by Zahi Hawass

As we continued to excavate Tomb 26, we found the most beautiful female mummy. She wore a gilded gypsum mask, and a band of yellow and red flowers crowned by the uraeus (protective cobra) was upon her head. Her eyes were framed in black, and on her chest was a cartonnage mask covered with painted funerary scenes. Resting on her chest was her child, buried with the mother for eternity.

In another niche we found three mummies. The first was in a wooden coffin, wrapped in linen and with a cartonnage chest shield with scenes of the Book of the Dead. The second was also in a wooden box. It seemed that the gods wanted to make up for the day before when we lost the beautiful wooden panel, because here we discovered a second panel.

I though that if I did not ask Salah to do the conservation, it would end his career. So I said to him, "Come Salah. You have to know that everyone makes mistakes. Do this work again and do it well." The mummy was that of a woman who had originally been buried in a coffin, but only the foot panel remained. This panel was more beautiful, exciting than the golden mummies. It depicted the gate of the afterlife, guarded by a cobra. The deceased, shown as a gypsum statue, is dressed in a green Roman Garment with short sleeves, long skirt, with back bands. Over this she wears a red cloak. The right leg is in stride as if she is leaving the coffin and walking through the gate into eternal life. I thanked god for letting us find a second panel and giving courage back to Salah.

But, I could not think of the golden lady, and I was upset that we had taken from her the special panel that was meant to insure her resurrection and I feel strongly that these ancient people have the right to be left in peace. However, as archaeologists, it is our job to preserve these artefacts and learn from them, and protect our heritage.

The second wooden panel, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, January 30, 2006.

Egyptologists have discovered two 3,400-year-old statues of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet and a rare statue depicting a king with Nubian features, an archaeological conservation director said on Monday.

War goddess Sekhmet embodied the cruel powers of the sun, and was also responsible for both curing and causing illness. The excavation team believe the statues were excavated from elsewhere, then hidden at a temple in Luxor either for later sale or to protect them from robbers.

One of the Sekhmet statues, made of granite and about 150 cm (five-feet) high, was holding a symbol representing life and a scroll of papyrus.

"It's extremely beautiful. Only the feet are missing and the base," said Hourig Sourouzian, the German-Armenian director of the international conservation team which found the statues.

The team, working under the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, found the statues at the temple of 18th-dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep III in Luxor while working on a project to protect the temple from Nile water...

Egyptologists find war goddess and Nubian king, Reuters, UK, January 30, 2006.

cf. Archaeologists puzzle over statue find in Egypt, DPA via Monsters & Critics, UK, January 30, 2006. Includes a couple of pictures.

cf. Egyptologists find war goddess, AAP via Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, January 31, 2006.

cf. Icons of Egyptian goddess found in temple dig, The Scotsman, UK, January 31, 2006.

cf. Ancient Egyptian royal head puzzles archaeologists, SAPA-DPA via Mail & Guardian, South Africa, January 30, 2006.

It served first as a notebook for ancient painters and then as part of a mummy's wrapping. Now, a first century B.C. parchment believed to contain the earliest cartography of the Greek-Roman era will be on display next month in the northern city of Turin.

The Papyrus of Artemidorus tells a tale of more than 2,000 years of art and culture.

Egyptologist Alessandro Roccati, of the University of Turin, said the parchment was "extraordinary" in that it "conserves direct and ancient testimony that helps reconstruct history." Roccati was not involved in the project.

The parchment's story begins around the mid-first century B.C., when a copyist in Alexandria, Egypt, began working on a blank parchment to copy the second of 11 books by Greek geographer Artemidorus of Ephesus...

Ancient Papyrus Goes on Display in Turin, AP via WTOP, District of Columbia, USA, January 27, 2006.

cf. Palazzo Bricherasio di Torino.

cf. Museo Egizio di Torino.

... The statue, which dates to between 1391 and 1352 B.C., was found under the platform of a temple of the goddess Mut, which dates to about 700 B.C. It appears to have been tossed in with rubble used to fill in the floor during that temple's later expansion, said Betsy Bryan, a professor of Egyptian art and archaeology at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

"The reason for using the statue as construction material, however, remains unknown," Bryan said in an e-mail from Egypt...

Egyptian queen's statue discarded to fill under floor, AP via The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio, USA, January 29, 2006.

cf. Egyptian Statue Met Undignified End, AP via PhillyBurbs, Pennsylvania, USA, January 28, 2006.

cf. Statue of King Tut's Grandmother Found, Discovery Channel News, USA, January 26, 2006.

Inspired by the legend of a Persian king and his lost army, Stefano Miglietti, an Italian adventurer, completed a 340-mile hike through the most isolated and arid part of the western Sahara yesterday.

The route that Signor Miglietti followed through the so-called Great Sand Sea — from the Farafra oasis in southern Egypt to the Siwa oasis in the north — has always been considered impossible for a man carrying his own food and water.

According to legend, Cambyses II, the Persian king, foolishly tried to take the same route in 523 BC, setting off with a 50,000-strong army.

Herodotus, the Greek author, writes that Cambyses and his men were swallowed up in sandstorms and never seen again...

Adventurer crosses sands that conquered a king, The Times, UK, January 28, 2006.

The Gifts of the Gods: Adornment in Antiquity is one of the [University of Saskatchewan’s] annual shifting exhibitions. These transitory exhibits are meant to highlight a certain aspect of the Museum’s collection and a certain theme drawn from the artworks and artefacts of history...

... Adornment is the Museum's specifically created collection of replicas and original pieces from the Near East, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Medieval and Renaissance Europe...

... Some replicas are drawn from the Museum’s already existing collection to suit the Adornment theme. For one, there’s a replica example of a gloriously decorated sword of the Knights Templar, but other pieces are of the “golly, it’s real!” variety. These include a selection of authentic Egyptian amulets, used in antiquity not only for personal adornment but for warding off evil...

All that glitters is not gold, The Sheaf, Saskatchewan, Canada, January 26, 2006.

Egypt has always been a place of wonder, mystery and exciting discoveries. Pyramids, mummies, and Pharaohs: all invoking passion and beauty.

Now, after 27 years, people are being given the chance to stand face-to-face with artefacts which lied in the hands of one of histories most infamous kings, King Tutankhamun.

The artefacts were brought to the United States previously in 1979 and now, for the first time, they have been brought to Florida.

Held at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, the exhibit traces the life of a nine-year-old boy who ruled Egypt between 1333-1323 B.C. and mysteriously died around the age of 19...

King Tutankhamun Exhibit displays Egyptian artefacts, The Beacon Newspaper, Florida International University, Florida, USA, January 26, 2006.

The remains of a ship used by ancient Egyptians for commercial trips to the fabled land of Punt have been discovered in five caves engraved in a port on the Red Sea.

The find, in the Marsa Gawasees area near the Red Sea resort of Safaga, dates back to the Middle Kingdom and was excavated by a joint American and Italian team from Boston University and East Naples working in the area for five years, it was reported Thursday.

Higher Antiquities Council Secretary-general Zahi Hawass called the find one of the most important marine excavations that confirms that Punt lay to the south of Egypt and not in Sinai as previously believed...

Ancient ship remains are unearthed at Egyptian Red Sea port, DPA via Monsters & Critics, UK, January 26, 2006.

A review of Christianity and Monasticism in the Fayoum Oasis, Gawdat Gabra, ed., Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2005. pp322

This publication includes most, but not all, of the papers presented at the second International Seminar on Coptic Studies in the Fayoum in February 2004, and it provides the first comprehensive and up-to-date studies on Christian growth and development in the fertile depression southwest of Cairo. Here Christianity began in the third century, and its presence has endured to the present day.

The first seminar on Coptic studies took place at Wadi Al-Natrun in 2002, a monastic area west of the Delta which was already well known and documented: Hugh Evelyn- White's monumental 1933 study of the area, The History of the Monasteries of the Wadi'n Natrun, was reprinted in 1973 to include additional historical, archaeological, and philological data. The seminar, in other words, took place on familiar territory. It is only to be regretted that the papers given at that seminar, which cast additional light on the growth and development of monastic life in Wadi Al-Natrun in recent years, were not published.

However, this deficiency has been set right at the second seminar...

Monastic memories of Al-Fayoum, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 779, 26 January - 1 February 2006.

A beautiful black granite statue of Queen Tiye, mother of the monotheistic king Akhenaten, was unearthed last Monday in Luxor, reports Nevine El-Aref. At Karnak's Mut Temple, a John Hopkins University archaeological mission stumbled upon the statue while brushing sand off the temple's second hall.

"The statue is mostly intact," said Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), who added that although the 160cm tall statue has a broken arm and a missing leg, it was still considered very well preserved. It features a standing Queen Tiye wearing a wig and a cobra-decorated crown...

... In other archaeology-related news, the SCA and the Luxor Supreme Council agreed to enlarge the road around the two famous Memnon statues on Luxor's West Bank; they also discussed the possibility of constructing a visitors' centre — similar to the one at the Abu Simbel Temple — at the entrance of the Valley of the Kings.

Discovering Queen Tiye, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 779, 26 January - 1 February 2006.

For the third consecutive year, Egypt has registered a record number of international tourists and tourists nights. The year 2005 witnessed a record number of 8.6 million of international tourists visiting Egypt.

From 6 million in 2003 the number has jumped to 8.1 in 2004 to reach to a new height of 8.6 million with an increase of 6.2 percent over 2004.

The Canadian market surpassed the average figure with an increase of 8.2 percent, reaching to a total of 52000 tourists representing a new record high for Canada.

First come Germany with 980000 tourists preceding Italy with 820000 tourists who came third after Britain who recorded a spectacular increase of 53 percent with 840000 tourists.

Russia came fourth with 780000 tourists followed by France with half a million tourists...

New Record: 8.6 million tourists in Egypt, TravelVideo.TV, Ontario, Canada, January 23, 2006.

Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif has approved the holding of an exhibition for sunken antiquities in Berlin on May 11 [2006].

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said the exhibition is expected to net 1.6 million euros (LE12 million) during its tour in Berlin and Paris.

The exhibition will also receive half a million US dollars on a yearly basis from the European Institute for Archaeology for a 15-year period.

Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said that $42 million will be paid in insurance for the exhibited antiquities.

Meanwhile, Hawass said 85% of reparation works of the Royal Jewellery Museum project have been concluded. He added that the museum is due to open next June.

Sunken antiquities to be on display in Germany, France, State Information Service, Egypt, January 25, 2006.

cf. Ägyptens versunkene Schätze , Martin-Gropius-Bau.

cf. Exhibition of “Egypt's Sunken Treasures” premiers at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Franck Goddio Society.

The Museum of Art/Fort Lauderdale has deemed the “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” exhibition its most popular exhibit, ever.

The museum said it has sold or reserved a record-breaking 380,000 tickets since they went on sale Oct. 18 [2005].

The Tutankhamun exhibition opened its doors Dec. 15 [2005]. The museum said it has already outsold its two most recent blockbuster exhibits combined — "Diana, A Celebration" and "Saint Peter and the Vatican: The Legacy of the Popes."

"We knew Floridians were excited for the arrival of Tut, but the positive response has been truly overwhelming, and unlike any other exhibit, tickets already are selling for February, March and even April..."

Tutankhamun exhibit sets records, brings visitors, The South Florida Business Journal, Florida, USA, January 23, 2006.

cf. “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” Exhibition Sets Record Demand at the Museum of Art/Fort Lauderdale, Yahoo! Finance News, USA, January 25, 2006.

... At the top of the list of precious world cultural sites most at risk are the mountaintop city of Machu Picchu, Peru, one of the most magnificent relics of the lost Inca civilization, and the Valley of Kings near Luxor, Egypt, where a myriad of Egyptian pharaohs are buried in artistic splendour, the scientists said...

Landslides threaten Machu Picchu, Valley of Kings, DPA via Monsters & Critics, UK, January 17, 2006, via Nigel Hetherington at Archaeologist at Large which has more links. Nigel also says that the Valley of the Kings is not affected by landslides.

Landslides: Experts seek ways to mitigate losses, danger said growing due to climate change, EurekAlert!, January 17, 2006.

... Renowned Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass is scheduled to join Silversea's world cruise as an enrichment lecturer in 2007.

Over the past 30 years he has dedicated himself to the excavation and conservation of many of Egypt's most important monuments and antiquities. As Egypt's secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Hawass was responsible for bringing the King Tut exhibition to the United States this year.

He will host a series of presentations aboard Silver Shadow as the ship journeys from Dubai to Alexandria, April 12 to 27, 2007...

Loren, Matlin, Egyptian expert to wow cruise passengers, Naples Sun Times, Florida, USA, January 25, 2006.

Despite all the political intrigues he was embroiled in, Rameses II still found time to commission a temple in his own honour, Abu Simbel in southern Egypt. Even more impressive is the fact that the inner sanctum of this temple was designed to be lit by the sun on only two days of each year - the anniversary of his ascension to the throne and his birthday.

A festival has now sprung up around these two dates — February 22 and October 22 — and visitors come at sunrise to see the phenomenon. As dawn breaks, the figures of Rameses, Ra, the sun god, and Amun, the greatest god of all, emerge from the darkness one by one for a brief sojourn in the sun. Outside, musicians and food stalls vie for business...

Egypt: Abu Simbel Festival, The Herald, UK, January 26, 2006.

... As is my habit when viewing an exhibit, I gained insight from listening to comments of other visitors, especially observations by children. One little boy looked at the varied figurines found in the tombs and wanted to know why a pharaoh had "so many toys." Another youngster commented that a rigid, cushion-less gold chair symbolizing the power of high office didn't look like anything he would want to sit in. And still another youngster wondered how many people it took to make "all this stuff" for one dead man.

I suspect that the underlying religious rationale for the tomb's contents eventually will become known to those children. But, for a brief moment, I had reason to hope that when they learn more about the ancient culture, they will continue to question the logic of valuing some human beings more than others to the extent that it is considered acceptable to purchase privilege at the expense of the least powerful...

Too much in common with Tut, Palm Beach Post, Florida, January 21, 2006.

The Egyptian pharaonic exhibition touring 13 states of the US, will reach its ninth leg in Michigan, [at the Public Museum of Grand Rapids,] on January 27, 2006 through May 7, 2006.

Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass said that the exhibition has scored major success. Hawass added that the exhibition has netted $13 million dollars. with one million per state. On display are 141 pieces.

The Pharaonic exhibition in its 9th leg in US, State Information Service, Egypt, January 24, 2006.

... About 20 miles away in Miami, contemporary glass artist Dale Chihuly works his magic in the 83 lush acres of Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden through May 31 [2006], (305) 667-1651. The latest in Chihuly's series of indoor and outdoor installations, the installation of 200 hand-blown, brightly coloured glass flowers and plants nestles among the real flowers and plants fusing nature and art.

“As visitors stroll (or ride a tram) through Fairchild, there will be moments of disbelief and wonder as they try to determine if they are looking at glass or nature,” a brochure quotes director Mike Maunder, who calls the intertwining “magical...”

Tut, Chihuly exhibits add beauty to trip, The Galveston County Daily News, Texas, USA, January 22, 2006.

Ok, to the excitement of the day (and I'm writing this on Tuesday, although the discovery happened on Saturday - we awaited the announcement of the find by the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and that occurred yesterday). The morning began with an inscription running up and down a back pillar. But what looked on Jan. 20 like a simple stelae inscription cleaned up to look like the rear of a statue, so we became more aware...

January 22, 2006 — Part 2, John Hopkins University, USA, January 24, 2006.

Also January 23, 2006 — Part 2, John Hopkins University, USA, January 24, 2006.

Egyptologists have discovered a statue of Queen Ti, wife of one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs and grandmother to the boy-king Tutankhamun, at an ancient temple in Luxor, an Egyptian antiquities official said on Tuesday.

The official said the roughly 3,400 year-old statue was uniquely well preserved. Ti's husband, Amenhotep III, presided over an era which saw a renaissance in Egyptian art...

... Cartouches of a later king also on the statue indicated it may have been re-used about 300 years later by a 21st dynasty ruler.

Egyptologists find statue of Tutankhamun's grandmother, Reuters via Yahoo! News, USA, January 24, 2006.

cf. Statue of wife of Amenhotep III found in Luxor, State Information Service, Egypt, January 24, 2006.

The Egyptian ambassador in the Hague Ahmed Fathallah will on Monday offer a statue representing the Pharaonic god of justice to the international Court of Justice (ICJ) on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of its establishment, sources at the Egyptian embassy said on Sunday.

The head of the court will receive the statue in a ceremony to be attended by all members of the court including Egyptian judge Nabil al Arabi.

Egypt offers ICJ Pharaonic statue, State Information Service, Egypt, January 22, 2006.

It's been a few decades since a collection of relics from the dynasty of Egypt's King Tutankhamun first visited the United States. Tickets go on sale today for the latest appearance of the exhibit, now on its second tour of America, at The Field Museum in Chicago.

Opening May 26 [2006] and running through Jan. 1, 2007, "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" includes more than 130 artefacts from Tut's tomb and other royals. Many of the items, estimated to be between 3,000 and 3,500 years old, have never been seen outside Egypt. The current exhibit, which made its debut last year in Los Angeles, will include a golden diadem that circled Tut's head in life and death, a miniature coffin that held his mummified liver, his child-size chair and footrest, recent CT images of Tut's mummy and a new forensic reconstruction of the boy king.

A record 1.3 million people toured the exhibit during its 1977 stop at the Chicago museum, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive. The current exhibit, which drew nearly one million people from June through November in Los Angeles, now is in Fort Lauderdale, [Florida], and heads to Philadelphia after Chicago.

Want to go? Ticket sales begin at 10 a.m. EST and are available by calling (312) 922-9410 or on the Web at www.fieldmuseum.org. Tickets are $25 for adults, $22 for seniors and students with ID, and $16 for children age 4 to 11 and include general museum admission.

Tickets for Tut exhibit on sale, Indianapolis Star, Indiana, USA, January 24, 2006.

Egyptian antiquity officials announced Monday the discovery near the southern city of Luxor of a statue believed to be of a queen who was the mother of the pharaoh that shifted the kingdom towards monotheism.

Queen Tiye, the wife of 18th dynasty (ca. 1539 – 1292 BC) King Amenhotep III and the mother of Akhenaten, was immortalized in a 1.6- metre black granite statue discovered during work just outside of Luxor at the Temple of Mut by an archaeological mission from Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore in the US.

Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass described the statue as being generally well-preserved although missing one arm and both lower legs...

Ancient 1.6-metre granite statue of Egyptian queen found in Luxor, Monster & Critics, UK, January 23, 2006.

A couple of good photos with this one.

A Johns Hopkins University archaeological team has unearthed a statue of Queen Ti, one of the most important women in ancient Egypt and wife of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities announced Monday.

The statue, mostly intact, was found under a statue of Amenhotep III in the sprawling Karnak Temple in Luxor, which was a royal city in ancient Egypt...

Temple gives up statue of ancient Egyptian queen, AP via CNN, USA, January 24, 2006.

cf. Team Unearths Statue of Egypt's Queen Ti, AP via Springfield News-Leader, Missouri, USA, January 24, 2006.

Yesterday's AFP article — US archaeologists find statue of Akhenaten's mother — has a picture.

A one-time forger and art smuggler has accused the St. Louis Art Museum of purchasing in 1998 a stolen Egyptian mummy mask and displaying it in its galleries.

Museum director Brent Benjamin said the history of the mask was thoroughly researched before its purchase, and he is confident the piece was not stolen.

The accusation comes at a time of heightened scrutiny of the international trade in antiquities. This case also illustrates the difficulty of constructing complete records detailing the ownership of ancient objects - proving the object wasn't stolen or forged...

Art Museum dismisses claim, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri, USA, January 19, 2006.

cf. Michel van Rijn.

In 1880, William Matthew Flinders Petrie went to Egypt to measure the pyramids.

While getting established as an archaeologist, the young adventurer lived in an abandoned tomb at the Giza necropolis, where he used a hammock for a bed. In one feat of excavation, he swung down 25 feet on a rope ladder and squeezed through a pyramid doorway into a flooded burial chamber. With only a candle to light the pitch-black walls, he waded through fetid water filled with floating coffins, skulls and other debris. Shortly after, his sensational finds made him the talk of London.

Petrie went on to lead excavations at many of the most important sites in Egypt, including Hawara, Abydos and Amarna. The excitement surrounding his discoveries — he identified the palace complex of Nefertiti — is believed to have inspired the movie character of Indiana Jones. More importantly for Egyptology, he's also credited with transforming archaeology from a treasure hunt to a real science. His innovations include the development of historical chronology based on differing styles of pottery and meticulous field practices...

Great digs, Albany Times Union, New York, USA, January 22, 2006.

cf. Egypt exhibit is work of 'real Indiana Jones', The Barre Montpelier Times Argus, Vermont, USA, January 22, 2006.

cf. EXCAVATING EGYPT: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London, Albany Institute.

A team of US archaeologists have discovered a statue depicting Pharaoh Akhenaten's mother, Queen Tiy, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities told AFP.

The team from John Hopkins University found the statue near those of Tiy's husband Amenhotep III in the southern Egyptian city of Luxor, the council's Sabri Abdel Aziz said.

The black granite statue measuring 4.5 feet in height and 17 inches in width was found in good condition but the feet are missing, he added.

Tiy, the matriarch of the Amarna family, died in 1338 BC after giving birth to six children, including Akhenaten, who went on to become one of the most powerful kings in Ancient Egypt and married Nefertiti.

According to Zahi Hawass, the statue bears 11 hieroglyphic inscriptions referring to Amenhotep, who ruled over the pharaonic empire during the 18th dynasty.

Tiy played an important political role during her husband's reign and after his death, when their son took over.

US archaeologists find statue of Akhenaten's mother, AFP via Yahoo! News, USA, January 23, 2006.

Luxor City in southern Egypt will get a new cultural heritage centre due to open in April, Fathi Salah, the Director of Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT), told The Gazette.

The new centre, which will be named "Mubarak Cultural Centre", is part of a huge complex that will also house the Mubarak Public Library with an average total cost of LE15 million, added Salah.

The CULTNAT-affiliated centre is designed to contribute to showcasing Egypt's cultural heritage, using the latest technologies, to the massive number of tourists who are visiting the City, elaborated Salah.

He added that the centre would have a micro gallery, a showroom with several booths displaying information on various cultural heritage, and also a 'culturama', a variety of interesting cultural topics will be projected on panoramic 180- degree screens.

Cultural heritage centre to open in Luxor in April, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, January 22, 2006.

[Shirley Halleen has] discovered a way to feel really young. It isn't getting a face-lift, using wrinkle creams, taking energy pills or exercising daily. Give up? It's taking a trip to Egypt where everywhere you look, every temple you step into, every mummy you examine is at least 3,000 years old. In this atmosphere, 70 years seems like a mere drop in the bucket.

Egypt had not been the top country on my list of "places to visit," until several months ago when I received a brochure describing a two-week educational and sightseeing trip that included several days in Cairo, Aswan and Luxor and a seven-day cruise on the Nile. Because the tour company has an excellent reputation and the price was unbelievably low a friend and I booked a trip to leave on New Year's Day.

What an exciting way to start 2006. After flying for 20 hours and losing eight hours, we arrived in Cairo on Jan. 2 and began an incredible journey into ancient times. After settling into a hotel in Cairo, which is the third largest city in the world, our first adventure was the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, where more than 1,700 glittering items from King Tut's tomb are on display. The U.S. tour of items from King Tut's tomb contains only 6 percent of the total items. The other 94 percent are in this museum...

3,000-year-old Egyptian artefacts made me feel young, Sioux Falls Argus Leader, South Dakota, USA, January 23, 2006.

Under the 11th and 12th dynasties of Pharaohs, the little village of Thebes rose to power, reuniting Egypt against foreign rule. Built on and around this 4000 year old site of ancient Thebes is today's Luxor, considered to be world's greatest open air museum consisting of the most excellently preserved monuments. Little wonder then that we were excited at the prospect of having a dekko of the fabled site.

We were on the last leg of our Egypt tour and our flight took off from Cairo to reach Luxor where we were to spend the last days of our vacation and take in the maximum of the architectural grandeur of Egypt. Luxor, as it is known today, comprises three main areas: the city of Luxor, the village of Karnak and the ever interesting West Bank of Nile which has the Valley of Kings.

We started our tour with a visit to the Luxor temple. Sharia al-Mahatta is the main avenue to the temple of Luxor and the other two main roads that bisect this city are the Karnak temple road and the Corniche. Incidentally, the mummification museum at the Corniche is the place to go if you are interested in knowing the secrets of this branch of science. The small museum exhibits a well preserved mummy as well as mummified animals...

Bygone glory immortalised, Economic Times of India, India, January 19, 2006.

The Sahara has not always been the arid, inhospitable place that it is today — it was once a savannah teeming with life, according to researchers at the Universities of Reading and Leicester.

Eight years of studies in the Libyan desert area of Fazzan, now one of the harshest, most inaccessible spots on Earth, have revealed swings in its climate that have caused considerably wetter periods, lasting for thousands of years, when the desert turned to savannah and lakes provided water for people and animals.

This, in turn, has given us vital clues about the history of humans in the area and how these ancient inhabitants coped with climate change as the land began to dry up around them again.

In their article ‘Ancient lakes of the Sahara’, which appears in the January-February issue of American Scientist magazine, Dr Kevin White of the University of Reading and Professor David Mattingly of the University of Leicester explain how they used satellite technology and archaeological evidence to reveal new clues about both the past environment of the Sahara and of human prehistory in the area...

Ancient lakes of the Sahara, Innovations Report, USA, January 19, 2006.

The huge sails fluttered in the gentle breeze. The silence interspersed with the occasional cacophony of a flock of birds flying overhead and the unavoidable excited chatter of tourists echoed through the tranquil waters of the River Nile.

I sat mesmerised, watching the receding reflections on the water as the red orb disappeared below the horizon, setting the sky aflame in rich hues of red and orange. The silhouettes of other feluccas (traditional sailboats) against this backdrop completed the picture. Sunsets are generally arresting, but the experience of the sunset cruise on the Nile at Luxor was like having a picture postcard come to life. It was certainly one of the highlights of my whistle-stop tour of one and a half days of this popular tourist destination in Egypt.

Luxor, described as the world's greatest open-air museum is chock-a-block with ancient monuments, the scale and the grandeur of which are mind-boggling and sure to evoke interest even if you are not a history buff...

Jewel Of The Nile, fe Business Traveller, India, January 20, 2006.

... The Meroe Dam Administration in Khartoum finally gave The Irish Times — through the intervention of Dr Salah Mohamed Ahmed, field director of the National Commission for Antiquities and Museums (NCAM) — permission to visit the area over Christmas. Living conditions for the peasants on the Nile bank in the Nubian desert and the numerous islands on the Nile are still very much as they were 2000 years ago.

Even though the Sudanese authorities are concerned about another region of strong opposition to the Khartoum government, Dr Salah said it was important to show the world the groundbreaking results of the archaeological salvage campaign in the Fourth Cataract area. This is the home of the civilisations of ancient Kush and medieval Christian Nubia...

Nubians will be displaced from ancient seat by lake built for dam, Sudan Tribune, Sudan, January 04, 2006.

... For the last few years, Egypt’s capital Cairo has been getting a few showers, especially during winter. It’s been bothering a few people — Egypt, which rarely, if ever, gets rainfall, is now genuinely worried about pollution and the Greenhouse effect. But the rest of Egypt thinks it’s a good omen — a sign of good times to come. In Egypt, like in India, the rains are God’s way of saying everything’s all right.

Cairo, in many ways, reflects Mumbai’s spirit. It is easily Egypt’s busiest city, and its people — seven million — have just one mission — how to lead a better life with limited resources, even if it comes by peddling wares at Khan el Khalili, the premier market where fake Rolexes (10 Egyptian pounds) share shelves with genuine glassware (50 pounds upward). Indians are often given “Amitabh Bachchan discounts” — if India adores its superstar, Egypt worships him. If you are from Amitabh’s land, they might as well take you as a sibling. He is as big as Egypt’s own superstar — Omar Sharif...

Mummy returned, DNA, India, January 07, 2006.

Tourist and Antiquities Police have taken charge of a number of rocky above-ground tombs and a number of underground tombs, dating to a late Pharaonic dynasty.

Said Mohamed, who holds a technical diploma and owns a piece of agricultural land in el-Ayyat, was digging for antiquities on his land, when he stumbled across the tombs and some human bones.

He also discovered a manmade well that had been blocked up, as well some large potsherds. Antiquities experts have concluded that Said has come across an ancient cemetery, describing the find as 'significant'.

Said's significant cemetery, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, January 20, 2006.

This Dutch language news article relates to the SCAs attempts to recover a stolen Stelae from the collection of the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL). The SCA has threatened to stop all Belgian excavations in Egypt if this is not resolved.

The stelae was stolen, according to the SCA, in 1965, from the tomb of Senenu at Saqqara, a high ranking official from the fifth dynasty.

Egypte jaagt op illegale archaeologica , Gazet van Antwerpen and De Standaard via Archeonet Vlaanderen, January 10, 2006.

This relates back to these previous blog entries from July 2005 Egypt may halt digs if artefacts not returned and Bid for return of 2 ancient paintings.

With time running out before the official re-opening of the Coptic Museum, Jill Kamil is guided through the state-of-the-art, tourist-friendly structure that accommodates the richest collection of Coptic antiquities in the world.

"The two wings of the museum are now connected by a corridor," says Gawdat Gabra, Egypt's foremost Coptologist and former director of the Coptic Museum, as he hurries me across the garden. We had met by appointment at the still-closed gateway, and he spoke as he sped ahead of me and sprinted down the stairs in front of the museum entrance. He had warned me that he could only give me half an hour of his time and, from the rate he was moving and talking at the same time, it was clear that he intended to give no more. "This is a totally new concept," he said. "For the first time there will be a smooth flow of visitors through the two wings of the museum because a corridor provides a link between them. There is a lift for the handicapped, and ramps for wheelchairs. No other museum in the world can boast such an exclusive collection of Coptic antiquities as ours, but it has not been our aim to put all our 14,000 objects on display. It has been to combine medium and subject matter, carefully to select each object for display and group them in a manner that casts light on Egypt's rich Coptic heritage and its continuity."

We pass through the entrance hall, still under construction ("it will be equipped with information desk, maps, graphic designs and books"), turn to the left, and on each side of the doorway leading to the first gallery we are confronted by a Coptic masterpiece...

Coptic Museum countdown, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 778, January 19 - 25, 2006.

The North Texas chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt will present a free lecture, "The Tomb of Senwosret III at Abydos: New Discoveries," led by Egyptologist Dr. Josef Wegner at 7 p.m. Feb. 18 [2006] on the SMU campus, Fondren Science Building, Room 119, 3215 Daniel Ave, [Dallas, Texas]. In the evening, call 972-416-9482 or visit www.arce-ntexas.org.

COMMUNITY CALENDAR: EGYPTIAN LECTURE, The Dallas Morning News, Texas, USA, January 19, 2006.

Tutankhamun's curse is alive and well. As our party visited the boy king's tomb, a tourist posed by the entrance for a picture, but his new digital camera failed.

A thorough check found everything in order, even down to the batteries, but again nothing happened.

Yet an hour later in the nearby Valley of the Queens the camera worked perfectly - strange, but true.

Of course, common sense suggests that it being 40 degrees could have caused a temporary malfunction.

But such is the power of this place that everyone's thoughts turned to Egypt's most enduring mystery...

Nile be Back, Mark Ellis, The Daily Mirror, UK, January 07, 2006.

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, set a world record when it bought this ancient Egyptian limestone sculpture at auction Dec. 9 [2005]. Extraordinarily, earlier in the same sale, another statue, a granite figure, also set a record for an Egyptian antiquity, when it sold for $2,256,000 .

But the granite figure didn't hold that record for long. It was spectacularly overtaken by this "Group Statue of Ka-nefer and His Family," which sold for $2,816,000 . According to inscriptions, this tomb sculpture represents the "Overseer of Craftsmen, Priest of Ptah," "His wife, the Royal Confidant, Tjen-tety," and "His son, the Overseer of Craftsmen, Khuwy-ptah." Characteristically, the wife and son are shown smaller. Relative size indicates importance. These two smaller figures affectionately embrace the larger one's legs.

Timothy Potts, the director of the museum, explains the sculpture's remarkable quality by pointing "first and foremost" to "the extraordinary fineness of the carving. Then also the delicacy of the gestures of the son and wife, and the exceptional state of preservation." Some of the original pigment even remains...

Old Kingdom art: Rare Egyptian sculpture puts a human face on a remote civilization, The Christian Science Monitor, Massachusetts, USA, January 18, 2006.

... [Very Celebrated Man number] one is Jean-François Champollion who, with the help of the Rosetta stone, cracked Egyptian hieroglyphics in 1822. Thus, as pop biographies say, he founded Egyptology.

Old Jean-François is a national hero, as a similar figure perhaps wouldn't be in Britain, and Figeac treats him with reverence. He has his bar and square, of course, but also, just off the square, a vast, black granite reproduction of the Rosetta stone forming the floor of a courtyard.

It's one of the more sober and fitting monuments in southern France — or it is until town youth gathers there of an evening. ("Going down the Rosetta" is the local phrase.) Then it's as lively and furtive as you like...

A perfect base, The Daily Telegraph, UK, January 14, 2006.

An article about the CT scan exhibition of the mummy of the priest Anchhor at Het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) in Leiden, Netherlands.

A Mummy: Eternal Living , Algemeen Dagblad, Netherlands, January 12, 2006, via ArcheoNet.

Treasures from the grave of Tutankhamun — the Egyptian boy king whose name still carries magical public allure 3,000 years after his death — will come to the Field Museum of Natural History, which is hoping to re-create the "Tutmania" that accompanied a similar exhibit in 1977.

The new show, scheduled to arrive in Chicago in May 2006, will contain different artefacts from those that toured almost three decades ago — and will be decidedly more expensive to view.

The earlier exhibit had 55 artefacts, including the magnificent gold coffin mask that bears Tut's likeness. The new exhibit will have 50 different artefacts from Tut's tomb, plus another 80 items unearthed in tombs of other royal personages in the Valley of the Kings along the Nile River.

The Field Museum has not decided what it will charge visitors to see "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," but it will be more than the normal $1.50 museum admission fee that got one into Tut in 1977...

City to get another taste of Tut, Chicago Tribune, Illinois, USA, January 16, 2006.

The Albany Institute of History & Art, with GE as a sponsor, will host a world-class travelling exhibition, beginning Jan. 21, showcasing important Egyptian treasures from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London. Many of the artefacts in the exhibit's North American tour have never been seen by the public.

"GE Presents Excavating Egypt" tells the story of archaeologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) and his exploration of ancient Egyptian civilization. Petrie worked in Egypt for over half a century and is considered the "Father of Egyptian Archaeology" for his innovations and contributions to the field. He also was the inspiration for the film hero Indiana Jones.

The exhibit features 221 of Petrie's most significant finds. These artefacts tell the story of the earliest Egyptians and are part of a remarkable collection of "firsts," including: a fragment of mankind's first calendar (2900 BC); the earliest examples of metalwork in Egypt; the earliest examples of glazing; the oldest wills, written on papyrus; the first worked iron beads; the oldest bead-net dress; the earliest "cylinder seal" in Egypt (3500 BC); and ancient Egyptian masons' models for pyramids...

Take a day trip to Egypt Albany museum has rarely seen items, Binghampton Press and Sun-Bulletin, New York, USA, January 13, 2006.

More than 100,000 visitors mobbed the show in the first two weeks after its Dec. 15 [2005] opening, and there are still one-hour waits in line, even for those with timed tickets.

Weekends are nearly sold out, although some tickets remain through April 23, when the exhibit closes. Michiganders will have another chance when Tut comes to Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History from May 26 [2006] to Jan. 1, 2007. Tickets go on sale Jan. 24 [2006].

What's all the fuss? ...

Florida goes nuts for Tut, Detroit Free Press, Michigan, USA, January 15, 2006.

cf. All hail King Tut, Florida Today, Florida, USA, January 14, 2006.

cf. Crowds flock to Tut's tomb, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Florida, USA, January 17, 2006.

After months of planning, assemblage and a media blitz fit for a king, Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs ticked past the 125,000 visitors mark last weekend at Fort Lauderdale's Museum of Art. But big numbers have brought complaints from patrons and a museum staff hustling to address them.

"Our tickets were for 5 p.m., and at ten till 7 p.m. we were still under the tent outside the building," says Alan Kent, a 50-year-old psychologist from Seattle visiting Fort Lauderdale for the holidays. "People were wound around in circles, like Disneyland, and there were no places to sit."

Ron Hilmeblau, a retired coal broker from Delray Beach, experienced similar waits. "We purchased tickets for a 4 p.m. entry and were admitted at 5:15 pm," he says of his Dec. 29 visit to the exhibit. "I can only imagine how long the people on the street were waiting. They oversold the tickets. There's no other explanation..."

Long lines frustrate some patrons as King Tut exhibit draws big crowds, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Florida, USA, January 16, 2006.

cf. Crowds delay Tut viewing, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Florida, USA, January 15, 2006.

There has long been a fascination in Britain with the world of ancient Egypt. What is it about this mysterious civilisation that so catches the imagination?

Five thousand years ago the chain of independent city-states lining the River Nile united to form one long, thin country ruled by one king, or pharaoh. Almost instantly a highly distinctive culture developed. For almost 30 centuries Egypt remained the foremost nation in the Mediterranean world. Then, in 332 BC, the arrival of Alexander the Great heralded the end of the Egyptian way of life.

The unique culture was quickly buried beneath successive layers of Greek, Roman and Arabic tradition, and all knowledge of Egypt's glorious past was lost. Only the decaying stone monuments, their hieroglyphic texts now unreadable, survived as silent witnesses to a long lost civilisation...

As you can see from the date below, this seven page article has been on the BBC History website for some time but this is the first time I have seen it so I thought I'd post it here anyway.

Ancient Egypt and the Modern World, Dr Joyce Tyldesley BBC, UK, September 06, 2005.

They built more pyramids than the Egyptians, invented the world's first "rock" music, and were as bloodthirsty as the Aztecs when it came to human sacrifices.

Yet ever since their demise at the hands of a vengeful pharaoh, the pre-Christian civilisations of ancient Sudan have been overshadowed by their Egyptian northern neighbours. Now, the race is on to excavate black Africa's first great kingdoms - before some of their heartlands are submerged for ever.

In a highly controversial move, the Sudanese government is planning to flood a vast stretch of the southern Nile valley as part of plans for a big hydro-electric dam at Meroe, near what was once the ancient city of Napata...

Race to save first kingdoms in Africa from dam waters, The Daily Telegraph, UK, January 08, 2006, via Archaeologist at Large.

Cairo's local government wants to see the capital's taxis modernised.

And in Egypt's new business-friendly climate, it has called on the private sector to help.

It has licensed several companies to launch new fleets of yellow New York-style cabs.

They will be modern, air-conditioned, and have working meters.

They will have in-car radio so you can order them by phone.

All the facilities, in short, that European or American commuters have long enjoyed...

Taxi revolution on Cairo streets, BBC News, UK, January 16, 2006.

by Zahi Hawass

At the end of the 1999 season, I opened Bahariya to tourists and moved five mummies from Tomb 54 to the museum there. One of them was a boy aged five and a younger girl.

It had never occurred to me until I moved these two children that the so-called curse of the mummies existed. But both these children began to haunt me in my dreams each and every night. They were reaching out for me with their long white arms, trying to grab me. I did not understand why they were disturbing my rest. This same year I had gone to Los Angeles to teach archaeology at UCLA and the dreams continued night after night.

I had to do many TV and magazine interviews about the new discovery and I was invited to give a lecture in Richmond Virginia at the Museum of Art. On the day of my lecture, I was to fly to Richmond at 7 o'clock in the morning. I set my alarm clock for 4:03 but it did not ring; I woke up at 5 o'clock and had to race to the airport without even washing my face. I barely made the flight but arrived in Philadelphia only to find the flight to Richmond cancelled. I had to take a later flight and landed an hour before my lecture. The taxi driver got lost, so I was late to the museum. I finally gave my talk two hours late, and found myself talking about the curse of the mummies.

The next morning I was to talk at a school. I had asked for awake-up call, but forgot and took the phone off the hook. All night the children haunted me. I awoke at 9:30 hearing my escort banging on my door.

I could not ignore the golden children any longer. As I waited for a plane back to Los Angeles, I realised what they wanted: they wanted their father to come with them to the museum. In September 1999, I returned to Bahariya and moved their father to the museum. The children never haunted me again..

The curse of the mummies (Part 2), The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, January 16, 2006.

Hassan Saadallah

The Supreme Council of Antiquities has approved an ambitious plan to preserve the Fatimid Bathhouse and the Toloun House in the Fustat area.

The plan was disclosed by Ibrahim Abdel-Rahman, Director of Al-Fustat Antiquities, who told The Egyptian Gazette that the two buildings are threatened by the local leather-dyeing workshops.

"The encroachment of the workshops poses a real threat to the safety of the Fatimid Bathhouse, the oldest existing bathhouse built by the Fatimids," warned the senior archaeologist, explaining that the two ancient buildings will be fenced off, until the leather-dyeing workshops have been re-housed elsewhere.

The Fatimid Bathhouse is located on the northeast side of the Mosque of Abul Soud al-Garhi in the Ain al-Sera district, explained Abdel-Rahman, adding that architects cleverly built the bathhouse on top of a rock near the lake of Ain el-Sera, so there would be a constant supply of water for the facility.

The bathhouse consisted of three partitions for cold, warm and hot baths. As more and more affluent people moved into the district, they built more and more baths. According to archaeologists, a number of Roman-style bathhouses had already sprung up in the area.

Around 45 of these Roman bathhouses had become ruins by the time of Ahmed Ibn Toloun. However, one Roman bathhouse survived this mysterious destruction, and it was discovered annexed to a house in Fustat. There were still traces of the frescoes adorning its walls.

According to Abdel-Rahman, these frescoed murals and sculptures, which were transferred to the Islamic Museum, included a statue of a young man in a squatting position, holding a cup in his right hand. There is a halo round his head.

The finds also included the damaged mural of the head of another young man and another of two birds confronting each other.

Abdel-Rahman stressed that the Toloun House is just as historically important as the bathhouse, adding that it also contains drawings and frescoes. "It's the oldest-ever house discovered in the Fustat district," the director said, explaining that it consists of a central iwan (courtyard) and two rooms to the left and right. "There are also three openings in the ceilings," he continued.

Apart from the leather-dyeing workshops, another source of pollution is the rubbish dumped by local residents in this significant archaeological area.

Bid to preserve two ancient buildings in Fustat, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, January 16, 2006.

Hassan Saadallah

There are numerous mysteries and unanswered questions about the origin of the first man. Scientists, historians and archaeologists have been preoccupied with this issue for years now.

In 2006, many conferences will be held to discuss the origins of mankind. The first of these conferences will be held in Egypt, entitled 'Prehistoric Antiquities', with the participation of many worldwide countries. This conference will review a number of research papers on the origins of human beings, highlighting many of the secrets revealed by recently discovered fossils.

Three skulls unearthed

A recent important discovery was that of three skulls, belonging to two teenagers and a boy. They were unearthed in Ethiopia and are more than 16,000 years old. The discovery supports the theory that humans originated in Africa.

According to archaeologist Khaled Saad, General Director of the Prehistoric Antiquities Department at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the newly discovered Ethiopian man is another addition to the long list of discoveries about prehistoric man. "The latest discovery has attracted the world's attention. Scientists and archaeologists say the three skulls are identical to the skulls of contemporary humans, although the brains of the latter might be a bit bigger," he said.

Samiya el-Marghani, an anthropological specialist at the SCA, stressed that the science of prehistoric man is still in its infancy, yet much has already been achieved. "Many human skeletons and skulls dating to prehistoric times have been found. The forthcoming Cairo conference, of to be held under the auspices of the SCA, will shed the light on the fossils and other remains of the first man," explained Dr el-Marghani, adding that the first discovery was made in 1925, when the fossils of a child were found, still with some of its milk teeth.

Walking on two feet

"The fossils, found in a cave in Botswana, indicate that prehistoric man walked on his two feet. In 1959, the fossils of another man, whom scientists called the 'Negro' man, were unearthed in East Africa, dating back 7 million years. These two creatures could not have been ancestors of the already existing rational man, as the skeletons were quite short and their brains were comparatively small, almost half the size of our brains. Yet the surface layer of their brains seemed more complicated than our brains and their jaws were much stronger than ours," she continued.

El-Marghani added that, in 1974, another major discovery was made in Ethiopia. "It was the discovery of 'Lucy', as scientists called her. The fossils were 3.8 million years old. Scientists regarded Lucy as the 'mother of humans' because she was the oldest thing human ever to be found. Despite the fame of Lucy, scientists believe that the fossils of the first man are still buried under the giant trees in North Tanzania," she stressed.

Upper Egyptian fossils

"In Upper Egypt, numerous Egyptian and US missions found the remains, fossils of fish, birds, reptiles and herbivorous mammals, as well as carnivorous mammals, invertebrate animals and primitive vertebrate creatures. They also found 'Toshka' man in 1968 in the Toshka region. He was probably aged between 20 and 25 years. 'Esna' man was discovered six years later," elaborated Dr el-Marghani.

According to Youssri Attiya, a fossil specialist at the Museum of Geology, the fossils that have been discovered would suggest that mankind probably started in Egypt!!

'Mankind originated in Egypt', The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, January 13, 2006.

Gomaa Abdel Moniem

Al-Darb al-Ahmar (The Red Road) in Fatimid Cairo retains much of its past wealth and historical atmosphere.

Al-Darb al-Asfar (The Yellow Road) area, where the House of al-Seheimi (built in 1796) is a wonderful example of Islamic architecture, and al-Darb al-Ahmar are actually connected.

They form part of the main road that runs from the Northern Gates (Bab al-Nasr and Bab al-Futuh) down towards the Citadel, meeting al-Darb al-Ahmar at the Southern Gate, Bab Zuweila.

The road, al-Mu'izz Street, named after the conquering Fatimid Caliph, was once the main thoroughfare in Islamic Cairo.

Over the years, the area has been developed and divided into sections, each characterised by different crafts or markets, which they were named after. In fact, al-Darb al-Ahmar Street and the Mu'ayyed Mosque next to Bab Zuweila have changed little over the centuries.

The neighbourhood of al-Darb al-Ahmar is a maze of narrow, twisting alleyways lined with splendid mosques and medieval facades. This quarter became a fashionable residential area in the 14th century, with Al-Nasser Mohamed developing the Citadel area.

It contains several interesting mosques and monuments. The alleys carry different names nowadays, starting at the southern end near the Citadel with Bab al-Wazir Street, then Sharia al-Tabbana.

"Sharia al-Tabbana was at the foot of the Al-Moqattam Tabba [the Moqattam Hills] — It was later renamed al-Darb al-Ahmar.

"Further west, near the massive 10th century Bab Zuweila, the area is named Suq al-Silah Street ['Weapons Market' Street]," says Hajj Said Azoz, aged 65.

"The street is hive of activity, with constant traffic jams, except on Sundays, when the traders have a day off."

At the end of Suq al-Silah Street, you find several ancient mosques and monuments, such as the Mahmoud el-Kurdi Mosque, built in 1395.

This mosque, with its impressive entrance, was recently restored and reopened to the public.

All sorts for sale

If you go north along Suq al-Silah Street from Bab Zuweila, you'll come across the Saddle-makers' Market, known as Suq al-Surugiyyiah, where you can buy all kinds of leatherwear.

Carry on down the street and you come across little shops selling drums, belly dancing costumes, wooden tables and chairs, embroidered clothes and many other simple products, such as old Oriental teapots and cups.

This district is also renowned for its sheesha (water-pipes) that come in every shape and size, made of beautifully decorated and coloured glass.

Basketry is also one of the trades here. You find baskets, tables, chairs and mats, made from palm fronds and reeds.

Another main attraction is the Attarine district, where you can purchase all manner of weird and wonderful herbs and spices for cooking or for medical purposes. It's also the place to pick up a bottle or two of hair dye, if your wife keeps on reminding you that you're beginning to go grey at the temples.

But there's far more: perfumes, carpets, brass and copperware, glass and ceramics are piled up outside tiny workshops, making it virtually impossible for even a bicycle to continue any further down the alley.

In holidays and on feast days, the area is more chaotic, with everyone in party mood, flocking to the market, surrounded by ancient Islamic buildings, till the hours of the morning.

A haven of peace

Darb al-Labana is located close to the Citadel. It is basically a narrow alley surrounded by splendid buildings. It is just below the Citadel, with its majestic Mohamed Ali Mosque.

Ironically, it's a quiet haven of peace in this busy area of the Capital, with the surrounding colossal buildings

Keeping noise to a minimum

The most famous building in Darb al-Labana is Beit al-Fann or Dar al-Malatili — the House of Art — where the legendary Egyptian architect Hassan Fathi lived for many years.

Its location is unique, with its unrivalled views of the Citadel, Mohamed Ali Street and countless mosques that have stood here proudly for centuries.

To reach Beit al-Fann, you have to be in an energetic mood, climbing countless steps, as it's built on a hill. Once you've made it to the top and stopped panting, you are struck by the calm and the feeling of 'ancientness'.

Just a stone's throw away from Beit al-Fann, there is another monumental beit. Although it's only a ruin these days, it was once a tikiya (shelter) for poor strangers, having been built by Al-Naser bin Mohamed Qala'oun in the 13 century.

Darb al-Labana alley had its own door, which allowed its inhabitants a bit of security. Nothing remains of it today.

"This alley was named after a family that sold dairy products. The family were very rich, providing half of Cairo with milk, butter and cheese. They owned thousands of cows. Those were the days when the population was less than 8 million," says Hajj Sayyed Hassan, aged 80.

"I'm here to draw the facade of Beit al-Fann, as an example of 18th century architecture in Islamic Cairo for my dissertation," says Hoda Salem, an undergraduate in the Faculty of Applied Arts.

Two majestic mosques

A few steps away stands the majestic Al-Rifai Mosque, where King Farouk and his brother-in-law, the Shah of Iran, rest in peace.

It looks onto straight boulevards and open squares, reflecting European city planning introduced by Muhamad Ali and his successors, who sought to make Egypt's traditional society more cosmopolitan.

Al-Rifai Mosque is remarkable for its four fully articulated facades, as well as its highly decorated, Mamluk-style dome and minaret. Although built long after the Mamluks, its style, in terms of materials, colours and details, is strongly influenced by the adjacent and equally majestic Mosque of Sultan Hassan.

Sultan Hassan is perhaps Cairo's — or even Egypt's — finest mosque. The building was constructed for Sultan Hassan bin Mohamed bin Qala'oun in AD 1256 as a mosque and religious school.

Externally, it is magnificent, holding its own with its impressive cornice and the protruding vertical fluting, even though it stands in the shadows of the massive Citadel. As you enter this place of worship, you get an impression of height, especially from the towering doors decorated in the Mamluk fashion.

"We've come from Alexandria to tour Islamic Cairo and admire our ancestors' legacy," says Sameh al-Sabagh, a sophomore in the Faculty of Archaeology, Alexandria University, who's standing outside with about 10 of his classmates.

"I want to enrol in the Faculty of Fine Arts next year. I come here once a week to practise drawing Islamic monuments. My father is an architect and he recommended I draw Sultan Hassan Mosque," explains Khaled Ahmed, a pupil at the nearby Khalifa Secondary School.

Visiting Islamic Cairo is like drinking water from the Nile: you'll definitely be back.

Treasures of Islamic Cairo, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, January 13, 2006.

Napoleon Bonaparte is well-known for his military victories, his habit of placing one hand in his jacket and his love for his wife, Josephine.

Bet you didn't know that his 1798 invasion of Egypt helped kick off "Egyptomania" across Europe and fostered the modern study of archaeology.

Along with his armies, Napoleon brought a crew of 150 people to document ancient Egypt's treasures, and along the way they dug up the Rosetta stone. Now on display at the British Museum in London, the famed slab helped cracked the code of Egyptian hieroglyphics by including Greek translations.

That's all documented in the latest exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, "Napoleon in Egypt."

"This exhibition will really show how Napoleon's expedition got archaeology started," co-curator , aka Mr. Mummy, said in a telephone interview from his home in the Bronx.

Napoleon's exploits in Egypt subject of new exhibition, Macon Telegraph, Georgia, USA, January 13, 2006.

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.

"A year of museums" is the Ministry of Culture's theme for 2006. Nevine El-Aref learns what is being planned.

In an attempt to preserve Egypt's priceless treasures, both stored and newly-discovered, to create the best environment to display them and to release the pressure in some overstuffed museums, the Ministry of Culture has placed Egypt's museums at the top of its priorities.

This year will witness the inauguration of up to five new regional and national museums and the re-opening of three others after restoration and development to bring them up to international standards.

"2006 is a revolutionary year for Egypt's museums and museology," Culture Minister Farouk Hosni told Al-Ahram Weekly. He added that this year would witness not only the building of new museums such as the National Museum of Egypt in Fustat and the Grand Museum of Egypt overlooking the Giza Plateau, but upgrading some recently-built ones and inaugurating new regional museums. "The ministry aims at building a museum in every city in Egypt to preserve the city's heritage and raise the cultural and archaeological awareness of its inhabitants..."

New museums for all, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 777, January 10 - 18, 2006.

One of the legendary royal ceremonies once held in the Mohamed Ali Pasha Palace overlooking the Nile at Shubra was replayed two weeks ago with a thoroughly modern twist, writes Nevine El-Aref.

"Restoring the palace was a real challenge," Hosni told Al-Ahram Weekly, adding that it would have been a great pity if this magnificent palace had fallen total victim to negligence. He said the palace, once the stage of great royal festivals, would be used as the venue for official and governmental events.

Over the last five years and with a budget of LE50 million , the palace, once known as the Egyptian Versailles, has been comprehensively restored to save the exquisite early 19th-century buildings which feature a blend of rococo and baroque styles. Through the ages this magnificent palace, which was built over 13 years from 1808 to 1821 on an area of 11,000 feddans, has lost many of its features. It originally consisted of 13 buildings used by Mohamed Ali Pasha as a guest house for foreign ambassadors and members of his family. During World War I, the haramlik (main building) was demolished by Aziza, a member of the royal family, when it was rumoured that the British were thinking of using it for military purposes...

An Egyptian Versailles, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 777, January 10 - 18, 2006.

By Zahi Hawass

This column is not about the musical starring Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner, but about a more famous king than the mythical ruler of Siam, the golden king, Tutankhamun. I recently returned from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after attending the opening of the Pharaoh's golden exhibition there.

When I arrived, I could not believe how much Egyptomania had gripped this American city. People were wearing the golden mask of Tut on their T-shirts, and signs everywhere announced that the golden king had arrived.

The exhibition display there is even better than it was in Los Angeles. There is more space, and the design is beautiful. Omar Sharif was supposed to be with me for the grand opening, but he could not attend because he was having minor surgery in a hospital in Paris. If Sharif had come, this article would have a different title!

Even without my friend, the gala opening was incredible. There were red carpets everywhere. Everyone was in black tie, the women in elegant gowns of every colour. Fireworks exploded overhead, writing the name of Tutankhamun in the sky..."

The king and I, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 777, January 10 - 18, 2006.

by Zahi Hawass

After the announcement of the discovery, the small town of El Bawiti became famous. People from all over the world wanted to visit and see the Valley of the Golden Mummies. Friends from Egypt and America, news teams from Europe, tour companies, professors, and ambassadors came to the site.

My personal belief is that mummies should not be displayed for personal reasons, and at the end of the 1999 season, I was strongly urged to open the Bahariya to tourists. After much thought, I moved five of the most beautiful mummies from Tomb 54 to the Bahariya Museum. By moving these five the rest would remain safe.

The mummies I had moved to the museum would promote tourism and allow the tourists to view some of the mummies without tramping around the cemetery. Tourists are dangerous to archaeological sites, and having hordes of people walking all over Bahariya would do it terrible damage.

Two of the mummies I moved to the museum were a boy, aged five and a younger girl. By the way they were decorated and because they were found in the same tomb, I concluded they were probably brother and sister.

It never occurred to me that until I moved the two children to their resting place in the museum that the so-called curse of the mummies existed. This idea, of course, has been around since Howard Carter discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922. After I moved the children I prepared myself to travel to the United States to teach archaeology at UCLA.

I went to Los Angeles and settled in to begin my course. But the golden children had followed me to California and were haunting my dreams. In the dream, the children reached out their arms to me, trying to grab me, another mummy, a woman, I had also moved, appeared looking at me with pleading eyes. Every night they visited my dreams. In my worst nightmare, the little girl reached her White arms towards me and tried to wrap them around my throat. Why were they disturbing my rest?

The curse of the mummies (Part 1), The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, January 09, 2006.

An Egyptian report said that "The Alexandria Study Centre of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina has started the building of a copycat version of the ancient Pharos lighthouse."

The government report said "The move is part of a project implemented by the centre to take part in the Strabo program to establish a Web site on the cultural heritage of the Mediterranean Basin countries."

"The project also includes the building of three-dimensional versions of the Qaitbay Citadel and Ottoman mosques in Alexandria," the report said.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina builds ancient Pharos lighthouse, Arabic News, January 10, 2006.

A King Tut exhibit in Fort Lauderdale is nothing short of enthralling.

Americans have always been fascinated with royalty, especially young royals. But none has ever gripped the public imagination with such lasting fixation as King Tutankhamun, the Egyptian boy king who died in 1323 B.C.

In the late 1970s, almost 8-million people thronged U.S. museums during a tour of artefacts from his tomb, creating a King Tut craze in popular culture and setting a standard for subsequent blockbuster exhibitions.

Twenty-five years later, Tut has returned, in a magnificent show at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale...

Golden boy, St. Petersburg Times, Florida, USA, January 08, 2006.

It was a hit in L.A. — now it's Chicago's turn to see King Tut's treasures. Tickets for The Field Museum's Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibition go on sale at 9 a.m. on January 24, 2006.

In 1977, The Field Museum broke attendance records when more than 1.3 million people bought long-awaited tickets for the first King Tut exhibition. The Field Museum anticipates similar excitement surrounding the 2006 exhibition.

The new exhibition opens on May 26, 2006, and features more than 130 ancient artefacts excavated from the tomb of Tutankhamun and other royal tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. The artefacts include a diadem that Tut wore both in life and death, a child-size ebony and ivory throne, and a coffin believed to be that of Tut's great-grandmother...

King Tut Tickets on Sale January 24: See 'The Boy King's' Treasures at The Field Museum, PRNewswire via WRICTV8 News, USA, January 09, 2006.

One hundred and fifty years after arriving in North America, a ruler of an ancient kingdom finally received the respect due a visiting monarch, thanks to the scientists and historians hailed on this week's episode of "Nova." An Egyptian pharaoh, whose mummified corpse was thought to be lost forever, turned up at Niagara Falls, where an attentive network of connoisseurs proved this was no ordinary bag of bones.

In an appealing if occasionally grotesque hour, "Nova: The Mummy Who Would Be King" lets viewers in on how one emaciated figure emerged as a regal relic, a trove of data, a missing piece in a richly reassembled era in Egyptian history. Though mute for millennia, the mummy speaks volumes.

The rulers of the Nile have long fascinated elites in Europe and North America, and much of the special is focused on how faddish interest in the pharaohs led to the ruinous plundering of their tombs. The mummies were much valued on the black market, and fashionable 19th-century salons once teemed with guests eager to witness an unwrapping. In that same era sufferers of headaches and impotence sometimes consumed a mummy's ground remains to seek a cure...

A Leader as Notable in Death as He Was Powerful in Life, New York Times, New York, USA, January 03, 2006.

cf. Nova gives a wrap-up on Niagara Falls mummy, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Florida, USA, January 07, 2006.

Egyptian treasures from the Pharaohs' port of Herakleion, recovered after lying under the sea for centuries, will go on public show for the first time in the German capital in May, it was announced on Friday.

The exhibition, titled Egypt's Sunken Treasures, will open at the Martin-Gropius-Bau museum in Berlin on May 13 for a four-month run.

French explorer Franck Goddio and his team began operations to raise the remains of ships and statues from the seabed at the present-day Abu Qir bay in Alexandria in the mid-1990s...

Sunken Egyptian treasure sees light of day, IOL, South Africa, January 06, 2006.

A major exhibition at the British Museum is drawing attention to the Achaemenid kings of Ancient Persia, rulers of Egypt before the arrival of Alexander the Great in 332 BC, writes David Tresilian in London.

Once upon a time every schoolboy would have known something about the Ancient Persian Empire, subject of Forgotten Empire, an exhibition currently at the British Museum in London, if only because the Achaemenid Persian kings, first Darius and then Xerxes, famously set out to subjugate the Ancient Greek city states, and particularly Athens, in 490 and 480 BC.

The story of Greek resistance and eventual military success, along with the names of battles such as those at Thermopylae, Marathon and Salamis, were once the staple of every education, and the confrontation of Greek and Persian, pitting tiny but largely democratic Greece against the vastly superior might of the Persian Empire, an early example of "oriental despotism", was long seen as a kind of "clash of civilisations" avant la lettre, not least in the accounts of it left by the Ancient Greeks themselves.

However, the curators of this major exhibition, organised in cooperation with the National Museum of Iran in Tehran and the Louvre in Paris and containing objects never before seen outside Iran, have evidently felt that the Persian Empire is today in danger of being unjustly forgotten, or rather mis-remembered, largely thanks to the unflattering portrayals of it left by Ancient Greek writers...

Forgotten, or mis-remembered?, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 776, January 5 - 11, 2006.

Egyptologist Betsy Bryan and her crew are once again sharing their work with the world through an online diary, a digital window into day-to-day life on an archaeological dig.

Starting Thursday, Jan. 5, visitors to “Hopkins in Egypt Today” at www.jhu.edu/neareast/egypttoday.html will find photos of Bryan and her students working on Johns Hopkins University’s 11th annual excavation at the Mut Temple Precinct in Luxor, where they continue to explore the Egyptian New Kingdom (1567 to 1085 B.C.E.).

According to Bryan, modern day Luxor is rich in finds from the New Kingdom, known as the “golden age” of Egyptian temple building. This is the sixth year Bryan and her team will be excavating the area behind the temple’s sacred lake, where in previous years their finds have included industrial and food processing installations like granaries and bakeries.

The goal of the “Hopkins in Egypt Today” Web site is to educate visitors by showing them the elements of archaeological work in progress...

Archaeologists Bring Egyptian Excavation to the Web, Newswise, USA, January 05, 2006.

An Egyptian government report said that: some 200,000 Americans visited "Tutankhamun and the Golden age of the Pharaohs Exhibition" in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA since its inauguration last week [15th December 2005].

Florida is the second leg of the exhibition tour which covers four states. Some one million people are expected to visit the exhibition during its display in Florida, which will last for four months...

200,000 Americans visit Tut exhibition, Arabic News, December 24, 2005.

"A new hall for mummies will open at the Egyptian Museum in a fortnight's time," said Zahi Hawass, Secretary- General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).

The government noted that "The first hall contains the mummies of the Egyptian warrior Pharaohs from Sekhen-en-Ra [Seqenenre Tao II] to Rameses II, while the new hall will house the mummies of the high priests of Amun, Hawass added."

The government said "The priests of Amun saved the mummies of the great Pharaohs from being looted in the era of King Pinodjem II in the 21st Dynasty. They hid the mummies in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings," he explained adding "Forty royal mummies were found in good condition in this tomb.

"The new hall contains 11 mummies of kings, princesses and priests from the 20th and 21st Dynasties, including Rameses III, VI and VII, as well as Pinodjem Il and his wife Khenso," Wafaa el-Seddiq, Director of the Egyptian Museum was reported saying by the report "Khenso's mummy is unique in terms of the way it was embalmed and the hairstyle," she added.

A new home for mummies, Arabic News, January 04, 2006.

... Discover Egypt has launched a weekly charter flight between Luxor, starting point for Nile cruises, and Sharm El Sheikh. This may not sound a big deal, but previously, if you wanted to spend a week cruising the Nile followed by a week in Sharm El Sheikh, transferring between the two was a nightmare, necessitating two flights via Cairo, or a very long road journey across the desert. The new flight takes just 45 minutes...

If you don't want to spend a whole fortnight by the pool, a Nile cruise and Sharm twin-centre holiday makes a great combination – sightseeing with sun, sea and sand.

It would be criminal to come to Egypt and not see something of the country's ancient history. A Nile cruise provides a perfect introduction to it: you sail between Luxor and Aswan, with visits to Luxor, Karnak, Edfu, Kom Ombo and Philae temples, the massive stone statues known as the Colossi of Memnon, the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens and Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple, all in the company of an expert Egyptologist...

Come dive with me, The Scotsman, UK, December 24, 2005.

Ranked as the world’s 28th largest, Egypt’s tourism continues to gain popularity. As major growth engine of the national economy, the trade currently employs over 10 percent of the total labour force providing 2.2 million direct and indirect jobs. Through 2006, it is expected to grow further with an increasing capacity to generate more employment.

Closing figures for 2005 continue to exhibit clear signs of resilience and growth as Egypt expects to end the year with more than 5 percent growth over 2004. Within the coming years, tourism’s role will continue to grow in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) contribution, job creation for young nationals, and return on investment as the country fulfils its expectations of doubling international tourist arrivals and room nights, as well as realizing increases in investments by 2014...

Onward with Egypt tourism, TravelVideo.TV, Ontario, Canada, January 01, 2006.

Egyptian authorities arrested the owner of a souvenir shop near the pyramids plateau after receiving a tip that he had tried to sell a mummy for $10m, said a source from the Tourism and Antiquities police on Tuesday.

Shop owner Ahmed al-Jabari was arrested on Monday after trying to sell items dating to the Pharaonic era, but on inspecting the premises police found no sign of the mummy in a sarcophagus that he had allegedly offered to sell earlier.

Police seized from al-Jabari 126 items believed to be Pharaonic antiquities, among them 27 necklaces, the most important of which was made from gold and designed in the shape of a bird, alongside 18 amulets.

In another incident of antiquities-related malfeasance, police took into custody on Monday a group of antiquities vendors who were conducting illegal digs in the desert near Minya, 250km south of Cairo.

Among those taken into custody was a police officer. The number of those arrested was not being released.

Mummy for sale for $10m, News 24, South Africa, December 27, 2005.

British Prime Minister has chosen to take his family on vacation to an Egyptian resort city that was bombed by Muslim extremists earlier this year.

Downing Street had ordered a news blackout on Blair's holiday plans in Sharm el-Sheikh, but the Egyptian Tourism Minister Lila Habib confirmed the Blairs would be spending their winter break there in a high-security part of the resort that can be cordoned off.

In July, 88 people were killed in triple attacks when suicide bombers exploded devices that destroyed several hotels in the Red Sea resort city.

Politically, Blair's decision to go there is seen as a show of support for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has been trying to heed British and U.S. calls to clamp down on terror cells, The Independent reported Tuesday.

Blair ignores threat, vacations in Egypt, UPI, December 27, 2005.

Dwarfs in ancient Egypt were assimilated into daily life and their condition was not seen as a physical handicap, said a US scientist.

Chahira Kozma, of the department of paediatrics at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, examined the remains and artistic evidence of dwarfism in ancient Egypt, including both elite dwarfs who achieved important status, and ordinary dwarfs.

Pictorial sources of dwarfism in tomb and vase paintings, statues and other art forms are numerous and indicate that dwarfs were employed as personal attendants, overseers of linen, animal tenders, jewellers, dancers and entertainers, according to Kozma...

Dwarfs assimilated in ancient Egypt, Middle East Times, Cyprus, January 02, 2006.

Many ancient Egyptians marked the first month of the New Year by singing, dancing and drinking red beer until they passed out, according to archaeologists who have unearthed new evidence of a ritual known as the Festival of Drunkenness.

During ongoing excavations at a temple precinct in Luxor that is dedicated to the goddess Mut, the archaeologists recently found a sandstone column drum dating to 1470-1460 B.C. with writing that mentions the festival.

The discovery suggests how some Egyptians over 3,000 years ago began their New Year, which for them started around the end of August to coincide with seasonal, desired flooding that drenched farmlands where they would grow crops, such as barley and wheat. The Festival of Drunkenness usually occurred 20 days after the first big flood...

Ancients Rang In New Year with Dance, Beer, Discovery Channel News, USA, December 26, 2005.

The ancient Egyptians respected dwarfs, and did not see them as having a physical handicap, according to a study by US researchers.

A team from Georgetown University Hospital looked at biological remains and artistic evidence of dwarfism in ancient Egypt.

Ancient Egyptians worshipped dwarf gods, and many dwarfs held positions of authority in households.

The research was published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics.

In modern times, doctors have identified over 100 medical conditions that cause short stature...

Ancient Egypt 'respected dwarfs', BBC News, UK, december 27, 2005.

A Wall painting in an ancient Egyptian tomb, showing an intimate embrace between two male manicurists, could be the first recorded depiction of an openly homosexual couple.

The theory has emerged from an international conference at the University of Wales, Swansea, which debated the significance of the unusual tomb, dating from 4,000 years ago, which contains paintings of the men in a clutch.

The suggestion that the two men, called Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, won social acceptance for their relationship four millenniums before last month’s legal sanctioning of gay unions raises the prospect that the tomb will become a gay honeymoon destination. The site already attracts many gay tourists.

Archeologists have been baffled by the two men’s relationship since the tomb was uncovered in 1964 in the necropolis of Saqqara at Memphis, on the west bank of the Nile. It is extremely rare to find two men of equal status buried together...

Mwah ... is this the first recorded gay kiss?, The Times, UK, January 01, 2006.

Malaysian authorities suffered a setback Wednesday in their plan to send a 35-member team to drape Egypt's Great Pyramid at Giza with the flags of the world's 57 Muslim countries.

The chairman of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, the body responsible for the Giza site, said in Cairo that he would not allow it to be draped.

"This cannot take place," chairman Zahi Hawass said. "The pyramid cannot be draped by any person in this world. Nobody is allowed to do this..."

Malaysian plan to cover Great Pyramid with Muslim nation flags hits snag, Mainichi via MSN, Japan, December 28, 2005.

... Meanwhile, in the fresh air above, Egyptologists and other would-be experts are waving the tourist crowds away from Tutankhamun's tomb, describing it as an extra-cost disappointment. And sure enough, if this were Palm Beach, it would be like paying a $20 premium to scope out Mar-a-Lago's carriage house.

Many of us make the trip anyway for bragging rights — and it's the only tomb with a body in it. Sam Guy, an experienced traveler among our group, says that back home near Atlanta, neighbors will be more interested in his tale of Tut's tomb than the huge and more renowned Seti I caverns we just climbed through. We make a final visual scan, and huff our way back up to the surface, where humidity is only 15 percent and the sweat dries off our bodies and clothes in minutes.

It's midmorning and the daily tour bus crowds, including ourselves, are reaching peak population. Guides like our Attia — he chafes at the label, being an accredited Egyptologist — deliver full-blown historical treatises to their impatient groups before pointing them toward the most interesting crypts. The group leaders are no longer allowed to lecture in the tombs — it created traffic jams down below...

Tales of the crypts, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Florida, USA, January 01, 2006.

NOVA Presents THE MUMMY WHO WOULD BE KING Tuesday, January 3, 2006, at 8PM ET ON PBS.

It is a tantalizing idea and an outrageous long-shot: a shriveled mummy with crossed arms that has lain neglected on a dusty museum shelf at Niagara Falls could be the remnants of a long-lost Egyptian king. While a trail of clues hints at how the looted mummy made its way to North America, archaeologists, scientists, and even an orthodontist look to the latest genetic testing and imaging techniques in hopes of ascertaining the body’s hidden identity. NOVA reveals an astounding story filled with historical intrigue and the wonders of forensic science, on The Mummy Who Would Be King, airing Tuesday, January 3, 2006 at 8PM ET on PBS (check local listings).

Suspicions about the mummy’s noble past first arose decades ago. Speaking with avid collectors and top scholars involved in the investigation, NOVA discovers just how complicated it can be to unravel ancient truths. By the late 20th century, the Niagara Falls mummy had journeyed across an ocean. It had been stolen, sold, bought, and neglected. It had languished in obscurity and had been ‘discovered’ in the 1960s only to be declared a fraud. Yet, Egyptologist Gayle Gibson tells NOVA that as soon as she laid eyes on the body, she was convinced it was someone special. This documentary is about how one mummy finally convinced the world...

THE MUMMY WHO WOULD BE KING, NOVA, PBS, via Stephanie Houghton.

Ramses stayed put, while a fragment of the Great Pyramid fell off. Nevine El-Aref explores a few of this year's significant cultural and archaeological events.

Suddenly, as the second half of 2005 began, what had been a relatively sluggish year in the cultural sphere picked up with a vengeance. The culture minister found himself at the centre of at least two major controversies in July and September. First, he received the Israeli ambassador to Egypt, inspiring much criticism, as well as rumours of an impending cultural normalisation that didn't actually occur. Then he tendered his resignation — subsequently revoked — in response to the tragic death of 55 people in a fire that erupted during a theatrical performance at the Beni Sweif Cultural Palace, a ministry-owned and operated venue (see 'Staging dissent'). As usual, the year was also filled with battles on the antiquities front, as Egypt continued to pay greater attention to its treasure trove of monuments, and seek out new ways to keep them from harm.

Relocation delayed: After much fanfare and publicity, the decision to move the huge statue of Ramses II from in front of the Bab Al-Hadid central Cairo train station in downtown Ramses Square, to the site of the Grand Museum of Egypt being built on the Giza Plateau, was delayed until the start of 2007. Antiquities officials say they opted to wait in order to spare the statue the harm that would befall it on a busy construction site. The international bid for the museum project will be made in October; and since the first phase — to be complete by the end of 2006 — includes enough space for Ramses II, it will be safe to undertake the move shortly afterwards...

Pharaohs on the move, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 775, 29 December 2005 - 4 January 2006.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!