Ancient Egyptians — unlike their Muslim modern descendents — had a taste for pork, according to a mummy autopsy.

In a study to be published in the coming months in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Fabrizio Bruschi, a pathologist from Italy’s Pisa University, and colleagues report the discovery of the oldest known case of cysticercosis — a pig-related disease — in a mummy from the late Ptolemaic period (II-I century B.C.).

Often contracted from undercooked pork, cysticercosis is an infection caused by the pork tapeworm Taenia solium.

Known as the "mummia di Narni ," from the town in central Italy where it is kept, the mummy belongs to a young woman about 20 years old. Most likely an upper-class lady, she rests in a beautiful wooden sarcophagus...

Egypt Mummy Shows Taste for Pork, Discovery Channel News, USA, January 10, 2006.

Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Zahi Hawass announced that the Pharaonic monumental gallery under "Seeking Eternity" will reach its ninth stop in the [Public Museum of Grand Rapids,] Michigan State in U.S.A. at the end of January. Notably, the eighth stop for the gallery was in [The Dayton Art Institute,] Ohio on January 3 [2006].

In his statements today January 12, 2006, Hawass said that the gallery is scheduled to visit 13 American states and cities, pointing out that the gallery began its tour with Washington's gallery, Science Museum in Boston, Kimble Museum in Texas, New Orleans in Louisiana, then Colorado and the seventh tour was in Las Vegas.

For her part Dr. Wafaa Aseddiq, Director of the Ancient Egyptian Museum General Supervisor of foreign exhibition committee said the SCA will get one million dollar for each city it visits.

"Seeking Eternity Gallery" still touring America, State Information Service, Egypt, January 12, 2006.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni will inaugurate next month he first open museum for the submerged ruins set up by the ministry at the Roman Theatre area in Alexandria.

Dr. Zahi Hawass secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities said the museum will be built on a high hill occupying 1200 square meters. 39 pieces will be exhibited including parts of the ancient Alexandria lighthouse, a statue of a lady of 5.6 metre long in addition to an obelisk of the 19th dynasty where the name of King Seti I was inscribed plus a host of the Sphinx statues.

Dr. M. Abdul Maqsud head of the Central Dept. of Egyptian antiquities said that UNESCO agreed to include the site in the world heritage list.

Open museum for sunken antiquities, State Information Service, Egypt, January 12, 2006.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni will open next March the first World Visitors Centre in the Valley of Kings.

Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said the Centre is established 400m far from the tombs area.

Ali Hilal, director of the SCA projects sector, said the LE 20 million project aims to protect more than 60 royal tombs in the area. It is also meant to highlight history of the antiquities in the area as well as raising the citizens' awareness.

First World Visitors Centre opens in Valley of Kings, State Information Service, Egypt, January 10, 2006.

A second exhibition hall at the Egyptian Museum in al-Tahrir Square, downtown Cairo, will open at the end of this month to display 11 mummies that date back to the Ancient Egyptian era.

"Wafa Sadiq, the museum's director, said the new hall will showcase 11 mummies, four of which are still under treatment. The mummies include those of kings and priests of Ancient Egypt that were unearthed in Upper Egypt's Deir el-Bahari in Luxor," the government noted.

The mummies belong to the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st dynasties were kept at the museum's basement.

Visitors can see more mummies at Egyptian museum, Africast, Connecticut, USA, January 12, 2006.

cf. CAIRO MUMMIES GET NEW SHOW CASE, Adnkronos International, January 11, 2006.

cf. More mummies to be displayed at Egyptian Museum, People's Daily, China, January 12, 2006.

cf. More mummies on display at Egyptian museum, State Information Service, Egypt, January 11, 2006.

On a cloudless morning in northern Sudan, the first rays of the sun cast a glow on Jebel Barkal, a small tabletop mountain perched near the Nile River. Jebel Barkal rises barely 320 feet above the surrounding desert but is distinguished by one prominent feature: a pinnacle jutting out from its southwestern cliff face. If your imagination is keen enough, the isolated butte might resemble a crown or an altar, and the pinnacle an unfinished colossal statue-perhaps a rearing serpent, its body poised to strike.

Striding toward an excavation near the base of the pinnacle, archaeologist Tim Kendall pauses momentarily to admire what he calls the "little mountain with big secrets." Thousands of years ago, Jebel Barkal and Napata, the town that grew up around it, served as the spiritual centre of ancient Nubia, one of Africa's earliest civilizations. The mountain was also considered a holy site by neighbouring Egypt, whose pharaohs plundered and tyrannized Nubia for 400 years.

But in the eighth century B.C., Nubia turned the tables on its former colonizers. Its armies marched 700 miles north from Jebel Barkal to Thebes, the spiritual capital of Egypt. There the Nubian king Piye became the first of a succession of five "black pharaohs" who ruled Egypt for six decades with the blessing of the Egyptian priesthood. What happened? asks Kendall. How did the Nubians, overrun by Egypt for centuries, crush their colonizers? And why did the priests of Thebes decide the black pharaohs had a mandate from heaven? Kendall has been searching for those answers for 20 years. They can be revealed, he believes, by cracking a code of geomorphological symbols at Jebel Barkal and by parsing hieroglyphic texts that refer to the mountain as Dju-wa'ab, or "Pure Mountain." "I feel as if I'm deciphering a mythological puzzle," Kendall says. "It's a real mystery story..."

Nubia's Black Pharaohs, Discover Magazine, New York, USA, Vol. 26, No. 12, December 2005, requires subscription.

Top archaeologist Dr. Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities and director of the Giza and Saqqara Pyramids, recently inaugurated the much-awaited King Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibit being held here. The displays of 180 artefacts will remain at the Museum of Arts in Las Olas [Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale] until April 2006.

In an interview with the eTurbo News, Hawass revealed a host of recent discoveries his team and other experts have made, making Egypt a destination culture vultures and heritage tourists long to visit year to year.

eTN: What is all the buzz about the Giza area and Saqqara?

Dr. Zahi Hawass: Saqqara is extremely significant to archaeology, in a way that whenever one excavates there, he is definitely bound to find something important and precious. A scene in one of the shafts, when I entered the Saqqara tomb, showed mummies...

Egypt’s ancient treasures expanding, luring more tourists and intrigues, Hazel Heyer, TravelVideo.TV, Ontario, Canada, January 10, 2006.