"Here's Caracalla — nasty man, isn't he?" said Robert Hecht, the American antiquities dealer, pausing beside a stark marble bust of the fearsome Roman emperor in a hall of the Palazzo Massimo. On a warm bright morning early this month, he had ventured to the gallery, part of the National Roman Museum, on a whim, hoping to find two Roman reliefs that might match a fragment depicting a gladiator that he says he bought in London in the 1960s.

Shuffling through galleries of ancient statues, Hecht, slightly stooped but dapper at 87, had the air of the consummate socialite at a cocktail gathering of old friends. "There's the girl from Anzio — she's one of the top things here," he said, nodding to an armless sculpture from the third century B.C., her carved clothes fluttering in an absent breeze.

"And look, there's the Apollo of the Tiber — how marvellous," he said, pointing to a stained and pockmarked statue depicting the sun god.

"It's because he lay for years near metal," Hecht whispered conspiratorially, as though imparting juicy gossip.

The same week, the dealer had expounded on classical antiquity in far more grim circumstances: a hearing on May 31 at a drab courthouse where he is on trial for conspiracy to traffic in looted objects. Both he and his co-defendant, Marion True, a former curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, have denied any wrongdoing...

U.S. antiquities dealer at centre of inquiry, Elisabetta Povoledo, International Herald Tribune, France, June 20, 2006.

Researchers and reporters were invited into the burial chamber Wednesday near Tutankhamen’s tomb to watch the opening of the last coffin.

Nadia Lokma, chief curator of Cairo’s Egyptian Museum, said the surprise find was ‘even better’ than discovering a mummy. ‘It’s very rare — there’s nothing like it in any museum. We’ve seen things like it in drawings, but we’ve never seen this before in real life — it’s magnificent.’

Experts told the BBC ancient Egyptian royals often wore garlands entwined with gold strips around their shoulders in both life and death...

Ancient garland found in Egyptian tomb, UPI via Monsters & Critics, UK, June 29, 2006.

Sakuji Yoshimura (Left), leader of the Egypt research team of the Waseda University Institute of Egyptology, speaks at a press conference in Tokyo on June 21 on the computer graphic-generated face of a mummy found in Egypt, which has been created by his team.

Face of 3,800-years-old mummy created by computer graphics, Kyodo News, Japan, June 21, 2006.

Face of 3,800-year-old mummy portrayed using computer graphics

The Waseda University Institute of Egyptology has created an image using computer graphics of the face of an Egyptian mummy, believed to be about 3,800 years old, institute officials said Wednesday.

The university's Egypt research team has concluded the mummy, found in an archaeological site in Dashur, Egypt, in January last year, is of a middle-aged or old man, based on data from CT scans of it, they said.

Joshibi University of Art and Design helped the institute portray the image of the face, which has almond-shaped eyes, a wide nose and thick lips, they said.

The mummy is believed to be of a military commander named Senw, who lived around 1750 B.C., judging from inscriptions on his coffin, they said.

Looking at the image of the face, Sakuji Yoshimura, who leads the research team, said, "I feel life has been inserted in it."

The picture of the face will be publicly displayed across Japan beginning in July.

Face of 3,800-years-old mummy created by computer graphics, Kyodo News via Yahoo! News, USA, June 21, 2006.

Zahi Hawass, Egypt's voluble and media-savvy chief archaeologist, dubbed the King of the Pharaohs, was reappointed head of the country's top antiquities body on Monday.

The decision made by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif came as no surprise after four years of high-profile efforts by Hawass to rejuvenate Egyptology in his home country.

"When I arrived, it was a complete jumble, I wanted to put our house in order," he said. "We will continue with the work already undertaken, of opening new museums and the retrieval of pieces taken out of Egypt illegally."

The culture ministry, to which the supreme council of antiquities is affiliated, also praised Hawass' "constant efforts" to return to Egypt major artefacts from collections around the world...

Egypt reappoints antiquities supremo, AFP via Middle east Times, Cyprus, June 27, 2006.

Egyptian archaeologists have found two ancient sarcophagi close to the pyramids, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities said on Sunday.

The sarcophagi, found about a kilometre (0.6 miles) south of the pyramids in Giza, dated to the late 26th dynasty, or about 2,500 years old, council chief Zahi Hawass said in a report by the state MENA news agency.

Hieroglyphs referring to the ancient Egyptian gods Osiris, god of the dead, and the sun-god Ra were painted on the larger sarcophagus, which measured about 2 metres (6 ft 6.74 in) tall, 70 cm wide and 60 cm deep and was painted red, blue and green, the report said.

The name of sarcophagus' owner, Neb Ra Khatow, and ritual incantations to the gods were also painted on the sarcophagus.

The second sarcophagus had a more human form and was found inside the first.

Hawass said it was in good condition, and that a wreath made of plants encircled the mummy inside.

Nothing new in this one except that it has a picture that I hadn't seen before.

Egypt archaeologists find sarcophagi near pyramids, Alarab Online, June 26, 2006.

Yellow-green glass carved into a beetle-shaped ornament and found on a necklace worn by the ancient King Tutankhamen was created by a meteorite fireball, according to new research.

The carving is known as a scarab, which are ancient Egyptian fertility symbols shaped like dung beetles. In 1999, Italian geologists performed a chemical composition test on Tut’s scarab, which is the centrepiece of a colourful necklace that archaeologist Howard Carter found in King Tut’s Valley of the Kings’ tomb in Luxor.

The geologists determined the scarab was made out of natural desert glass for the king, who reigned from 1333 to 1323 B.C.

Such glass is only found in the Great Sand Sea of the eastern Sahara desert. With a silica content of 98 percent, it is the purest known glass in the world. The desert region, located 500 miles southwest of Cairo, yields this glass in a remote 49.7 by 15.5 rectangular area...

Findings were recently presented at a geophysics symposium at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. They also will be featured in an upcoming BBC2 television program, "King Tut’s Fireball."

Meteorite Crash Helped Form King Tut Necklace, Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News, USA, June 29, 2006.

Mark Boslough, an impact physics expert at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.

King Tut's Mystery Tomb Openedis the second programme following the astonishing discoveries being made by archaeologist Dr. Otto Schaden in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. This special follows the on-going action as the excavation of KV 63 reaches its climax.

For the first time ever, audiences descend down a narrow shaft beneath desert sands to enter a world untouched, and watch as Discovery Channel exclusively reveals the first tomb (KV 63) discovered in the Valley of the Kings in more than 80 years. KV 63 was first unearthed in February 2006, sending shock waves around the scientific and archaeological world.

Located nearly 50 feet from the tomb of King Tutankhamen (KV 62), the Discovery Channel Quest expedition team of world-renowned archaeologists excavate and explore this new tomb, uncovering delicate artefacts, sifting through intricate inscriptions and revealing unprecedented treasures...

Airs in the USA on July 9, 2006, 9:00 - 10:00 pm ET.

King Tut's Mystery Tomb Opened, Discovery Channel, USA, June 25, 2006.

Three-thousand-year-old flowers and royal necklaces were all Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, saw on Wednesday when he lifted the lid off the last of seven coffins found in the tomb...

The flamboyant Dr Hawass even risked a theory.

"I really believe that KV 63 is the tomb of the mother of King Tut," he said, referring to Tutankhamen. "She died when she was delivering him and therefore there was no time to cut a beautiful decorative tomb. That is actually the tomb that the mother should be buried in. Why is King Tut buried here? He wanted to be buried beside his mother."

But as Dr Hawass performed for the cameras, Dr Schaden stood off to the side and in a very clinical manner laid out what seemed to be a refutation of Dr Hawass's theory, though he did not call it that. He said there was some evidence linking the tomb he discovered to that of King Tut...

Click on the photograph above for seven shots from Yahoo's Anthropology & Archaeology slideshow.

Tut declared original mummy's boy, AFP / NYT via The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, June 30, 2006.

"The Remains of substances, used in the mummification process, have been found in a sarcophagus that was unearthed near Luxor in November 2005 [Huh? The KV63 shaft was first uncovered March 10, 2005 and the news broke on February 08, 2006]," a senior official said on Wednesday 28/06/2006.

"An archaeological team from the University of Memphis, USA, found the substances in one of the seven sarcophagi that were discovered at a site some five meters from the tomb of King Tutankhamen at Luxor," said Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni at a special ceremony celebrating the discovery.

The finds include gold necklaces, potsherds and pieces of linen as well as chemicals used in the mummification process, Hosni added.

Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for Antiquities Zahi Hawass said: "The substances and the objects found in the coffin prove my theory that the tomb in which the coffins were uncovered were stolen some time during the XXIX dynasty (1295- 1188 BC) [I assume they mean XIX].

Mummification substances found in Luxor, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, June 29, 2006.

After a three-year restoration project the Coptic Museum was officially reopened by President Hosni Mubarak on Monday, reports Nevine El-Aref

Mogamaa Al-Adian, Old Cairo's religious compound, is finally free of the roar of trucks and lorries that have blocked the entrance to the Coptic Museum for three years now. And the museum itself, with its limestone façade loosely based on the Al-Aqmar Mosque, has finally opened its doors to visitors in an area the attractions of which include the Mosque of Amr Ibn Al-Aas, the Hanging Church and the Synagogue of Beni-Ezra.

On Monday President Hosni Mubarak formally opened the museum during a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and scores of Egyptian ministers and senior government officials. The president was guided through the museum's 26 galleries, containing 13,000 items, by Hosni and Supreme Council of Antiquities' Secretary-General Zahi Hawass. They also watched a 15-minute documentary film on the restoration of the museum.

"The restoration of the Coptic Museum was an ambitious project," says Hosni. "It is one of Cairo's oldest museums and its restoration is an illustration of the government's commitment to preserving the nation's Coptic, as well as its Pharaonic and Islamic, heritage..."

Coptic treasures get the home they deserve, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 801, June 29 - July 05, 2006.

cf. The Coptic Christian Museum in Cairo, Jimmy Dunn, Tour Egypt, Texas, USA.