Egypt's Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, the country's top Muslim religious authority, last month issued a religious ruling, or fatwa, condemning the display of statues in Egypt.

Gomaa said he based the edict on texts in the Hadith, a record of the sayings or customs of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions. The hadith declare the exhibition of statues in homes to be un-Islamic.

The fatwa did not specifically mention statues in museums or public places. But many academics and art lovers were outraged.

Critics say the ruling could encourage militant Muslims to attack Egypt's thousands of ancient statues, which are a mainstay of the country's tourist industry.

Others point out that the religious edict has no legal authority, as far as the Egyptian government is concerned...

Egypt Monuments Endangered by Muslim Ruling?, National Geographic News, District of Columbia, USA, May 12, 2006.

Egypt is the Nile. It is its past and its future. Without the great river, even today, the country would drift away under the sands of the Sahara. The Nile, the longest river in the world, travels 4,160 miles [6,695 kilometres] from its source at Lake Victoria, through Egypt, and into the Mediterranean. The Greek name for the Nile was Aigyptos — hence the name "Egypt."

My trip to Egypt began in Cairo with visits to the Great Pyramids at Giza. But any holiday to Egypt would be incomplete without experiencing the Nile.

The sites on the Nile have been tourist attractions for more than 2,000 years. Alexander the Great was a tourist. It was a vacation spot for ancient Greeks and Romans. Napoleon rediscovered Egypt for the Western world, returning from his campaigns there with relics of the pharaohs. In the 19th century, there was a virtual Egypt mania for tourists, archaeologists and artists from England, France and Italy. Today, a flotilla of luxurious riverboat hotels sits ready to transport new tourists up and down the great river and into Egypt's past, to experience the greatest archaeological theme park in the world.

Our flight from Cairo to Aswan was about 75 minutes. There, we boarded a small ferry to Isis Island Hotel, a modern 447-bed hotel on Elephantine Island in the middle of the river with a view of Aswan city...

A view from the Nile: Treasures of the temples, Ventura County Star, California, USA, May 14, 2006.

Alexandria Library managed to reach the finals of the Stockholm Challenge 2006 via its project on Digitisation of "Description de l'Egypte".

The Stockholm Challenge is a well established global networking programme for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) entrepreneurs for over ten years. It continues to be a leader in demonstrating how information technology can improve living conditions and increase economic growth in all parts of the world.

One of the main features of the Stockholm Challenge is the ICT prize, the Stockholm Challenge Award, which has attracted over 3,000 projects over the years.

The valuable collection of Description de l'Egypte containing text and images related to antiquities, natural history, and the modern states of Egypt, has been fully digitized, digitally restored, and integrated on a virtual browser with the objective of preserving it and making it publicly available...

Alexandria Library's project on Stockholm challenge 2006, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, May 17, 2006.

The smile of Ka Nefer Nefer is thin, intimate, knowing, a little like the Mona Lisa’s.

The unknown artist who shaped Nefer’s funerary mask about 3,200 years ago had a deft touch.

His mask of the lady Nefer is a minor masterpiece — which is why it has caused an international art squabble, one of many shaking display cases of museums around the world.

One of those cases is in the St. Louis Art Museum, located between two mummies on the first floor. It is where the memory of Nefer lives on.

But Zahi Hawass, the stocky Egyptian version of Indiana Jones — complete with trademark hat — wants her to come home. Now...

Loot or legit? Artefact sets off fuss, Kansas City Star, Texas, USA, May 17, 2006.

After months of intense pressure, the director of Los Angeles' J. Paul Getty Museum agreed Tuesday to recommend to the museum's board to return ancient artefacts in its collections that Greece claims were illegally spirited out of the country.

The agreement was struck as museums come under increasing pressure from countries with rich archaeological pasts to return artefacts of potentially dubious provenance.

It also raised the possibility that Greece may now go after other U.S. museums that own ancient Greek artefacts.

Under the agreement, Getty Museum director Michael Brand will recommend to the museum's Board of Trustees the return of some of the four antiquities wanted by Greece...

Getty Museum director to recommend return, The Boston Globe, Massachusetts, USA, May 16, 2006.

An Egyptian geologist and pyramid expert has said he supports the controversial claim of the existence of unexcavated ancient pyramids near the central Bosnian town of Visoko, it was confirmed Wednesday.

Aly Abd Alla Barakat of the Cairo-based Egyptian Mineral Resource Authority recently came to Bosnia to assist local researchers in looking for the alleged pyramids in Visoko, some 30 kilometres north of the Bosnian capital, discovered a year ago by a Sarajevo-born American Semir Osmanagic...

... An expert who built his experience in geological researches of famous Egyptian pyramids in Giza, Barakat was recommended to researchers by the world's leading Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, said Mario Gerussi of the Bosnian Pyramid Foundation...

Egyptian geologist backs claim of pyramids in Bosnia, Monsters & Critics, UK, May 17, 2006.

For more on the controversy surrounding this discovery see this latest article from the New Yrok Times.

... It's not just any pyramid," [Osmanagic] said from beneath his flat-crowned Navajo hat, which has led the local press to liken him to Indiana Jones. "It's the biggest pyramid in the world."

Archaeologists and historians inside and outside Bosnia are appalled, insisting it is simply a peculiarly symmetrical bit of geology. But pyramid fever is spreading through the country. Largely uncritical television and newspaper reports have made the photogenic Mr. Osmanagic a national celebrity, and volunteers are flocking to Visoko hoping to help uncover the Pyramid of the Sun, a prehistoric edifice that will redeem the country by giving it a glorious and important past...

Some See a 'Pyramid' to Hone Bosnia's Image. Others See a Big Hill., New Yrok Times, New York, USA, May 15, 2006.

Skeletal remains suggest conquered Nubians participated in governance of colonized state In approximately 1550 B.C., Egypt conquered its southern neighbour, ancient Nubia, and secured control of valuable trade routes. But rather than excluding the colonized people from management of the region, new evidence from an archaeological site on the Nile reveals that Egyptian immigrants shared administrative responsibilities for ruling this large province with native Nubians.

"The study of culture contact in the past has conventionally used ideas of unidirectional change and modification of a subordinate population by a socially dominant group. The idea that authoritarian European powers forced changes in submissive native cultures dominated this work," explains Michele R. Buzon (University of Alberta). "However, more recent research has re-evaluated these traditional notions and suggests that this model might not be appropriate for all situations of culture contact."

Through an examination of the archaeological site of Tombos, a strategic point of control in Egyptian-controlled Nubia, Buzon sought to determine whether the people buried in a colonial cemetery were immigrants from Egypt or Nubians who had adopted Egyptian practices...

Ancient tomb sheds new light on Egyptian colonialism, EurekAlert, USA, May 17, 2006.

Egypt's chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass asked state attorneys on Tuesday to sue the Saint Louis Art Museum in the United States to regain possession of a 3,200-year-old mask from the Pharaonic era that was allegedly stolen.

"All the measures will be taken" to bring the mummy mask back to Egypt, Hawass told The Associated Press.

The prosecutor general's office could not be reached late Tuesday. Hawass, the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said he would also be writing to Interpol and the U.S. State Department "to ask them to intercede to bring back the mask."

"I have the evidence that this mask was stolen," Hawass said in English...

Egypt to sue museum for mummy mask, AP via CNN, USA, May 16, 2006.

cf. Egypt to go to court in US to secure return of ancient mask, dpa via Monster & Critics, UK, May 16, 2006.

Soji Eze Fagbemi, who was in Cairo, Egyptian capital, for the 4th All Ordinary Session of Labour and Social Affairs Commission, writes on how the body of King Ramses, the 19th dynasty Pharaoh of Egypt, as well as the bodies of other pharaohs before and after him still ‘live’ in Egyptian museum over 5000 years after their deaths.

It may sound unbelievable, but it is real. The story of mummification in Egypt and the sight of mummies would make the strongest man and renown scientists freeze under intense sun. To the people of Egypt, it is known as mummification, but to ordinary people, and in common language, it is embalmment. But the Egyptian mummification, though over 5000 years, is a more advanced way of embalmment. Cairo is better tagged as the city of kings and dynasties because its significant history is replete with those of kings, especially the Pharaoh. Going by history and tradition, Cairo, perhaps, is qualified to be the capital of the world.

“I am very, very happy ! Walahi ! I am happy”. This was the remark of Nigeria’s Minister of Labour and Productivity, Dr Hassan Lawal, as he stepped out of the magnificent historical Egyptian museum. Dr Lawal was expressing his deep feelings on what he had seen at the museum with his colleagues (ministers) from other African countries and his friends shortly after the tour of historical places in Cairo capital...

Egyptian Museum where 5,000-year-old remains of Pharaoh lay, The Nigerian Tribune, Nigeria, May 17, 2006.

The St. Louis Art Museum will keep a 3,200-year-old mummy mask unless it gets more proof that it belongs to Egypt.

The museum won't meet a Monday deadline set by Egyptian antiquities authorities to return the mask, museum director Brent Benjamin said Friday. He noted that the Supreme Council of Antiquities never officially gave the museum a deadline.

Zahi Hawass, secretary general for the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, said that the mummy mask was probably stolen before it was obtained by the art museum in 1998.

"Nothing that we have seen to this date supports his claim," Benjamin said.

Hawass gave the museum some documentation, including a register that recorded the burial mask of Ka Nefer Nefer being sent to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt, in 1959.

Hawass has been critical of the museum for not returning the mask and has threatened to turn the dispute over to authorities. He also has threatened to tarnish the museum's reputation...

Four photographs, two of the mask in question and two of Brent Benjamin at the press conference on Friday, can be found on Yahoo! News' Anthropology & Archaeology slideshow.

St. Louis museum refuses to return Egyptian mask, AP via Deseret News, Utah, USA, May 14, 2006.

cf. Art museum keeping 3,200-year-old mask, AP via Knoxville News Sentinel, Tennessee, USA, May 14, 2006.