The latest issue of Ancient Egypt Magazine is out now. Below is a summary of its contents.

• A “New” tomb in the valley of the Kings
  AE reports on the newly-discovered tomb in the Valley of the Kings, containing seven coffins and many storage jars. How was the tomb found and who could the occupants be?
• Sinful Barbarians and Part-Time Legionaries
  The area surrounding the Temple of Isis at Philae was the scene of some fierce fighting in the fifth century AD. Ross Cowan tells the story.
• Featured Pharaoh: The God’s Father Ay
  Ay held senior positions in the court through the reigns of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, before he himself became Pharaoh. Marshall Hindley examines the evidence.
• Photo Feature: the Anubis Chapel in the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut
  AE looks at the surviving decoration in this well-preserved Chapel in the much-visited temple at Deir el Bahari.
• Did the ancient Egyptians ever reach Malta?
  The ancient Egyptians had a lucrative trade with Eastern Mediterranean nations and islands. Anton Mifsud and Marta Farrugia look at evidence for their reaching as far as Malta.
• The Friends of Nekhen
  In the second of her regular articles, Renée Friedman looks at the discoveries made in the cemeteries of Hierakonpolis, which have revealed the earliest attempts in Egypt at mummification and some remarkable grave goods.

Ancient Egypt Magazine, Empire Publications, Manchester, UK, Volume 6, No. 5, Issue 35, April / May 2006.

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Danielle Smith has never been to Egypt. But at Van Andel Museum Center on Tuesday, she got a taste of the ancient culture.

With her cousin giggling nearby, Danielle was mummified with a roll of toilet paper wrapped around her legs, body and then her head.

"It tastes like tissue," said the 9-year-old student from Brookside Elementary School in Grand Rapids...

Museum lets kids live like Egyptians, Everything Michigan, Michigan, USA, April 05, 2006.

cf. Public Museum of Grand Rapids.

A leading candidate for the position of Moses' pharaoh is King Rameses II, whose throne name was Meryamun Usermaatre. "Rameses" means the "going forth of Re," the sun god. His other names mean "Re has favoured him" and "beloved of Amun." It is this pharaoh who gets credit for the story of the Exodus in many Bible commentaries and movies. If this designation is correct, it would make the pharaoh who ordered the destruction of Moses and the male children of Israel Rameses' father, Seti I, or Seti Merenptah Menmaatre. King Rameses II is remembered by Egyptologists as the greatest of the pharaohs. He fathered more than 50 sons, won great victories in the Levant, and posted garrisons to the far south in Nubia, to the far west in Libya and ruled over the Sinai, as well.

The text tells us that pharaoh's army, chariots and captains were drowned in the Red Sea, although it does not explicitly say that the king personally perished in the waves. This is a convenient thing, given that Rameses' body has been discovered in Egypt and is on display for those who pay extra to see him in the National Museum in Cairo. Rameses, his father Seti, and the other pharaohs of the 19th Dynasty carefully fail to mention the untidy little events at the Red Sea on any of their ancient monuments.

Interestingly, it is in the reign of Rameses II's son, Merenptah Hetephermaat Baenre-merynetjeru, or "beloved of Ptah, joyous in truth," who is the first ruler of Egypt who even mentions Israel. In a monumental stone, Merenptah tells us that his armies slew Israel in Canaan and "his seed is no more..."

Pharaohs of the Bible, Redlands Daily Facts, California, USA, April 06, 2006.

Egyptian aristocrats of 3,500 years ago passed the time with a backgammon-like tabletop game, Spanish archaeologists have discovered.

José Manuel Gal´n and his team made the discovery at Luxor.

The collection of marble pieces for the game, known as "senet," was found in the ancient Egyptian capital inside a mound holding the tombs of XVIII dynasty nobles Djehuty and Hery, Galan said.

The Egyptologist said that the game must have had some religious significance, as it was placed in the burial mound to accompany the deceased "during the tortuous path that brought him to eternal life"...

See also the Spanish team's website: Excavación, restauración y publicación de las tumbas de Djehuty y Hery en Luxor. This is the same team that announced finding a 'hall' in the tomb of Djehuty last week.

Scientists discover Egyptians' 'backgammon', Expatica, Netherlands, April 06, 2006.

Previously:

Parlour of Hatshepsut time unearthed, April 04, 2006.

An Egyptian archaeological team has discovered a series of structures in the southwestern town of Fayoum that could yield vital data as to how a Middle Kingdom temple was built, the culture minister said on Thursday.

Farouk Hosni said that the structures included administrative buildings, granaries and residences believed to have belonged to priests of the temple, which was dedicated to Renenutet, the goddess of harvest, as well as the crocodile-god Sobek and falcon-deity Horus, Hosni added.

"This find can be considered one of the most important discoveries in Fayoum, as it unveiled remnants of all architectural elements making up the Medinet Madi temple," according to Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA)...

Egypt finds clue to ancient temple's secret, Middle East Times, Cyprus, April 07, 2006.

Injy El-Kashef gets close and personal with the Arabs' most favourite creature.

That no camels (or horses for that matter) are allowed on the pyramids plateau seems almost sacrilegious. How, but how? The Supreme Council of Antiquities' Mohamed Megahed told Al-Ahram Weekly that this ban was issued by the council about 10 years ago, but that "violations cannot be controlled because many of those who rent camels by the pyramids have a license to do so." What about all those thousands of tourists heeding the call of advertisements based on this very image, though? The SCA has deemed the ban necessary on the premise that the Giza Plateau could do without the filth of animals. Someone needs to take care of that Western collective subconscious, whatever the case, and perhaps replace the image of the camel by the pyramids with a coke-vending machine or something; otherwise thousands of tourists will be sorely disappointed when that once-in-a-lifetime experience at the foot of the Great Pyramids, should the ban be better implemented, exclude a camel ride. And we wouldn't want to upset those tourists, now, would we? ...

Identity beast, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 789, April 06 - 12, 2006.

Serene Assir visits Rashid, home to much more than just the Rosetta Stone.

As a child, I would often accompany my parents on for brief breaks in London, which for my father constituted a mixture of work and pleasure. Meanwhile, for my mother and me, life was always intensely active during those trips. We would spend our days walking through the streets — which more often than not would be drenched with rain — going from one art gallery to the next museum. Her energy was extraordinary, and her ability to raise a real interest in me in art and history was perhaps more so.

My nagging and early-morning arguments aside, the British Museum and, more specifically, the Rosetta Stone intrigued me perhaps more than any other aspect of the metropolis' cultural life. The fact that one single document written into rock in three languages provided the key to resolving endless mysteries in the Pharaonic era seemed to me like magic. So it became clear to me that, being in Egypt, a trip to Rashid — the city beneath which the stone was found by French colonisers — was becoming long overdue...

From London to Rosetta, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 789, April 06 - 12, 2006.