Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and his wife are to witness the cultural evening held by Culture Ministry on the occasion of the opening of Mohamed Ali Pasha Palace in Shubra, Cairo due in next Monday, the government noted.

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni was reported saying that Mubarak will tour the palace the restoration of which has lasted for four years at a cost of LE 50 million "which will be turned into an international centre to host festivals, conferences and high-ranking guests."

Mohamed Ali Pasha Palace to open Monday, Arabic News, December 21, 2005.

The King Tut show is shamelessly overpriced, but — Holy Osiris! — the art is terrific!

When I told a neighbour last week that I was going to the King Tut exhibition, a look of relief came over her face. "Oh, gosh, I thought I missed it," she said. "I thought it had come and gone." This was the day before the show opened.

That overbearing drumbeat announcing the imminent arrival of "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," now at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, has been so insistent recently — from newspaper supplements and posters to whimsical little features on local television news — that a lot of people probably think Tut has been in town for months.

Well, finally, here's the real deal. The Boy King has arrived — in a manner of speaking. Of course, the mummy of Tutankhamun, discovered in 1922 in a burial chamber near Luxor, Egypt, remains in its home country, as does Tut's elaborate gold-plated sarcophagus (three "nested" coffins within four "nested" shrines, each element fitting snugly within a larger version of itself). But 50 burial objects are now on display at the museum, as well as 70 objects from other tombs and a nifty video reproduction of the grimacing mummy...

Chip Off the Old Blockbuster, New Times Broward-Palm Beach, Florida, December 22, 2005.

The wonders of Ancient Egypt have arrived in Madrid, with an exhibition of more than 120 pieces from Cairo Museum on show at the Isabel II Exhibition Centre until 14th May [2006].

All of the exhibits have incalculable archaeological value, and some of them have never been seen in Spain before. Many of the pieces are more than 4,500 years old.

The exhibition, called ‘Faraón’ or Pharaoh, is actually two exhibitions in one. The other part is a three dimensional journey, produced by the British Museum, through the inside of a mummy.

The documentary shows how the mummy of Nesperennub was put through a scanning machine in a London hospital, producing more than 1,500 transversal sections at one minute intervals. The projection is shown inside an specially-constructed 18 metre high pyramid.

Ancient Egypt arrives in Spain, TypicallySpanish.com, Spain, December 20, 2005.

The official title is “Faraón. El enigma en Madrid”.

cf. Spain Culture Review - Wed Dec 21st 2005, TypicallySpanish.com, Spain, December 21, 2005.

cf. Spain Culture Review - Wed Dec 21st 2005, TypicallySpanish.com, Spain, December 21, 2005.

cf. Lots of Spanish language coverage via Google News España.