One of the finest private collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts, the Mansoor Amarna Collection, is now available to the public through e-Powersellers.

This collection was obtained during the first half of the last century by M. A. Mansoor, a Cairo antiques dealer. Thirty-two of the more interesting and rare artefacts remain in the possession of the family. While rarely shown to the public, the authenticity has been verified independently; a list by several authorities is available upon request.

The family has chosen e-Powersellers to provide a selection from the collection for sale on eBay. The first item is now available for viewing on eBay...

At the time of writing there are five items for sale ranging from $500K to $1.75M.

Mansoor Amarna Collection of Egyptian Antiquities Released To The Public, eMediaWire, USA, April 02, 2006.

Sarah Parcak's friends often refer to her as Indiana Jones.

Parcak, an archaeologist who leads research expeditions in Egypt, however, has uncovered many more new sites than the fictional movie adventurer ever boasted.

"It's a calling, I believe," Parcak said by e-mail from Egypt. "It continues to interest me because we are constantly making discoveries that change the way we think about the past, and consequently, ourselves."

Her discovery of 100 new sites in Egypt, some dating as far back as 3000 B.C., certainly is nothing to sniff at. But Parcak, a teacher of Egyptian art and history at the University of Wales-Swansea in Wales, has no intention of resting on her laurels anytime soon...

Bangor native finds career in Egyptian tombs, Bangor Daily News, Maine, USA, April 04, 2006.

After 10 years, Betsy Bryan's annual expeditions to Luxor, Egypt, may be routine, but what she found on the 11th trip was anything but: In January, Bryan, chair of the Johns Hopkins Department of Near Eastern Studies, and a 17-student team unearthed a 3,400-year- old life-size statue of a beautiful Egyptian queen.

When the crew first found the figure, it was lying facedown in the temple of the goddess Mut. From an inscription that ran along its back pillar, they initially thought it dated to 1000 BC. After cleaning the object more thoroughly, they realised they had found something much grander — and older...

Hopkins team unearths a 3,400-year-old Egyptian queen, Johns Hopkins Magazine, Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, USA, Vol. 58, No. 2, April 2006.

by Zahi Hawass

During the Graeco-Roman Period, Bahariya Oasis prospered as a military outpost and a centre of wine production. Wine making and its consumption were central to life in the Oasis, and was an activity associated with the god Bes, and there is evidence that he was worshipped in several locations in Bahariya in addition to El-Bawiti. In 1939, Ahmed Fakhry uncovered four ruined chapels at Ain el-Mufttells near El Qasr. In the third chapel oversized figures of Bes were carved into each wall.

In 1988 a resident of El-Bawiti came into the Antiquities Inspectorate in Bahariya and handed over a piece of basalt containing the cartouche of Akhenaton. This is the only artefact that has been found at Bahariya belonging to the "heretic king." Egyptian law requires that ancient artefacts be preserved, not sold, and anyone who can guide us to them is rewarded. The man who brought us the stone, led us to a small mound, among the houses of El-Bawiti, and he told us that inscribed stones like this one had just been lying in the sand. The next month, Ashry Shaker began an excavation and uncovered a unique temple. It was a temple to Bes, the god of pleasure, sexuality, dancing, wine, music, and the protector of mothers and children.

The architecture of this temple is similar to other Graeco-Roman temples in Egypt, which used the Egyptian style rather than the Roman style. The interior is made of mud bricks on a foundation of limestone blocks, measuring 60 X 40 feet. It lies on a north-south axis with a causeway or ramp leading to the entrance. Sphinxes most likely lined this ramp at one time. Inside there is a long, horizontal hall with a stucco floor and lying in three pieces, in front of its base was a statue of Bes. Strewn around the statue were many copper vessels, used to present offerings to the god. A small door off the main hallway led down the short ramp to a rock-cut water shaft. Here the ancient apparently used the water to cure illnesses.

God Bes, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, April 03, 2006

Last week Eleanor Kulin, marketing and projects manager for the Exploreum, released numbers that suggesting mounting excitement for the multimedia, high-tech presentation surrounding the 3,000-year-old mummy Nesperennub.

Figures tallied after 18 complete days of the exhibit's 144-day run show 15,676 visitors, an average daily attendance of 871. Kulin says 74 percent are purchasing combination tickets ("Mummy" and the IMAX film "Mystery of the Nile"), much higher than the museum's initial projections of 50 percent.

Kulin says 47 percent of visitors are from Mobile and Baldwin counties; the remaining 53 percent hail from outside our area.

"Early attendance figures are stronger than projected," says Kulin. "The Exploreum set an attendance goal of 100,000 for the exhibit, or a daily average of 694. ... It is a very healthy sign that early daily attendance figures are about 25 percent above projections..."

Exploreum on 'Mummy track' to another hit, The Mobile Register, Alabama, USA, April 02, 2006.

He was a kid from a disgraced family, possibly assassinated and buried just off the beaten path in a tomb that, in Pharaonic terms, is a broom closet.

But Tut's is among the most-visited holes in the ground of the Valley of the Kings, where the humidity down below makes the 105-degree September morning seem cool and refreshing when I re-emerge into the present.

The tomb is empty except for the boy king himself, tucked back into his sarcophagus in the wake of his most recent trip topside, for CT scans last January. Gazing in at the most famous teenager in world history, and the gods painted on the surrounding walls to guide him (and his two also-mummified children) to the netherworld, my mind reels at the tiny size of the burial chamber. How could all those coffins, shrines and relics possibly have been squeezed in here? ...

Visiting Tut's tomb is a rich experience, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas, USA, April 02, 2006.

An Egyptian-Spanish archaeological expedition unearthed Thursday a parlour belonging to Gihoti [Djehuty, overseer of the treasury, overseer of works - ed.], a workers' superintendent in charge of decorating temples and galleries during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut, 1502-1487 BC.

A game board was also excavated in a nearby room. Supreme Council of Antiquities Secretary General Zahi Hawass said the parlour found in the Ancient Egyptian New Kingdom's capital of Thebes in Luxor Thursday was one of the largest as it is measured 34 metres long. The head of the Spanish team said that house utensils were also found.

Why they are referring to it as a parlour I am not sure? A translation problem possibly? Other news reports refer to it as a hall.

Parlour of Hatshepsut time unearthed, State Information Service, Egypt, March 31, 2006.

cf. The excavation team's website for previous season's work: Excavación, restauración y publicación de las tumbas de Djehuty y Hery en Luxor.

Scientists in Egypt on Monday started the restoration of the Great Sphinx of Giza.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities is carrying out the work, with scientists hoping to rectify previous mistakes in the restoration of the monument.

Zahi Hawass, the head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the Sphinx had suffered the greatest damage when workers used cement to restore the statue in the 80s.

"The Sphinx is like a human being. When you put cement on its body, it stops the breathing of the limestone," he said...

Click on the picture above to see five Sphinx restoration photographs from Reuters.

Restoration of Egyptian Sphinx begins, AP via NDTV, India, April 03, 2006.

Surviving a rebel attack and braving crocodile-infested waters, a group of explorers — including two New Zealanders — has completed an 80-day voyage up the world's longest river reaching what they say is the source of the Nile.

The three explorers from Britain and New Zealand claim to be the first to have travelled the river from its mouth to its "true source" deep in Rwanda's lush Nyungwe rainforest.

"History has been rewritten," British explorer Neil McGrigor told reporters yesterday.

The team, which used a Global Positioning System (GPS) and inflatable motorboats, believes the Nile is at least 107km (66mls)longer than previously thought...

NZ team finds new source of Nile in Rwanda, Stuff, New Zealand, April 02, 2006.

cf. The team's official website: Ascend the Nile.