It took about 10 minutes before the first Whoa! echoed through the Gulf Coast Exploreum Thursday, the opening day of the downtown Mobile museums Mummy: the inside story exhibit.

The gasp arose from a crowd of students at the beginning of a 3-D movie in which the mummy Nesperennub's coffin and wrapping were peeled away to reveal the 3,000-year-old Egyptians skull, skeleton and jewellery.

After the show, the kids cheered before heading out to the rest of the exhibit. For us, hearing the applause was great, museum spokeswoman Shannon Lipscomb said. It made all the months of work worth it...

Gasps, applause greet Exploreum's 'Mummy' opening, The Mobile Register, Alabama, USA, March 10, 2006.

The Roman city of Leptis Magna, 78 miles east of Tripoli, is a World Heritage site and one of the highlights of a visit to Libya. Most of the archaeological site (open daily from 8am to 6pm) has been well protected for more than 1,000 years by a covering of sand. A better understanding of the layout is helped by the restoration work done by Italians over the last century.

Only about a third of the ancient city is uncovered, and even the extent of the Roman city inland is undetermined, due to modern buildings to the east of al-Khoms city.

The site was first developed in the sixth century BC, as a coastal trading post around the reef-protected mouth of Wadi Labda, by seafaring Phoenician traders from the eastern Mediterranean. Following the Roman defeat of the Phoenicians in the Third Punic War in 146BC, local desert tribes eyed the site enviously, but new Roman fortifications and a buffer zone of fortified farms on the fertile soil protected the important harbour and trading centre for hundreds of years...

Seaside ruins saved by sand, The Guardian, UK, March 10, 2006.

The International United Prehistoric Expedition has begun a new research season (January – March). Headed by Prof. Romuald Schild of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, it will investigate inaccessible parts of the Egyptian Western Desert.

The aim of the expedition is to catalogue the previously found, oldest megalithic objects in Africa, long rows and clusters of menhirs — tall upright stones. Prof. Schild explains there are hundreds of them in a field of ten square kilometres. Dating back to between 4500 B.C. and 3500-3400 B.C., they belong to the oldest such objects in the world.

He adds that the mission will also research an ancient sandstone quarry. Works will also take place south of Gebel Nabta, where traces of an early Neolithic hunting encampment have been found. Moreover, a preliminary survey will be held on both banks of the Nile stretching 50km between Aswan and Kom Ombo...

Cataloguing megaliths in the Western Desert in Egypt, Andrzej Markert, Nauka w Polsce, Poland, January 25, 2006.

As the Field Museum in downtown Chicago geared up for another blockbuster visit this spring by the golden treasures of King Tutankhamun, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago quietly opened a new gallery devoted to ancient Nubia, the mysterious land from where all that gold came.

"Egypt didn't have any gold," explained Oriental Institute researcher Emily Teeter. "So when you look at the Tutankhamun art, you're seeing gold from Nubia, obtained either through trade or by conquest."

There's not much gold in the 600 artefacts on display in the new permanent gallery, but the collection contains treasure of a rarer kind: the fruits of 100 years of exploration and research into the poorly understood region that straddles the southern third of modern Egypt and the northern third of present-day Sudan...

New Gallery Devoted to Ancient Nubia, Yahoo! News, USA, March 10, 2006.

The 27-year-old British archaeologist was making his first trip to Egypt, on a mission to uncover the truth about the Great Pyramid. When he moved into an abandoned tomb at Giza and slept on a hammock, everyone noticed the unconventional William Matthew Flinders Petrie.

Petrie became even harder to ignore after his 1880 adventure as he brought a scientific approach to excavations and, as a result, changed what the world knew about the ancient civilization.

Some of his best discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London are now touring the United States. “Excavating Egypt” is at the Albany Institute of History & Art through June 4 [2006]...

Petrie’s Egypt, Times, Leader, Pennsylvania, USA, March 10, 2006.

Polish archaeologists completed their works on the grounds of the ancient Academy of Alexandria by uncovering three lecture halls — said Dr. Grzegorz Majcherek heading the Mediterranean Archaeology Centre of Warsaw University in Alexandria. The archaeologists plan to reconstruct the academy so that tourists will be able to visit it.

Nearly two years ago the Polish-Egyptian research mission discovered the remains of the academy, dating back to 5th-6th century B.C. So far archaeologists have unveiled thirteen auditoriums. The discovery was acknowledged worldwide as it was the first discovery of a university in this area of the Mediterranean. Work on it is continued.

“The vast complex consists of twenty auditoriums erected along a 180 metre long colonnade” — Dr. Majcherek explains. According to researchers, the halls could hold up to a few hundred students in total. The excavated auditoriums measure 6 by 11 metres with three rows of benches lined along the walls in a U shape. One of the halls is finished with a semi-circular apse containing additional benches for the lecturer...

Polish archaeologists will reconstruct the Academy of Alexandria, Szymon Łucyk, Nauka w Polsce, Poland, February 20, 2006, via EEF News.

Dr Szafrański, heading the mission of the Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology mission in Deir el Bahari, has taken a look inside. “Nobody has actually been inside the tomb; you can only see five sarcophaguses and pottery from a hole made near the chamber”.

Dr Szafrański explains that a vertical shaft 1.2 metres long and 1.7 metres wide, ending with a small corridor leads to the sealed entrance.

“The untouched seals indicate that the tomb went unnoticed by thieves, who looted many other Egyptian necropolises“ — he adds.

He also tells us that only one of the sarcophaguses is decorated. The decorations presumably date back to the 19th-20th dynasty, i.e. 1300-1070 B.C. He does not exclude the possibility that one of the sarcophaguses holds the body of a king...

Dr Szafrański: the tomb in the Valley of the Kings may belong to a ruler, Szymon Łucyk, Nauka w Polsce, Poland, February 21, 2006, via EEF News.

By Zahi Hawass

All of us remember George Herbert, Earl of Carnarvon, as the man who funded the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. After several unproductive seasons in the Valley of the Kings, he was ready to give up. Unhappy, he called his archaeologist, Howard Carter, to Highclere, his castle in England. Carnarvon told Carter that he could not support any more excavations. He was ready to stop looking for Tutankhamun because he did not think they would ever find the tomb. Carter, however, was able to convince him to pay for one last season. In the first week of excavations the tomb was found, and a month later the earl's name went down in history as one of the discoverers of the almost-intact burial of the golden king.

Bruce Ludwig is a businessman who lives in Los Angeles. He is a great lover of Egypt, one of the truest of this breed, and is on the Board of Trustees of the American University in Cairo. Bruce is tall, with a white beard that makes him look like a movie star. I met him when I was a student at the University of Pennsylvania. He used to visit me a lot, and he would send me any news about archaeology in Egypt. He is a very smart man, and knows a lot about raising funds for the support of archaeology in Egypt.

He has supported and continues to support the work of two American Egyptologists...

Dig Days: Ludwig is the new Lord Carnarvon, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 785, March 09 - 15, 2006.

Several international experts are claiming that a 3,000-year-old cartonnage mask on display at the St Louis Art Museum in the United States was smuggled out of Egypt. Nevine El-Aref relates its mysterious provenance.

At the southeast corner on the first floor of the St Louis Art Museum (SLAM) a 19th-Dynasty mummy mask stares proudly through glass-inlaid eyes. Her smiling face is smothered with gold and her head is adorned with startling black wig decorated with a gilded lotus flower. She is a noblewoman from the court of Pharaoh Ramses II called Ka-Nefer-Nefer, and in each hand she holds a wooden amulet signifying strength and position. A delicate scene carved in relief on her arms shows her successful ascent into the afterlife on the boat of the Great God Osiris.

For eight years now, since the mask was purchased from the Phoenix Art Gallery, Geneva, in 1998, Ka-Nefer-Nefer has been the SLAM's central attraction. Daily hundreds of people visit the museum just to admire this rare and fine example of ancient Egyptian heritage.

However, when it comes to bringing objects from abroad all is not smooth sailing, and early this week Egypt requested the mask's return...

Whose mask is it, anyway?, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 785, March 09 - 15, 2006.

cf. It is ours, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 785, March 09 - 15, 2006.