A group of Poznań archaeologists has discovered new examples of cave paintings dating back to the 7th millennium B.C. in Dakhla oasis, Egypt. Inventory works were run in February till mid-March. They had been commenced by Prof. Lech Krzyżaniak, an eminent specialist of Saharan cave art, of the Archaeological Museum in Poznań, who passed away in 2004 — says Prof. Michał Kobusiewicz of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology at the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), running the research.

“Our team came across a few groups of rock carvings. Smoothed fragments of the valley walls formed surfaces covered in numerous pictures. These were usually schematic depictions of women and realistic pictures of giraffes caught in lassoes and lead on cords, which may signify the worship value of these animals sacrificed to the gods” — says Prof. Kobusiewicz...

Mysterious depictions of elephants in the Egyptian oasis of Dakhla, Nauka w Polsce, Poland, March 29, 2006.

The Lexikon der Ägyptologie is a standard reference for scholars of ancient Egypt. Professor Willeke Wendrich of UCLA's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures owns all seven volumes. Her colleague, Jacco Dieleman, has the set of 6,000 articles in worn red binding lining his bookshelf.

The encyclopaedia was published over the course of almost thirty years -- the final volume came out in 1992. But by 2008, Wendrich, Dieleman, and John Baines, a professor of Egyptology at Oxford University, plan to create a new Egyptology encyclopaedia in a whole new medium. The online UCLA Encyclopaedia of Egyptology (UEE) will be easy to update, easy to search, and illustrated with images, 3-D views of ancient cities and sites, and interactive maps.

Dieleman, a philologist in the Department of Near Eastern Languages, says the project is informed by the search functionality of Google and the constant updates of Wikipedia. Printed encyclopaedias, he explains, can't keep up: "Once it is out, a week later it is outdated." But what UEE is countering, he says, is "ill-informed information about Egypt on the Internet..."

Construction Begins on UCLA Encyclopaedia of Egyptology, UCLA International Institute, California, USA, April 06, 2006.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said on Thursday that Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered new monuments dating back to the pharaohs' Middle Kingdom in Al-Fayoum governorate, south of Cairo.

Chief among the masterpieces is the temple of Madi City, the only temple remaining from that period of time.

New pharaonic monuments uncovered in Fayoum, State Information Service, Egypt, April 07, 2006.

cf. Excavation website: Medinet Madi, l'Università di Pisa.

With the mystery of an ancient mummy revealed, along with authentic archaeological artefacts and 3-D graphics, the exhibit, "Mummy: The inside Story," has something for the old and young alike.

The exhibition is presented at Mobile's Gulf Coast Exploreum in partnership with the British Museum in London.

Visitors will begin their exploration of the life and time of ancient Egypt by entering an orientation chamber or the first section of the exhibit gallery. Here they learn about the history of ancient Egypt and the practice of mummification.

A brief video presentation also introduces the "star" of the exhibit, Nesperennub, a priest of Karnak, who lived and died about 2,800 years ago in ancient Egypt. The video explains how 3-D technology will be used in the next section of the exhibition to resurrect him from his coffin, in cyberspace...

Mummy: The inside story on display at Mobile's Gulf Coast Exploreum, The Mississippi Press, Mississippi, USA, April 09, 2006.

A collection of massive statues discovered during archaeological digs in the ancient underwater city of Herakleion are to be exhibited in Paris and Berlin, the Egyptian Supreme Antiquities Council said.

Two statues of Ptolemaic monarchs (304 BC to 30 BC) which each stand six metres (19 feet) tall and weigh six tonnes (13,200 pounds), as well as statues of the Egyptian goddess of fertility and motherhood Isis are included in the 300 pieces to be displayed...

... "Three hundred pieces will be on display at the Martin-Gropius-Bau Museum in Berlin beginning May 11 [2006], then at Paris's Grand Palais from November 20 [2006] to March 22, 2007," said Zahi Hawass, the head of the antiquities council...

Ancient statues from Egyptian underwater city to go on display, AFP via Yahoo! News, USA, April 08, 2006.

The KV63 dig diary has been updated with a couple of more entries.

... Much as happened in the last two weeks, as Coffin ‘A’ (the first coffin) panel pieces and ‘mask’ were safely raised and relocated into KV-10. In addition, to some large pottery fragments, an inscribed Alabaster Jar and lid was also retrieved from inside the coffin ‘A’. The Alabaster Jar contained an inscription pertaining to ‘18 small jars’ was examined to disclose resin bandages which may have held moringa oil. A second alabaster jar and lid was also found which indicates ‘20 jars’ and faintly mentions Amen-Re...

KV63: Otto's Dig Diary, Dr. Otto Schaden, Amenmesse Project, University of Memphis, Tennessee, April 02, 2006.

by Zahi Hawass

In 2004 the Discovery Channel and Channel 5 in England televised live from Bahariya. The shows were broadcast at 3:00am Cairo time, which was prime time (8:00pm) in the States. The people in the States were now able to experience first hand an archaeological excavation conducted by an Egyptian team, and the discovery of many tombs.

For two nights we filmed in the Valley of the Golden Mummies, were we found nine intact tombs all containing mummies covered in gold. We also opened a sealed shaft that contained a skeleton of an ordinary man, and conducted x-rays of several of the mummies.

The next three nights we filmed in Skeikh Soby, where we had found the tomb of its governor Djed-Khonsu-ef-ankh, his wife Naesa II, and his father, Ped-Isis. This season we are searching for the tomb of his mother Naesa I and his grandfather, Iru-aa.

Going live, we found two sealed shafts, which I entered with Mike, the presenter of the show and Laura Green. It was an exciting adventure! The room at the bottom of the shaft was filled with rubble, which I crawled over for about 15 metres. This was very dangerous but fun.

This room then opened into a second chamber, which lay at the bottom of another sealed shaft. At the end of this chamber was another anthropoid sarcophagus. Reading the inscription I found out this was Pedi-her-khieb, the brother of Djed-Khonsu-ef-ankh. We opened the sarcophagus live and found pottery and 40 shawabtis.

On the following nights we opened several more limestone sarcophagi in this burial chamber, which dated to the 26th Dynasty. In the first chamber we found a sarcophagus, which contained the remains of an infant. The larger sarcophagus held the mummy of its mother. It seems the woman died giving birth to the child and therefore, they buried the baby beside her.

All these finds were unique and exciting, but we are like detectives continually searching for the rest of the family of Djed-Khonsu-ef-ankh that still lie buried somewhere beneath t he houses of El-Bawiti.

Finds in the Valley of the Golden Mummies - live, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, April 10, 2006.