Well it appears that KV63 is not Nefertiti's burial, an Amarna cache, a Pharaoh's burial, or the burial of some nobles — all theories floated recently — but a mummification material cache. See earlier posts for more information. This is similar to the 'tomb' KV54 which is a cache containing Tutankhamun's embalming material and elements of his funerary meal. Now we have just got to figure out whose cache it is?

Jane Akshar has posted a transcript of the lecture that Dr Otto Schaden gave in Luxor last Thursday on her blog here: KV63 lecture by Otto Schaden.

Jane has also posted detail of Zahi's visit to the Valley of the Kings last Friday: Dr Zahi Hawass visits Luxor.

Finally, the official KV63 website has been updated with the latest from Dr Schaden: Otto's Dig Diary.

Things seemed bad enough when a loose shoelace sent Nick Flynn tumbling down a staircase at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. The ensuing crash-landing smashed three 300-year-old Qing Dynasty Chinese vases, (estimated value, when not in smithereens, £100,000 .)

Now documents obtained by this newspaper reveal that the museum will receive nothing in compensation for the smashed vases because it failed to get them insured...

In 1999 an Egyptian sarcophagus lid which had survived more than two millennia met its match in the form of a French teenager on a school exchange trip.

Attendants caught the 15-year-old trying to hide the three fragments detached by his attempt to lift it...

Whoops (again)! We didn't insure £100,000 vases, admits museum, The Telegraph, UK, March 12, 2006.

cf. Accident involving Chinese porcelain vases, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK, February 07, 2006.

An Egyptian mummy was taken to a Syracuse hospital by ambulance for a C-T scan.

The 2-thousand-year-old mummy, called Hen, usually is on display at the Cazenovia Library. Radiologist E-Mark Levinsohn and Crouse Hospital agreed to provide their services to help the library find out when and how the mummy died.

Cazenovia resident Robert James Hubbard brought the mummy to Cazenovia in 1894. He purchased it in Egypt for 200 pounds, the equivalent of about 2-thousand dollars today.

Images from the C-T scan will be carefully analyzed by Levinsohn. He said the pictures should reveal information about the mummy's physical health, how old she was, why she died and what she had in her.

Mummy has a CT scan at Syracuse hospital, AP via WCAX-TV, Vermont, USA, March 13(?), 2006.

by Hassan Saadallah

The renovations at the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo continue. They are a major project that will make the museum one of the best in the world.

The exhibitions and display halls are being overhauled and the museum will reopen next month.

The Coptic Museum contains precious Coptic monuments dating back many centuries. It also contains precious stones, metals, icons and manuscripts that tell us a lot about religion in Egypt before the dawn of Islam.

"The museum, located near Mari Girgis Underground Station, was constructed by Markos Pasha Semeika in 1910, in order to house the antiquities he'd collected from old churches and monasteries," says Mohamed Abdel-Fattah, head of the Museums Sector, adding that Semeika built an extension in 1950, comprising 17 halls for displaying 15,000 antiquities.

"The museum also contains many paintings and precious icon, as well as agricultural implements and medical instruments," Abdel-Fattah added, noting that Semeika decided to build this museum in Old Cairo near the Amr Ibn el-Aas Mosque, the Ben Ezra Synagogue and a number of Orthodox churches, representing the three heavenly religions.

Coptic Museum reopens soon, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, March 14, 2006.

... Simply put, McLogan says, "An Egyptologist needs to go to Egypt every so often to stay current, and usually a sabbatical is the technique used to allow that professor to be able to keep current in their field. It makes them better teachers; it makes them better scholars; and it helps our students..."

Paying professors to not teach, WOOD TV-8, Michigan, USA, March 13, 2006.

"I couldn't have thought of anything better than this, I don't think I could have dreamed of anything better than this," said Sharon Nichols, a graduate student who assisted on the dig.

They found a room with 7 [*] human mummies and dozens of pottery vessels ... all just feet away from King Tut's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

At first, they hesitated to go inside.

"You know you'd think you'd have this feeling of just wanting to rush inside but we didn't we felt very odd," Dr. Corcoran recalled...

University of Memphis team talks about find in Egypt, WMC-TV, Tennessee, USA, March 13, 2006. Video footage of the interview with Dr. Lorelei Corcoran and Sharon Nichols can be found here Egypt Discovery: Syan Rhodes.

cf. U of M pair bring home story of major discovery in Egypt, Commercial Appeal, Tennessee, USA, March 14, 2006.