Archaeologists have found a hall in a Pharaonic tomb in the southern city of Luxor that they said could yield important information on how ancient Egyptians dug their tombs.

The Egyptian-Spanish team discovered the hall at Zira Abu Al Naga on the west bank of the Nile, as it was excavating the tomb site, the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said on Thursday.

They believe that the tomb belonged to an official responsible for temple and tomb decorations during the rein of 18th dynasty (1580-1314 BC) Queen Hatshepsut, Hawass said...

Archaeologists unearth Pharaonic hall in Egypt, Middle East Times, Cyprus, March 31, 2006.

cf. Pharaonic tomb may hold ancient secrets, Sapa-AFP via Independent Online, South Africa, March 31, 2006.

And from the Egyptian Gazette we have.

by Hassan Saadallah

An Egyptian-Spanish archaeological team, operating on the West Bank in Luxor, have discovered a room housing the tomb of the foreman responsible for decorating all the temples and palaces in the ancient city of Thebes (modern-day Luxor) in the reign of Queen Hatshepsut (1502 - 1482 BC). The discovery, announced by Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, also includes a collection of wooden and clay artefacts.

According to Zahi Hawass, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, this important discovery sheds light on the design of the buildings that housed tombs in the 18th Dynasty. "The building is 34 metres long and there are many drawings carved on the walls, as well as the words of sermons Ancient Egyptians listened to at the time," he explained, adding that the finds will displayed in the Luxor Museum.

cf. New discovery in Luxor, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, March 31, 2006.

By Jill Kamil

When two substantial books with similar titles featuring images on the cover that are almost the same are published by the same press in the space of a single year, one feels almost challenged to discover the difference between them, if only in order to guide potential readers...

, Richard H. Wilkinson, The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, 2005, pp. 255.

, ed. Byron E. Shafer, The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, 2005, pp. 335.

, Toby Wilkinson, Thames and Hudson, London, 2005, pp. 271.

Ancient temples and dictionaries, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 788, March 30 - April 05, 2006.

By Zahi Hawass

Several years ago I went to the Egyptian Museum and met its then director, Mamdouh El-Damati. I met a man in his office, a short man with dark skin named Refaat who spoke English with a saidi (Upper Egyptian) accent. After several minutes of conversation, I realised that he was super smart. I understood he had spent most of his life in Cambridge, England, and had married a charming English lady, Ashley, with whom he has a daughter and a son. El-Damati told me that Refaat supplied the museum with computers and other essentials needed for day-to-day activities. He had even sponsored the visits of several curators to the British Museum. I was very happy to meet him, but wondered what he wanted because I always believe there is no such thing as a free lunch. Refaat later came to my office with El-Damati and explained his entire programme, as well as his support for the museum.

I later received an invitation from Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, to deliver a talk at the museum on the occasion of its 250th anniversary. I arrived at Heathrow Airport and found Refaat waiting for me with his driver. He stayed with me for most of my visit to London. I found out that the Egyptian Section of the British Museum depended on him to sponsor events. I also found out during this visit, for the first time, that sometimes there is a free meal...

Dig days: Refaat Rozeik, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 788, March 30 - April 05, 2006.

An ancient quarry rich in natural and cultural heritage is a potential site for nomination to the UNESCO's World Heritage List, says Nadja Tomoum.

Wadi Al-Hitan, the Whales Valley, known for its rich palaeontological history (especially for its skeletons of primitive whales and other vertebrate fossils), is included on the UNESCO World Heritage List as an area of outstanding natural history. It lies within the boundaries of the Lake Qarun nature reserve and forms part of the Wadi Al-Rayan Protected Area in the Fayoum governorate. In this area lies Widan Al-Faras, which may soon be the only ancient quarry left in Egypt that still bears traces of one of Egypt's oldest industries — stone cutting.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), in response to a request to draw up a management plan for the protection and preservation of the quarries in the northern Fayoum, is now looking into the possibility of asking UNESCO to incorporate Widan Al-Faras within the Wadi Al-Rayan Protected Area. This spring, a survey of the ancient quarries at Widan Al-Faras carried out as part of the Quarry Scapes Project will be continued with the aim of assessing the risks to the site and developing practical and methodological guidelines for its conservation. This project is a joint initiative coordinated by the Norwegian Geological Survey and funded through the EU Commission to draw together academic and other institutions in Europe with partners in Egypt, Turkey and Jordan. The project has been established for the conservation of ancient stone quarry landscapes, mainly focussing on their documentation, conservation and heritage management...

Fayoum's ancient quarry under threat, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 788, March 30 - April 05, 2006.

On March 6, at the New School in New York, Michael Kimmelman, The Times's chief art critic, moderated a discussion about antiquities and their provenance. He opened by delving into the topic of the Euphronios krater, a 2,500-year-old Greek bowl that the Metropolitan Museum of Art has recently agreed to return to Italy. Here are excerpts, edited for clarity, from the conversation:

MICHAEL KIMMELMAN: Questions about whether the Euphronios krater was looted are nothing new.

PHILIPPE DE MONTEBELLO: Documents emerged out of the criminal trial against the Getty Museum. How Italy prosecuted its case in the United States is rather shabby. It was entirely through the press. For years, we wrote countless times to the Italian ministry, to the justice department there and so forth, asking for a direct dialogue and really never got it. I went with our secretary and counsel Sharon Cott in 1999 and it led to nothing. I was there in 2003 to discuss the whole issue of the silver that the archaeologist Malcolm Bell said, on circumstantial evidence, came from Morgantina in Sicily, asking whether they had any hard information. I got blank stares...

Is It All Loot? Tackling The Antiquities Problem, New York Times, New York, USA, March 29, 2006.

cf. Stolen art met with public yawn, USA Today, Virginia, USA, March 29, 2006.

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.

Good news, Australia: after 30 years of doubt, experts have established that your mummy is a woman after all.

The prize specimen in the Australian Museum's small Egyptology collection was donated a century ago, with little information on what lay beneath the bandages.

The paintings on its willow sarcophagus depicted the death of a woman — but X-rays in the 1970s seemed to reveal a man's skeleton...

Unravelled: the mystery of Egypt's lady-in-waiting, The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, March 30, 2006.

The following website has a couple of pictures of the statue they found.

EGIPTOLOGIA.pl. You can try translating it using Poltran.com

Egypt is topic of lecture Robert Littman, a professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, will give a presentation titled "The Valley of the Golden Mummies: The Bahariya Oasis, Mummies, Health and Disease in Ancient Egypt" at 7:30 p.m. April 7 [2006] in Room 238 of the Smith Memorial Student Union at Portland State University.

Littman's lecture, which is sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America, is free and open to the public...

SCIENCE NEWS AND EVENTS, The Oregonian, Oregon, USA, March 29, 2006.

KARMA never sleeps. When people steal from other people, redress always comes, though maybe not for a long time and in unexpected forms. Because the history of art is, in large part, a history of theft, karmic action is always at work. Somewhere, it's always payback time.

We got a juicy taste of this recently, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art, after decades of stonewalling, agreed to return several possibly stolen — that is, illegally excavated — objects to Italy, one being the famous Euphronios krater. Yet the Met affair was small potatoes compared with orgies of art larceny in the not-so-distant past.

Under Napoleon, French armies hauled ton after ton of Pharaonic sculpture from Egypt and back to Paris. Around the same time, the British were shipping the Elgin marbles to London. Later in Africa, in 1897, British troops, in a punishing mood, stripped clean the ivories and bronzes from the altars and palaces of the West African kingdom of Benin and sent those exquisite objects home, too...

Who Owns Art?, The New York Times, New York, USA, march 29, 2006.

Egypt threatened Tuesday to take legal action against a US museum unless it returns an ancient mask in its collection that the authorities claim was stolen from a warehouse years ago.

The St Louis Art Museum has a week to turn over the 19th dynasty (1307-1196 BC) mask of Ka-nefer-nefer or face legal action, according to Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).

"I have informed the American side in a letter that if they do no respond to our request we will take the necessary legal measures and file a case in a US court and inform Interpol," the antiquities chief said in a statement...

Egypt threatens to sue US museum over ancient mask, AFP via The Nation, Thailand, March 28, 2006.

Egypt is one of Africa's richest countries in terms of history. Egypt's history goes back to the ancient times before the Bible. The biblical and cultural history of Egypt is as diverse and intriguing as the undiscovered tombs and cities lying underneath the desert sand in Upper and Lower Egypt.

Cairo is a city full of life. One aspect I quickly noticed when I set foot in Cairo is the traffic. Cairo is home to over 16 million inhabitants of which an additional 2 million people commute into the city in the morning and depart at sunset. In spite of the city having huge multiple-lane spaghetti highways, the traffic is extremely heavy. As you approach the city centre, a highway of 3 lanes is tuned into 5. The most notorious motorists are the taxis. As one drives in the city, one of your hands will permanently remain on the horn. I thought Nairobi had the worst traffic congestion in Africa, but Egypt for sure makes Nairobi's traffic child-play...

The Great Pyramid Of Giza - A Monumental Structure, DailyIndia.com, India, March 27, 2006.

The Egyptian Tourist Authority has today launched its new official website www.egypt.travel.

The new portal provides information on everything from Egypt's historical and cultural attractions through to its beautiful beaches and activity based holidays including diving, safaris, yachting and golfing.

In addition, www.egypt.travel contains a news section with all the latest information on Egypt, a monthly events section highlighting all the main festivals and events taking place across the country through to the latest archaeological discoveries, such as the 3500 year old mummies found in Luxor.

www.egypt.travel also provides visitors with travel information such as visa requirements and useful phone numbers ensuring each visitor has all the necessary information to plan an enjoyable stay in Egypt...

Egyptian Tourist Authority Launches New Website, Travel Industry Wire, USA, March 28, 2006.

cf. Egyptian Tourist Authority Launches New Website, PR Newswire, USA, March 28, 2006.

History does not overflow with the names of composers and scientists who are women, but there is one arena in which women have done relatively well, says Met Egyptologist Dorothea Arnold, and that is national leadership.

Arnold ticks off just a few of the names — Elizabeth I of England, Maria Theresa of Austria, Catherine the Great of Russia. And, of course, Hatshepsut.

Hat Who?

The subject of an elegant and enlightening exhibit opening today at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, Hatshepsut ruled Egypt for two decades (circa 1479-1458 B.C.) during the 18th Dynasty. She wasn't Egypt's first female ruler, nor was she most famously the last. That distinction belongs to the accomplished Cleopatra, who nonetheless drove Egypt into the controlling arms of Rome...

When Egypt was a woman, The Journal News, New York, USA, March 28, 2006.

This big, sumptuous block buster is our generation's answer to the famous — or infamous — King Tut blockbuster assembled at the Met back in 1976.

Or, if you want, it is the response of the present director, Philippe de Montebello, to Thomas Hoving, his predecessor and the man largely responsible for bringing King Tut to our shores.

The differences between the two exhibitions are quite clear. The earlier one lingers in the collective memory of the art world as a gaudy crowd-pleaser, intended to hike attendance figures with an abundance of gold jewellery. It also seemed to be utterly typical of Hoving's boisterous, bull-in-the-china shop tenure at the Met.

By contrast, Hatshepsut, which opens today, is an exercise in scholarship and restraint. The gold does not gleam as brightly as it did 30 years ago, and in its place you are apt to find sober gray granite, which, despite its supreme artistry, does not entice quite like the gleam of gold...

SHE'S NO TUT, New York Post, New York, USA, March 28, 2006.

Archaeologists claim to have unearthed the remains of the 3,500-year-old palace of Ajax, the warrior-king who according to Homer's Iliad was one of the most revered fighters in the Trojan War.

Classicists hailed the discovery, made on a small Greek island, as evidence that the myths recounted by Homer in his epic poem were based on historical fact...

... Several relics of oriental and Cypriot origin were found at the site at Kanakia, such as bronze armour strips stamped with the emblem of Pharaoh Rameses II of Egypt, indicating trade or possible war in the 13th century BC...

Palace of Homer's hero rises out of the myths, The Times, UK, March 28, 2006.

cf. Palace of Trojan War hero found in Athens, AFP via Independent Online, South Africa, March 28, 2006.

cf. 'Palace of Ajax' found in Greece, BBC News, UK, March 28, 2006.

Dr. Nicholas Reeves has posted a five part article detailing the work done by the Amarna Royal Tombs Project in the Valley of the Kings. This includes pictures of the ground penetrating radar results from directly above KV63.

Unlike most excavations which have worked in Egypt the Amarna Royal Tombs Project is not a national enterprise but a determinedly international collaboration. Between 1998 and 2002 ARTP fielded annually for several months a uniquely qualified team of some thirty archaeologists and technical staff drawn from Egypt and Africa, the United States, Japan and a range of European countries. Because of this international character the project was able to draw freely upon the immense goodwill of several countries, in particular Japan where generous financial and material support from a number of major companies — including Kajima, Pasco, Sony and Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) — was ably coordinated by our Associate Project Director Yumiko Ueno (formerly Institute of Silk Road Studies, Kamakura; currently Ancient Orient Museum, Tokyo)...

Amarna Royal Tombs Project, Dr. Nicholas Reeves, Valley of the Kings Foundation, UK, March 16 - 23, 2006.

by Hassan Saadallah

Tutankhamun's death at the age of 19, only 10 years into his reign, didn't give him the chance to achieve anything remarkable. He can therefore be described as one of the least of Ancient Egypt's kings. Nevertheless, he is also the greatest, if his enduring worldwide popularity is anything to go by.

"The mystery of his life still eludes us — the shadows move, but the dark is never quite dispersed."

These words of archaeologist Howard Carter, the man who found the tomb of King Tut in 1922, eloquently sum up our fascination with the young Pharaoh — and the reason why millions will flock to the exhibition called 'Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs', being held in Philadelphia and three other US cities.

Wonderful treasures have been found in Tut's tomb and the tombs of other royalty in Egypt's Valley of the Kings and at other ancient Egyptian sites.

We're talking about priceless artefacts — exquisite works of art in stone, wood, earthenware, gold and jewels - beautifully preserved, even after around 3,500 years.

More importantly, these objects have helped us piece together the story of a civilisation: how the people lived, how they worshipped and how they prepared for the afterlife.

The hieroglyphs in the catacombs of King Tut have enabled us to reveal the truth behind the mysterious death of King Tut, a stunning puzzle fit to perplex the most experienced detective.

And by the way, the curse of Tutankhamun lives on. Why else was there a violent storm when a tomb was recently opened in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor? What else would account for the fact that the expensive, high-tech X-ray machine suddenly broke down for no good reason, while specialists were still examining the tomb?

"The project to examine the ancient mummies consists of four stages," says Zahi Hawass, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

"The first stage involves examining the photographs of the five mummies discovered in the Valley of the Kings. Then the second stage in September will witness 10,000 'ordinary' [i.e. non-royal] mummies being transferred to el-Fostat [in Old Cairo] for treatment.

"In the third stage, we're going to study the golden mummies discovered in Bahariya Oasis. The fourth stage of this exclusively Egyptian project will involve further study of the royal mummies," Hawass adds.

Clearly, the local authorities are taking great care of these priceless treasures, an irreplaceable part of Egypt's rich heritage. But be assured of one thing: sooner or later, the curse of King Tut is sure to strike again.

The curse returns, The Egyptian Mail, Egypt, March 25, 2006.

by Zahi Hawass

The next area we began to clear was northeast of the tomb of Djed-Khonsu-ef-ankh. To our surprise, this work revealed the tomb of Ped-Isis, father of Djed-Khonsu-ef-ankh.

This is one of the oldest tombs here. It was built in the same style as the tomb of Naesa, with the burial chamber continuing an anthropoid sarcophagus and an inner chamber. Unfortunately, the entrance to the tomb had been completely destroyed because it was used as sewer by one of the houses above. We even found sewage inside the sarcophagus.

The water from the houses above has also destroyed the beautiful scenes that had once adorned the walls. Most of them had come away from the walls and we found pieces on the ground. However, these fragments do give us a small glimpse of how beautiful these scenes must have been. Fakhry believed that Ped-Isis had also been the governor of Bahariya after his father, Ped-Amun.

The anthropoid sarcophagus found in the tomb was crafted from local sandstone, and measured seven feet three inches long. Depicted on the sarcophagus is Ped-Isis with a priestly beard. This tells us that he was also a high priest of Amun-Re. The lid of the sarcophagus had been broken into three pieces and the mummy was almost completely deteriorated. When he cleaned the sarcophagus we found six wadjet-eyes of varying sizes, an amethyst scarab, four turquoise djed-pillar amulets and five carnelian amulets in different shapes.

But the biggest surprise was that we found approximately thirty shawabtis to the right of the sarcophagus that had been incorrectly carved. Each measured an inch high and inscribed on them it read: "The Osiris, Ped-Isis, born of Amun-Itieb." This is a mistake in the carving, for it should read: "The Osiris, Ped-Isis, born of Ped-Amun and not Amun-Itieb.

The tomb of Ped-Isis, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, March 27, 2006.

Egyptian sunken monuments recently retrieved will tour a number of European cities according to an agreement signed between the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the European Institute for Sunken Archaeology in Alexandria.

Berlin and Paris will receive the Egyptian monuments between May 2006 and March 2007. Head of the institute Franck Goddio told MENA he requested an extension of the exhibition to visit two other European cities. The artefacts to be on display were selected by a joint Egyptian-European committee of specialists, he added.

For his part, SCA Secretary General Zahi Hawass said that the project for retrieving sunken monuments has so far succeeded in reclaiming some 400 antiquities dating back to the reign of Cleopatra VII.

Egyptian sunken monuments on EU tour, State Information Service, Egypt, March 25, 2006.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has allocated $ 40 million to restore and develop Luxor's Western Bank. The project will be carried out in cooperation with the (SCA) Supreme Council for Antiquities, SCA Secretary General Zahi Hawass told reporters on the sidelines of the Hatshepsut Exhibition in the New York-based Metropolitan Museum of Arts said that the aid will be mainly used to restore the Valley of Kings and Queens. Hawass said that an international centre for tourists will be set up to brief them on the ancient history of Egypt.

"It will be established outside the monuments area," he noted. The USAID has allocated $ 5 million to restore and develop Luxor's Eastern Bank.

USAID to restore, develop Luxor's Western Bank, State Information Service, Egypt, March 25, 2006.

The true mummy of ancient Egyptian queen Hatshepsut was discovered in the third floor of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Secretary General of Supreme Council for Antiquities Zahi Hawass revealed on Thursday.

The mummy was missing among thousands of artefacts lying in the museum, he said during his lecture at the New York-based Metropolitan Museum of Arts.

He said for decades archaeologists believed that a mummy found in Luxor was that of the Egyptian queen. It was a streak of luck, he said, to find this mummy...

Hatshepsut mummy found, State Information Service, Egypt, March 24, 2006.