beach Post, Florida, USA, December 04, 2005.

Archaeological and geological specialists from Algeria, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Morocco and Tunisia presented the results of their work during the first year of the project, and their plans for the future.

The Euro-Mediterranean programme “Desert Patina” was initiated by the European Commission. Conscious of the gravity of the climate change in process, leading to increased drought and distress in many parts of the world, the Commission, through its various international research networks, decided it was urgent to do something concrete. Meetings were held in Kyoto, The Hague, Marrakech, Johannesburg and elsewhere. Climate and agricultural experts, astronomers, physicians, geologists, economists and ecologists all agreed that global solutions had to be proposed...

Might be interesting to some I hope? Remember that climate / drought has been implicated in the downfall of the Old Kingdom.

Scientists study Saharan rocks to determine reactions to past climate change, Morocco Times, Morocco, December 06, 2005.

It's hardly surprising that the Sphinx's huge shattered face seems to smile enigmatically. The gateway to one of the world's most famous monuments is marked by a hand printed cardboard sign proclaiming: Entrance.

The millions of tourists who make the pilgrimage here every year must pass under that sign, and through a gap in the rickety metal and wire fence, to come face to face with the giant figure of a lion with a man's face. Inside the fence, souvenir sellers fight over positions, tourist police drag children off by the ears for trying to sell carved camels to tourists, and rubbish lies in the corners.

It's hard to think of a less appropriate setting for the figure the Arabs call the Father of Terror. No wonder he is amused.

But it doesn't seem to matter...

Enigma of the smile on the Nile, The New Zealand Herald, New Zealand, December 06, 2005.

Nothing can dispel the wonder of the majestic pyramids at Giza, outside of Cairo — but the KFC and Pizza Hut across the street come pretty close. Then there are the hawkers trying to sell head scarves and rides on camels named Michael Jackson. Inside the Great Pyramid, what should be an impressive view of the pharaoh's final resting place is usually obstructed by hordes of sweaty, noisy tourists.

Fifteen miles south, however, at the other end of the Egyptian pyramid field, is Dahshur. It's where the ancient king Sneferu built two pyramids, both of which are as intact as those raised at Giza by Sneferu's son Cheops, the famous second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty. One, the Red Pyramid, is the second largest in Egypt — just 120 feet shorter than Cheops's Great Pyramid. It's the only Dahshur pyramid open to visitors. Inside, there's not much to it: A ramp leads down to an antechamber, from which a modern staircase ascends to an empty burial chamber. As with many other pyramids, its contents were looted by grave robbers, and anything that remained was removed by archaeologists for studying...

Why Haven't You Heard of ... Dahshur?, Budget Travel Online, New York, USA, December 2005 / January 2006.

Cheapest Places on Earth: Cairo, Budget Travel Online, New York, USA, November / December 2000.

Last week, I wrote about my visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibit The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt, where I enjoyed examining the Edwin Smith Papyrus. This papyrus, as you may recall, is one of the earliest surviving medical texts, and what is remarkable about it is that the knowledge is presented as a series of case reports not all that much unlike the way we sometimes present cases today. What I discussed last time was mostly the management of head wounds, and I picked a couple of cases from the papyrus to illustrate that the practical management of these head wounds is not all that different today in some ways. I also rather like the way that the Egyptian physicians divided diseases and wounds into "an ailment I will handle" (a problem for which there was a treatment), "an ailment I will fight with" (a problem for which the treatment was less certain), or "an ailment for which nothing is done."

I had been planning on moving on to a different type of injury for the second part of my series, but then I looked at the very first case again and noticed something that perhaps I should have talked about last week...

The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt, Part 2, Respectful Insolence (a.k.a. "Orac Knows"), USA, November 16, 2005.