If it fell on you, it would definitely kill you.

The 4,000-pound stone sarcophagus lid from Egypt was one of Paul Johnson's recent challenges. He's the long-time director of exhibit design and fabrication at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, and he had to figure out how to move and lift the ancient lid — on loan from the British Museum — without hurting anyone.

"This is a very physically active job," Johnson, 57, said. "I feel like I have to move a lot in order to think. It can wear you out."

The hieroglyph-covered lid of Pakap, a high official, was lying horizontally and didn't have its mounts installed correctly. Because of spacing and delivery mix-ups, Johnson and his small staff had to tear down a wall, remove the lid, carefully lift it vertically, shift it into place and put the wall up again...

The Bowers Museum exhibit impresario, Orange County Register, California, USA, March 30, 2006.

Balancing on his head in the shadow of the ancient pyramids of Giza, a Dutch visitor tried to connect to the spiritual forces he said were swirling around the monuments during yesterday's solar eclipse.

“The eclipse is a special moment in time and the shape of the pyramids attracts a universal energy spiral,” Robin, who did not give his full name, said after meditating at the foot of the largest of the pharaonic mausoleums in the desert outside Cairo...

Eclipse casts a spell at the pyramids, Reuters via Gulf Times, Qatar, March 30, 2006.

cf. Eclipse prompts meditation at Egypt's pyramids, Reuters via Yahoo! News, USA, March 29, 2006.

cf. Do aliens live inside Egyptian pyramids?, Reuters via Hindustan Times, India, March 29, 2006.

Among the ruins of a 3,200-year-old palace near Athens, researchers are piecing together the story of legendary Greek warrior-king Ajax, hero of the Trojan War.

Archaeologist Yiannis Lolos found remains of the palace while hiking on the island of Salamis in 1999, and has led excavations there for the past six years.

Now, he's confident he's found the site where Ajax ruled, which has also provided evidence to support a theory that residents of the Mycenaean island kingdom fled to Cyprus after the king's death...

... Lolos is particularly pleased with a piece of a copper mail shirt stamped with the name of Pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled Egypt from 1279-1213 B.C.

"This is a unique find, which may have belonged to a Mycenaean mercenary soldier serving with the Egyptians," he said. "It could have been a souvenir, a mark of honour or even some kind of a medal..."

Archaeologist links ancient palace with Ajax, AP via USA Today, Virginia, USA, March 29, 2006.