"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.

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

• Ancient Egyptian Wine
  New investigations on the residue in wine jars found in the tomb of Tutankhamun have revealed some of the ancient vintner’s secrets. Maria Gausch Jane investigates.
• Belzoni’s Sarcophagus
  Explorer and adventurer Giovanni Belzoni was an avid collector of Egyptian Antiquities at the beginning of the nineteenth century; size was no object! Dylan Bickerstaffe investigates.
• Friends of Nekhen News
  Renée Friedman reports on the work to conserve one of the largest and oldest mud-brick buildings from Ancient Egypt to survive at Hierakonpolis.
• The New Tomb in the Valley of the Kings
  An update from Roxanne Walker, a member of the excavation team, on the recent discovery and the progress made in clearing the small chamber.
• Ancient Egypt in Zagreb
  Mladen Tomorad and Igor Uranic tell readers about the collections of the Archaeological Museum of Zagreb in Croatia.
• Visiting Middle Egypt
  AE reader Anne Eglintine tells how she arranged to visit Amarna and other Middle Egyptian sites by travelling from Luxor independently.
• Byzantine Egypt
  Sean McLachlan tells how Ancient Egyptian ideas are reflected in early Christianity in Egypt, which was a melting-pot of ideas and beliefs in the Late Roman and Byzantine periods.

Ancient Egypt Magazine, Empire Publications, Manchester, UK, Volume 6, No. 6, Issue 36, June / July 2006.

Subscribe to Ancient Egypt Magazine via Amazon.com.

Spectacular artefacts from two lost cities of ancient Egypt, rescued from the sea after more than 1,300 years, have taken the breath away from more than 1 million visitors to the Martin-Gropius-Bau Building in Berlin. They have even ignited religious debate — non-violent so far — in Egypt.

French archaeological adventurer Franck Goddio and his team of divers, armed with robotic equipment, swim masks and flippers, pulled the treasures from the depths at the ancient Egyptian harbour of Alexandria and the two lost neighbouring cities of Herakleion and Canopus in 1999 and 2000.

Presidents Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Horst Kohler of Germany attended the opening of the Berlin exhibition in mid-May, evidence of its importance to both countries. But some Egyptians are not happy about it...

Treasures pulled from a briny tomb, Suzanne Fields, The Washington Times, District of Columbia, USA, June 28, 2006.

There was hope of finding a mummy inside the 3,300-year-old coffin, and when it was finally opened Wednesday someone excitedly whispered, "A neck." But it was not. Instead, the coffin was packed with bits and pieces of materials used to prepare mummies, including elaborate collars decorated with flowers, and one with gold beads.

That no mummies were found in KV 63 — the first tomb discovered in the Valley of the Kings in nearly 84 years — was neither disappointing nor entirely surprising to those who unearthed the tomb and painstakingly worked to preserve all that they found inside.

"We found hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of mummies, but we never discovered something like this," said Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt's chief Egyptologist, as he peered at the contents. "Look at what we discovered here. Look at it..."

His theory was that the tomb was the burial place of King Tut's mother, Queen Kiya. While there is evidence linking Tut's tomb with this one, others who have actually worked inside the newest tomb said there was no evidence a mummy was ever buried there... My emphasis.

Guardian of Egypt's Past Preserves a Moment of Mystery, Michael Slackman, The New York Times, New York, USA, June 29, 2006.

cf. A slight variant on the above story from the 28th: Tomb Yields Many Mysteries, but no Mummy, Michael Slackman, The New York Times, New York, USA, June 28, 2006.

Dr. Shadia Qenawi Egypt's ambassadress to the United Nations Educational, scientific and cultural organization UNESCO said the International organization supported a number of projects being implemented in Egypt and fostered by Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak.

Those projects included the sunken antiquities museum in Alexandria, the grand museum that will enable exhibiting all Egyptian antiquities which are not yet on display.

Dr. Qenawi added in an interview with Akhbar El-Yom that Egypt and UNESCO are to set up a training centre for archaeologists to benefit as well neighbouring countries.

UNESCO supports museums projects in Egypt, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, June 24, 2006.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) has re-opened St. Paul Monastery for visits by Egyptian and foreign tourists after three-year renovation works.

Founded in the 4th century in the shape of a fort among the high hills near the Red Sea, St. Paul Monastery houses four churches and a library, said SCA Secretary General Zahi Hawass.

St. Anthony Monastery, near to St. Paul, was dedicated to the founder and godfather of priesthood St Anthony, the earliest hermit in the world, said director of Islamic and Coptic Monuments Department at SCA Abdullah Kamel.

St. Paul Monastery opens for tourists after renovation, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, June 16, 2006.

The new issue of KMT is out now. A summary of its contents appears below.

• What’s New Under the Sun?
  Special Report on Luxor 2006 by Denis Forbes
• ‘Mystery Tomb’ Found in VOK
  by Dennis Forbes A Preliminary Account of KV63’s Surprising Discovery
• ‘New’ Hatshepsut, Neferure Reliefs
  Now on View at Karnak by Dennis Forbes
• Quest for Hatshepsut’s Mummy
  by Zahi Hawass Could She be the Lady in the Attic of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo?
• Egypt on the Danube
  by Lucy Gordan-Rastelli The Egyptian Collection of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum
• ‘Napoleon on the Nile’
  Exhibition at the Dahesh Museum of Art by Bob Brier
• The Aristeia of Rameses II
  by Omar Zuhdi Analysis of the Kadesh ‘Poem’
• Aliens in Egypt
  by Kenneth D. Ostrand Foreign Gods on the Egyptian Pantheon
• Mummymania: Mummies, Museums & Popular Culture
  by Jasmine Day

KMT, KMT Communications Inc., Sebastopol, California, USA, Volume 17, Number 2, Summer 2006.

Subscribe to KMT Magazine via Amazon.com.

Dr. Zahi Hawass, Head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced today that he believes tomb KV63 — first discovered in the Valley of the Kings in February — belongs to Queen Kiya, mother of King Tutankhamun. A result of thorough investigations, an extensive battery of scientific tests and a comprehensive timeline analysis, the tomb's identity was revealed at a press conference today in Luxor, Egypt.

"Eighty-three years, three months, and six days exactly to Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of King Tutankhamun, I announce today my belief that KV63 is indeed the tomb of King Tutankhamun's mother, Queen Kiya," stated Dr. Zahi Hawass. "The identification of KV63 as the final resting place of Queen Kiya helps to solve the riddle of the location of King Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. KV63 faces KV62, making it clear that the tomb was for someone near and dear to King Tutankhamun..."

Dr. Hawass' announcement is based on initial findings that include:

• A coffin that included a garland of flowers like that buried with Tutankhamun signifying sweetness in the afterlife, gold beads, lemons, cloves and garlic, which was considered a protector of the soul and guardian of riches in the afterlife;
• Contents within the last-opened coffin that date back to the time of King Tutankhamun and feature unique embalming materials and actual linen scraps used to wrap mummies;
• Seals and inscriptions that include "PA-ATEN," which an Egyptian expert believes is part of the former name given to Tutankhamun's wife, and point directly to the time of King Tutankhamun;
• A ceremonial bowl and additional pottery shards that exactly match those found in King Tutankhamun's tomb, including identical hieroglyphics messages;
• Pots found with gold lining, indicative of materials produced in a royal workshop; and
• An imprint found at the bottom of a coffin that suggests a mummy was once inside. There is a possibility a mummy may have been stolen from KV63.

...

Dr. Zahi Hawass of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Believes New Tomb in the Valley of the Kings Belonged to King Tut's Mother Queen Kiya, Explaining Location of King Tut's Tomb, PR Newswire, USA, June 28, 2006.

Archaeologists on Wednesday fully unveiled the first tomb discovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings in over 80 years, and cracked open the last of seven sarcophagi inside to reveal embalming materials and jewellery.

"This is even better than finding a mummy — it's a treasure," said chief curator Nadia Lokma, beaming at the sarcophagus packed with fragile remains that would crumble into dust if touched.

"It will tell us about the religious plants and herbs used by ancient Egyptians, what they wore, how they wove it, how they embalmed the dead," she said...

... Dozens of researchers and media excitedly crammed into the site Wednesday to watch officials crack open the last of seven sarcophagi found inside. Instead of the expected mummy, the coffin revealed embalming materials, dozens of necklaces made from woven flowers and various other religious artifacts...

Archaeologists Unveil Pharaonic Tomb, AP via San Francisco Chronicle, California, June 28, 2006.

A painting of an Egyptian queen by Howard Carter, the man who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen, has sold at auction for £13,000.

The watercolour was left to owner Barbara Rampton 15 years ago but she did not realise its significance until she took it to a charity valuation.

The 1897 work had been hanging in a holiday cottage near Barmouth...

... His painting of Queen Senseneb began with an estimate of £3,000 but was soon contested by five telephone bidders.

It eventually sold to a specialist art dealer in London...

£13,000 for Egypt queen painting, BBC News, UK, June 28, 2006.

President Mubarak Monday, June 26 [2006] opened Coptic Museum in old Cairo, newly renovated at the cost of LE30 million.

This museum is one of the most important museums all over the world.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said that the museum includes rare pieces of antiquities which were extracted from excavations nationwide. He said the museum contains 26 showrooms displaying 1300 pieces of antiquities.

The President watched a documentary on the process of renovating the museum. Dr. Zahi Hawass, the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities said that the Council started modernization in 2003...

Mubarak inaugurates Coptic Museum, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, June 27, 2006.

There are three programmes being shown this weekend on the Discovery Channel, in total, two of which are premieres. Details below.

• Journey through the Valley of the Kings, Friday 30th June 9pm & Saturday 1st July 3am
  
  "Uncovers the secrets of the amazing Valley of the Kings burial ground, which holds 62 known tombs, including those of Egypt's most notable pharaohs."
  
• Tomb Builders: Secrets of the Valley of the Kings, Friday 30th June 10pm & Saturday 1st July 4am & 9pm & Sunday 2nd July 3am
  
  "Follow Dr Kent Weeks as he maps this extraordinary valley of tombs, reveals the pharaohs buried here and explores how each tomb was constructed. (Premiere)"
  
  "The Valley of the Kings is the burial site of Egypt's greatest pharaohs. Beneath its shifting sands lies a vast underground city of the dead. The most famous names in Egyptian history lie buried here.
  
  Using the latest breakthroughs in modern technology, science is cracking the secrets of these ancient engineers. Secrets of the Valley of the Kings follows Dr. Kent Weeks as he maps this extraordinary valley of dynastic tombs, reveals each of the Pharaohs buried here and explores how each tomb was constructed."
  
• Egypt's New Tomb Revealed, Discovery Channel, Saturday 1st July 10pm & Sunday 2nd July 2am
  
  "World exclusive documenting the greatest finding in the last 80-years. A gold coffin is unearthed in the Valley of the Kings, near Tutankhamun's tomb. (Premiere)"

In "Bosnian 'Pyramids' Update," which was posted on June 14, 2006, I commented on the news stories concerning geologist Aly Abd Alla Barakat, who was said to be from the Egyptian Mineral Resource Authority. According to the stories, Barakat declared that the hill was indeed a pyramid, though a "primitive" one. Was Barakat there officially? What was his expertise? The news stories said that he was "sent by Cairo" (Reuters, June 5) and that he was an "expert in pyramids" (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, June 2). Barakat, we were told, had sent his report to Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, who had "recommended him to the foundation leading the excavation work" (Agence France-Presse, June 12). Taking it all together, you might believe that Barakat had been dispatched by Dr. Hawass. Could that be true?

Unable to confirm any of this, I asked Dr. Hawass directly. Concerning Barakat, he states: "Mr. Barakat, the Egyptian geologist working with Mr. Osmanagic, knows nothing about Egyptian pyramids. He was not sent by the SCA, and we do not support or concur with his statements." The supposed pyramid, Dr. Hawass says, is "evidently a natural geologic formation" and that "Apart from its general outline, this hill bears absolutely no resemblance to the Egyptian pyramids." He concludes that, "Mr. Osmanic's theories are purely hallucinations on his part, with no scientific backing."

• Click here for Dr. Hawass' letter.

Meanwhile, Canadian archaeologist Chris Mundigler, whose name had been mentioned as a foreign expert scheduled to work on the "pyramid" excavation, has written to ARCHAEOLOGY, saying that he does not endorse and never agreed to work on the project.

The latest news story from Bosnia quotes two volunteers (said to be archaeologists): "We still don't know about the date, we don't have any artefacts, we don't know who and why built up this construction. We don't know what kind of construction it is." Perhaps those digging are now backing away from the 12,500-year-old pyramid claim.

More on Bosnian "Pyramids", Mark Rose, Archaeology Magazine, New York, USA, June 27, 2006. Thanks to Katherine Reece at the HallOfMaat for alerting me to this.

Germany is to hand over sections of an ancient Egyptian mural to an Egyptian delegation Monday.

"The delegation from the Ministry of Culture and the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) will receive five sections of a mural painting stolen from the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of Kings near Luxor," said Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said yesterday 25/06/2006.

SCA Secretary General Zahi Hawass hailed the move by Egyptology Institute affiliated to the University of Tuebingen.

The section of the mural will be restored to their original place in the tomb, Hawass added...

Egypt retrieves mural from Germany, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, June 26, 2006.

Scientists believe they have solved the mystery surrounding a piece of rare natural glass at the centre of an elaborate necklace found among the treasures of Tutankhamun, the boy pharaoh.

They think a fragile meteorite broke up as it entered the atmosphere, producing a fireball with temperatures over 1,800C that turned the desert sand and rock into molten lava which became glass when it cooled.

Experts have puzzled over the origin of the yellow-green glass — carved into the shape of a scarab beetle — since it was excavated in 1922 from the tomb of the teenage king, who died about 1323BC. It is generally agreed that it came from an area called the Great Sand Sea but there has been uncertainty over how it was formed because there is no crater to back up the idea of a meteorite strike.

Now it is thought that the meteorite responsible was not intact but made up of loose rubble...

King Tut’s glass beetle came from outer space, Will Iredale, The Times, UK, June 25, 2006.

It is barely 7:30 a.m. in the Valley of the Kings, and tourists are already milling just beyond the yellow police tape like passers-by at a traffic accident. I step over the tape and show my pass to a guard, who motions for me to climb down a wooden ladder sticking out of a small, nearly square hole in the ground. Eighteen feet down a vertical shaft, the blazing Egyptian sun is gone, the crowd's hum is muted and the air is cool. In a small chamber lit by fluorescent lamps, a half-dozen archaeologists are measuring, drawing and gently probing relics in the first tomb to be found in the Valley of the Kings, more than 400 miles up the Nile from Cairo, since the resting place of King Tutankhamen was discovered here 84 years ago.

A jumble of seven wooden coffins of various sizes fills one corner of the room. Termites have turned parts of some of them into powder, while others have suffered only a thin layer of dust. Edwin Brock, an Egyptologist formerly at the American University of Cairo, is on his knees, cataloguing the contents of a coffin filled with a strange assortment of pottery, rocks, cloth and natron — the powdery substance used to dry mummies. A couple of yards away, University of Chicago archaeological artist Susan Osgood intently sketches the serene yellow face painted on a partially intact coffin. It was likely built for a woman; men's faces were typically rendered a sunburned red. Deeper in the pile, a child-size casket is nestled between two full-sized ones. Something resembling a pillow seems to bulge out of another casket. The 17-foot-long space, which has plain limestone walls, also holds a number of knee-high ceramic storage jars, most still sealed.

Nervous about bumping into someone — or worse, something — I make my way back out to the narrow shaft and climb to the surface with Otto Schaden, the dig's director. Until this past February, he had worked in obscurity, splitting his time between studying a minor Pharaoh's tomb nearby and playing bass flugelhorn in a Chicago band. Back up amid the heat and tourists, the 68-year-old archaeologist pulls out tobacco and bread crumbs, thrusting the first into a pipe and flinging the second onto the ground for some twittering finches. Just yards away, visitors in shorts and hats are lining up to get into King Tut's cramped tomb, named KV-62 because it was the 62nd tomb found in the Valley of the Kings...

A Mystery Fit For A Pharaoh, Andrew Lawler, Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Institution, District of Columbia, USA, July, 2006.

Interview with Andrew Lawler, Author of "A Mystery Fit for a Pharaoh"

You described Otto Schaden as a 19th century British gentleman explorer. You've written extensively about archaeology, and no doubt met many different types of archaeologists. Do you find yourself more attracted to this romantic aspect of archaeology, or do you tend to think about archaeology like a 21st century scientist?

There are different kinds of romance in archaeology — there's not an archaeologist alive who is in the business purely because they like to collect scientific data. There is a passion and a romance that goes along with understanding and studying ancient cultures. This goes back to most people's childhoods. Otto is a fantasist, and in a way his romance is with the 19th century as much as it is with ancient Egypt. He is caught up in that age of Victorian times when you wore pith helmets and you would go in and dig up exciting things, which is not something I've found with most other archaeologists these days. Most of them tend to be passionate about ancient cultures, but often they're very critical of their predecessors, whose methods are considered quite crude. So I think it's a question of what romance you're living in...

Interview with Andrew Lawler, Author of "A Mystery Fit for a Pharaoh", Amy Crawford, Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Institution, District of Columbia, USA, July, 2006.

I shall never forget the adventure I had in the tunnel of the tomb of Pharaoh Seti I in the Valley of the Kings. I first thought about entering this tunnel two years ago. On the day that I first entered I took with me a very thick rope. I tied one end of the rope to the entrance and used it to guide me into the dark tunnel. I would also need the rope on my way out, because it slopes downwards and it would therefore be difficult to climb out. I took with me a flashlight and a metre stick. When I began to explore the tunnel, I found that for the first few metres it was easy to walk but then it became more difficult. The tunnel was very narrow, with cracks on the ceiling and stone rubble blocking my path. When I had gone about 175 feet I decided to turn back and continue investigating the tunnel on a later occasion.

The second time I entered was a real adventure in archaeology. I took the same tools and spent five hours in the tunnel. I cleared the way and found my way inside for 217 feet I felt I should not carry on any further because I began to feel tired and I was afraid that it would be dangerous to push ahead. However, I continued on and finally reached the end of the tunnel. I pushed myself forward step by step because I knew that I had to reach the end for the sake of the late Sheikh Ali Abdel-Rassoul.

About two years ago while in Luxor I went to Sheikh Ali's hotel, the Marsam, and met his son. We talked about Sheikh Ali's dream of exploring this tunnel. He believed that the Pharaoh's "real" burial chamber was at the end of it. Sheikh Ali, was a member of the famous Abdel-Rassoul family; one of his relatives was the water boy who discovered the step which led to the remarkable discovery of the tomb of King Tutankhamun...

Dig Days: The Valley of the Kings: Treasure without end IV, Zahi Hawass, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 800, June 22 - 28, 2006.

It takes talent as well as scholarship to summarise Egypt's ancient history in a readable and accessible form.

T G H James's The British Museum Concise Introduction: ANCIENT EGYPT has now been published in a paperback edition which makes for a concise yet comprehensive and up-to-date survey which is easy to handle, writes Jill Kamil.

Egyptology has become so specialised that the ordinary lay reader today can seldom find an introduction that takes in all that is important about the ancient Egyptian civilisation from its foundation up to the Roman period. Scholars in the first half of the 20th century -- James Breasted, John Wilson and Alan Gardiner among them -- wrote surveys of Egyptian history that were read by both the scholarly and lay public.

This is no longer so. Modern technology makes it easy to produce specialist books with contributions by several scholars on a single subject or period of ancient history. Thus we find numerous studies on the Old Kingdom and the Pyramids, Middle Kingdom documents, the New Kingdom's Tutankhamun and Ramses II, books on the pre-dynastic period, on art, architecture and sculpture, on women in ancient Egypt, on make-up and herbal remedies, as well as collections of artefacts in various museums. But when it comes to a concise and readable survey one is hard-pressed to find one.

James's Ancient Egypt fills this much-needed gap...

A new view of an old theme, Jill Kamil, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 800, June 22 - 28, 2006.

The sabil of Mohamed Ali remains closed four years after it was restored and a permanent exhibition installed in the conserved building. Jill Kamil asks why.

There it stands in a lively neighbourhood in the heart of historic Cairo, a spectacular sabil or public drinking fountain, one of Cairo's architectural gems saved from certain ruin by a team of 50 conservationists from six different countries in a project launched in 1998 by the American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE) with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and in collaboration with the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).

The sabil remains closed four years after completion, so Al-Ahram Weekly has chosen to view, and review, a small but elegant and well-illustrated quality publication entitled Muhammad Ali Pasha and His Sabil which is on the market. It not only gives new insights into the extraordinary life and personality of the founder of the water fountain, but describes and illustrates the work of a team of dedicated and talented individuals who were involved in its conservation between 1998 and 2002.

The project was carried out under the direction of conservation architect Agnieszka Dobrowolska who, in the last decade and more, has worked on many archaeological and conservation sites in Egypt. Muhammad Ali Pasha and His Sabil is adorned with fine quality colour photographs "before" and "after" restoration, as well as various stages of work in progress. The beauty of the publication owes much to its quality of the photographs, the architectural drawings of Agnieszka's husband, Jaroslaw Dobrowolski — which both complement and explain the photographs — the subtle layout of the pages, and on Khaled Fahmy's text on "The Pasha — his times, his family and his achievements"...

Yet another delay, Jill Kamil, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 800, June 22 - 28, 2006.

Two mummies from the Milwaukee Public Museum have received computerized tomography, or CT, scans to help determine how they lived and died.

The scans will produce three-dimensional images of the mummies that also will help researchers visualize what they looked like and build sculptures of their faces.

The scans, performed Friday, are part of a larger effort by the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium to gather images of mummies collected from the Akhmim site in Egypt. The Milwaukee Public Museum is one of the founding members of the consortium.

So many mummies were found at the Akhmim site that in the late 1800s, the Cairo Museum began selling the mummies. Adolph and Ferdinand Meinecke purchased two, named Djed-Hor and Padi-Heru, in 1887 and later donated them to the Milwaukee museum.

"This population dispersed before we had a chance to study it," said Carter Lupton, an archaeologist who will analyze the images over the next few weeks.

Museum scans mummies for clues to past, AP via St. Paul Pioneer Press, ???, USA, June 25, 2006.

Researchers from the University of Memphis are unsure what they'll find when they examine the last of seven ancient coffins found in the first tomb uncovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings since King Tut's in 1922.

"I can't control what is there," said Dr. Otto Schaden, team leader of the archaeologists who made the discovery. "So it doesn't do any good to have false hopes or high hopes or low hopes."

Schaden said the last coffin is also very brittle and the team plans to X-ray it this week before opening it. He declined to say what might be inside...

Researchers to examine last sarcophagus, AP via USA Today, Virginia, USA, June 25, 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 meters (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...

Egypt archaeologists find sarcophagi near pyramids, Reuters via ABC News, USA, June 25, 2006.

cf. Sarcophagi found near Cairo pyramids, Reuters via Independent Online, South Africa, June 26, 2006.

One day while I was sitting and watching the excavations, I put my hand on a big limestone block.

I looked down, and examined it more closely; I realised that it was the capstone of the pyramid, which Egyptologists call the Pyramidion. Recently discovered, were limestone blocks decorated with scenes showing the huge celebration that took place when a royal Pyramidion was installed at the top of its pyramid. We found these at the site of Abusir, north of the causeway of the 5th Dynasty King Sahure (c. 2487-2475 B.C.). I had decided to prepare the site of Abusir for tourists, and asked that an area be cleared in which the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt, excavator of the complex of Sahure, had used as a dump. I never imagined that we would discover anything. My workers hit limestone blocks, and stopped immediately. After cleaning off the blocks, they saw wonderful scenes carved on them. These blocks originally lined the northern wall of Sahure's causeway corridor. The scenes depict the completion of the pyramid: the trip to quarry stone and bring it back to the pyramid site, the dragging of the gold-covered Pyramidion, the reporting to the king, and the celebrations and ceremonies that marked this important occasion. The last scenes include dancers, wrestlers, archers, and men fighting with staves, as well as groups of courtiers and officials bowing in the direction of the pyramid and architects holding under their arms papyrus rolls that would have contained the plans for the pyramid complex itself. The most fascinating scene depicts a group of squatting desert nomads, watched in amazement by a group of Egyptian courtiers and high officials. The nomads are emaciated, and raise their hands in a gesture of supplication. One of them is so weak from hunger that he cannot lift his arms. A fragment of a similar scene, discovered decades ago in the causeway of Unas, last king of the 5th Dynasty, had been interpreted that a widespread famine occurred at the end of the third millennium BC and may have brought an end to the Old Kingdom.

Discovering the story of the Pyramidion, Zahi Hawass, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, May 26, 2006.

At the southeast corner of the Great Pyramid was a large mound of sand. In 1991, I told my assistant to begin clearing this so that we could see what was underneath and we found a pyramid! I was thrilled. Petrie had excavated in this area in 1881; the American archaeologist George Reisner had been here in the early 1900s; and Selim Hassan had done further clearance in 1940. So we had expectations of finding anything new, especially something as important as a pyramid.

When I examined the newly discovered monument, I saw that it had a square base, the typical shape for a pyramid; its position, at the southeast corner of the upper pyramid complex, identified it immediately as Khufu's missing satellite pyramid. The satellite pyramid is an important element of the Old Kingdom pyramid complex, but its function is still subject to debate. Some scholars think it was a symbolic burial place for the ka, or spirit double, of the king; others think it was for the burial of the king's placenta, canopic jars, or crowns; and still others believe it was a solar symbol. I believe that it might have been connected with the Sed Festival, a celebration whose exact meaning is still uncertain. It is often called the royal jubilee, as it was generally celebrated for the first time after thirty years of rule. Some historians think it reconfirmed the king as ruler, guaranteed his royal power, or renewed his life and his strength. I believe the festival was held by the king to commemorate his victories and announce that he had finished all that the gods had asked him to do. The pyramid complexes of Khufu's immediate predecessors and successors all have satellite pyramids south of their main pyramids. In pyramid complexes during the rest of the Old Kingdom, the satellite pyramid is typically placed at the southeast corner of the pyramid enclosure. The fact that Khufu did not have a satellite pyramid was always a mystery, and this new find fills a major gap in our knowledge of the development of the pyramid complex.

Discovery of Khufu's missing satellite pyramid, Zahi Hawass, The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, June 19, 2006.

Americans continue to visit Egypt in numbers not seen since record setting 2000. The trend continued in May 2006 when 18,935 Americans visited Egypt, a 16.3% increase over the same period in 2005.

Egypt has continued to experience double-digit growth, over 2005, from American tourists. In 2006, 98,388 Americans have visited Egypt, an extraordinary increase of 20.9% over last year's 81,398 for the same period.

"We continue to see great growth from the United States as Americans rediscover the wonders of Egypt, from the Great Sphinx to the spectacular beaches in Sharm El-Sheikh," said Mr. Ayden Nour, Consul - Director, USA & Latin America of the Egyptian Tourist Authority.

He noted that American interest in Egypt is high, as three exhibits travel across the U.S. Leading the way is the King Tutankhamun touring exhibit, “Tutankhamun & The Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” which is expected to attract record-setting numbers for the Field Museum in Chicago. “Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh” is now open at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. “The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt” opened this month at the Frist Museum of Visual Arts in Nashville...

Egypt Continues to Experience Double-Digit Growth in U.S. Tourism in 2006 , PR Newswire, USA, June 20, 2006.

An internal review by the J. Paul Getty Trust has found that 350 Greek, Roman and Etruscan artefacts in its museum's prized antiquities collection were purchased from dealers identified by foreign authorities as being suspected or convicted of dealing in looted artefacts.

The review, conducted last year to gauge the Getty's exposure to claims against objects in its collection, shows that the trust purchased far more pieces from suspect dealers than has been previously disclosed.

The assessment valued the 350 vases, urns, statues and other sculptures at close to $100 million. That is in addition to 52 items in the Getty collection that Italy has demanded back, contending they were illegally excavated and exported.

The assessment does not address the question of whether any of the 350 objects were purchased illegally, nor does it evaluate their artistic significance. But Getty records show that they include 35 of the museum's 104 masterpieces...

Getty's List of Doubts Multiplies, Los Angeles Times, California, USA, June 18, 2006.

cf. Getty museum admits 350 more treasures may be looted , The Guardian, UK, June 19, 2006.

One might have thought that the Ice Age Bosnian pyramid story would collapse like a bad soufflé, but no. Mainstream media has become somewhat more critical of stories emanating from Visoko, but much of the real work in dissecting the claims has appeared on blogs and message boards, such as The Hall of Ma'at (see "Pseudoscience in Cyberspace"). Unfortunately, the mainstream folks haven't picked up on much of this. Meanwhile, the professional community has become more outspoken, notably with a recent field trip to the site by Anthony Harding, who is president of the European Association of Archaeologists, and in response to a proposed UNESCO mission to the site.

First off, by way of summarizing it all, we are still awaiting any credible evidence that these hills are man-made pyramids and that they date to the end of the Ice Age. That's the big claim, and the burden of proof is on those making it. Semir Osmanagic says, "It's such a huge construction undertaking that the only answer is, yes, this is the work of a supercivilization" (see "Pyramid Scheme" in the July/August issue of ARCHAEOLOGY; abstract here). But where are the artefacts? Where are the settlements in which the people lived? Where are the dates?

"Not any evidence at all has been found," says Harding, quoted by the Associated Press. "I've seen the site, in my opinion it is entirely natural." But the same article, widely carried with slight variations (here is one example), still describes Osmanagic as "the amateur Bosnian archaeologist who has been investigating Latin American pyramids for 15 years." The conclusions reached by him, that the Maya originally came from outer space, identify the kind of researcher Mr. Osmangic is, but that's ignored by the reporter...

Bosnian "Pyramids" Update, Mark Rose, Archaeology Magazine, New York, USA, June 14, 2006.

The archaeological mystery has been solved! The latest research shows that the manuscript found by Polish archaeologists in the village of Gourna (Sheikh abd el-Gourna) near Luxor in Upper Egypt contains the entire biblical book of Isaiah in the Coptic translation. “This is the first complete translation of this book in Coptic” — says Prof. Ewa Wipszycka- Bravo of the Institute of Archaeology at Warsaw University.

In February last year, Tomasz Górecki heading the Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology at the Warsaw University mission in Gourna, made a unique find in the rubbish heap of a monastery. It consisted of two papyrus books in leather covers and a collection of parchment sheets bound by two bits of wood. This was the first discovery of Coptic manuscripts in Egypt since 1952, which are well preserved and supported by a well-researched archaeological context.

One of the books is the “Code of Pseudo-Basili” — the only preserved full text in Coptic, which is a collection of rules regulating Church life. The other contains the life of St. Pistentios, one of the Coptic bishops. Both texts date back to the 7th/8th centuries...

The Book of Isaiah under the sands of Egypt, Science & Scholarship in Poland, Poland, June 20, 2006.

The issue of provenance — or the history of an artwork's ownership — has never before been a more debated topic among archaeologists and attorneys, collectors and curators, museum directors and donors, nations and cultural groups.

It's occurring as the Metropolitan Museum of Art agrees to return ancient objects to Italy, a former American antiquities curator faces charges of knowingly buying stolen artefacts and museums continue to address claims about artwork stolen by Nazis up to 70 years ago.

The debate touches on issues of cultural heritage and history, of the aesthetic value of artwork versus the scholarly value of archaeology, a web of international laws and political motivations, and modern-day geographic borders that do not always correlate with ancient civilizations.

In other words, who owns cultural property? Who owns the past..?

Museums Wrestle With Antiquities Ownership, AP via San Francisco Chronicle, California, USA, June 18, 2006.

A religiously motivated attack on statues at a museum in Cairo has sparked outcry in Egypt and fuelled fears that the country is veering towards an Islamic state.

The attack on three artworks, by a black-clad and veiled woman screaming, "Infidels, infidels!" followed a fatwa issued by the Grand Mufti of Cairo, Ali Gomaa, which banned all decorative statues of living beings.

It led to furious criticism of the mufti from Egyptian liberals. In a televised debate with the mufti after the attack, one poet raged that "the prevalent religious discourse in the country encourages terror".

Although the ancient treasures of Egypt have been protected under Islam so far, an increasing extremism in the country could make statues such as the quartzite head of Nefertiti, the colossus of Amenhotep, and the golden death mask of Tutankhamen possible targets in future.

At the scene of the attack, in the villa and museum of the Egyptian sculptor, Hassan Heshmat, guards said they had been woken in the middle of the night by the woman's shouts and the sounds of destruction...

Statue attack fuels fears of an Islamist Egypt, The Telegraph, UK, June 18, 2006.

cf. After Bamiyan, Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, New York, USA, June 18, 2006.

The recipe for Midas Touch is based on residue archaeologists found 39 years ago in the tomb of the real King Midas, or at least a close relative.

The ancient alcoholic mixed beverage — a blend of wine, mead (fermented honey) and beer — was served to mourners at a funeral feast around 700 B.C. in Gordian, capital of the Phrygian kingdom, in what is today central Turkey.

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, perhaps America's most imaginative producer, began selling its "ancient ale" seven years ago, but it has just hit North Texas stores, and supply is sometimes short.

Archaeologists originally collected about a quarter-pound of the powdery residue from 157 Bronze Age drinking vessels and 100 drinking bowls found in the tomb. The residue sat in a basement office at the University of Pennsylvania until a molecular archaeologist named Patrick McGovern was told of the cache in 1997 and set to work analyzing it.

The reason I picked this up in my trawling of the news sites is for the following quote mentioning Tutankhamun.

Dogfish Head isn't the first commercial brewer to offer ancient suds.

Delwen Samuel, a Cambridge University archaeologist, similarly analyzed residue from Egyptian workers' settlements, circa 1500 to 1300 B.C. In 1996, the British brewer Scottish & Newcastle, best known for Newcastle Brown Ale, used the ingredients to craft Tutankhamun Ale, sold at a whopping $76 a bottle at Harrod's to aid Egyptian archaeological digs.

I had been meaning to blog this one for quite some time as I originally spotted it last year in USA Today — 'Extreme' brewers pour it on, USA Today, USA, August 04, 2006 — as this article had popped up again referencing Tutankhamun but getting it slightly confused stating the King Midas beer came from Tut's tomb.

Some so-called extreme brewers, such as Sam Calagione of Delaware-based Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, are doing things that are unclassifiable. His Midas Touch Golden Elixir beer is inspired from an analysis of residue found on crockery in King Tut's tomb; his Pangea incorporates ingredients from each of the world's seven continents; and he's working on a version of tej, an African beverage flavoured with hops and honey.

Midas Touch takes beer drinker on archaeological adventure, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas, USA, June 07, 2006.

cf. Midas Touch takes beer drinker on archaeological adventure, Bellville News Democrat, California, USA, June 12, 2006.

cf. Stone Age Beer, Larry Gallagher, Discover = Magazine, Vol. 26, No. 11, November 2005.

cf. The Midas touch: academic research into the origins of beer has produced drinkable versions of the ancient brews, Gregg Glaser, Modern Brewery Age, November 11, 2002.

cf. Recreating King Midas' Golden Elixir: in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania, an American brewer makes a beer for the ages, Gregg Glaser, Modern Brewery Age, July 22, 2002.

The most exciting discovery I ever made was that of the secret doors deep inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. The story goes back to 1993, when I closed the Great Pyramid for a full year to prevent damage from any further humidity inside of the Pyramid. The humidity was being created by visitors wandering inside the amazing structure, each of whom was emitting 20 grams of water through breathing.

I thought I should create a ventilation system for the Pyramid, and for this reason alone I decided to close it.

I lived in a rest house near the Great Pyramid for years and quickly became accustomed to watching its magic at both sunrise and at sunset. Even when I entered the Pyramid in the evening to meditate or to observe the construction of the Grand Gallery, I wondered if it held any further secrets to be discovered - I even began to clean the five chambers located above the King's Chamber to see the inscriptions they held, and removed stone rubble from the site. At the same time as we were doing this work, we found out that many New Age people and other pyramidiots, as I call them, were making up stories that I was actually hiding within the chambers things that belonged to some lost civilization..!

From the Notebook of Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 06, June 2006.

In what is turning into the ‘Da Vinci Code’ of the Egyptology world, Dr. Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), has upped the ante in the Ka Nefer Nefer controversy.

The head of the SCA announced last month that he would start legal proceedings against the St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) to recover a thirteenth-century-BC funerary mask he alleges was stolen from Egypt.

The well-preserved wood and plaster mask of Ka Nefer Nefer was discovered in Saqqara by an Egyptian excavator in 1952. According to Hawass, the mask was documented as being in storage at the Saqqara inspectorate until 1959, when it was to be transferred for display at the Egyptian Museum.

“According to the museum’s files, the mask never entered the museum and it has not been seen in Egypt since that time,” Hawass says.

Hawass says he is working with Egypt’s Attorney General to file a lawsuit against the museum in a St. Louis court. He is also seeking help from Interpol, turning over “all the evidence that [proves] Egypt’s possession of the mask.”

SLAM will be blacklisted from scientific cooperation with the SCA until the mask is returned...

Egypt Wants KA, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 06, June 2006.

Hurghada to get a Museum

Hurghada will soon be home to a the first national museum on the Red Sea coast, the Ministry of Culture announced last month, saying the facility will house antiquities discovered in the Eastern Desert.

Located on the water's edge to encompass submerged monuments as well, the 22,000-square-meter facility will have four display halls, artists' studios and performance spaces. The museum will give tourists heading to Hurghada from abroad the chance to sample the complete spectrum of Egyptian history - from Pharaonic through Islamic eras - at one destination.

Grand Egyptian Museum to open in 2011?

The government of Japan last month finalized a $300 million loan to Egypt for the construction of the new Grand Egyptian Museum on the Giza Plateau. Japan's ambassador to Cairo and Minister of International Cooperation Fayza Abul Naga inked the loan agreement at a public signing ceremony.

The Ministry of Culture had initially said that construction of the GEM should wrap up by the end of 2009, but the only building block now in place is the foundation stone set by President Hosni Mubarak in 2002.

Farouk Abdel Salam, first undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture, says that construction will start soon, adding that he expects the GEM to be ready for its first guests in 2011.

Culture 101, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 06, June 2006.

However, one of the tomb friezes in the tomb of Mereruka at Saqqara bears a representation of what I am convinced is an otter. It is depicted in a papyrus swamp lying on its belly, eating away at a fish that is held in its forepaws. The head is typically otter, with a blunt muzzle and very small ears, the tail is stout with a thick stock and the paws, holding the fish, simply cry out, “otter.” If it is an otter, and I am convinced, then perhaps either the Cape Clawless or the Spot-necked Otter extended north to the Delta in Pharaonic times. The draining of the vast papyrus swamps would certainly have lead to its demise and, given that there is, to my knowledge, only one such portrayal, it may have been rare and elusive even then...

The mongoose, too, appears in Pharaonic friezes, often in the act of thieving eggs from nests. It is an opportunistic hunter, also taking rodents, reptiles, frogs, insects and other invertebrates. But it is most renowned for tackling snakes, including poisonous ones. Across the border in Israel, researchers have shown that Egyptian Mongooses are important controllers of the venomous Palestine Viper...

Rats, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 06, June 2006.

Ancient Egypt's art of carving now rests on the shoulders of one man.

His hands are wiry, disproportionately so even for his ageing, slender frame, his fingers gnarled with years of hacking away at blocks of relentless stone. Yet his face is a fascinating contrast of spent passion and childlike enthusiasm. He gets his 12-year-old son Uday to massage his arms and fingers "Uday is the light of my life," says Mohammed El Adli, better known as Kelhe, one of only two (maybe three if you stretch the art) of Egypt's pharaonic (pertaining to the pharaohs) sculptors.

The art of carving of the ancient Egyptians, a civilisation that thrived for over 4000 years, looks set to die with him. In spite of the huge official attention that Egypt now pays to its antiquities, no help is offered to artists and craftsmen practising the art of the ancients. "I don't want my son to follow me, this is not family work," he says with sadness...

The last of the pharaonic sculptors, The Hindu Magazine, India, June 11, 2006.

Feedback from the recent Discovery Special has been very positive. Speaking for the whole team we thank everyone for their sincere encouragement and support.

Coffin ‘C’ has been completely cleared. Two long, un-inscribed limestone cornices were found at the head of the coffin along with a miniature bowl, one large storage jar, and some worked stone blocks.

Coffins ‘D’ and ‘F’ ˜ we are just beginning to examine so a report will be forthcoming soon.

Coffin ‘E’ (against the back wall of the chamber) has already received some conservation work. Resin-covered bands of texts are visible stretching across the torso, and extending midline towards the footboard. Intense conservation measures will be utilized to preserve these precious bands of texts in hopes of discovering names or cartouches. In the interim, we are considering x-raying (and other non-intrusive tools) this particular coffin and the infant coffin to determine contents and aid the team in formulating a timetable for examination...

KV63: Otto's Dig Diary, Dr. Otto Schaden, Amenmesse Project, University of Memphis, Tennessee, June 10, 2006.

The door closes and one by one your group’s flashlights go out. Your guide says don’t panic, but you’re not too sure you won’t despite knowing this is just a game. Your adventure has begun at 5 W!TS TOMB. This 40-minute interactive challenge, along the lines of an amusement park simulation ride, is perfect for older kids and their families looking for something to do in Beantown that’s, well, different.

No strict American history lesson here. The premise of this attraction, located in the Fenway, is that you and your fellow explorers are on an archaeological dig in Egypt, trying to escape a pharaoh’s wrath as you figure out clues to get from one chamber to the next before time runs out. For anyone who loves “Indiana Jones” or any sort of adventure movie, this will be thrilling, putting you in the centre of the action...

TOMB will show you the mummy, The Boston Herald, Massachusetts, USA, June 15, 2006.

Archaeologists in the site of Iruña-Veleia have discovered an epigraphic set "among the most important of the Roman world" with drawings from the third century and a representation of a Calvary.

Archaeologists in the site of Iruña-Veleia have discovered an epigraphic set "among the most important of the Roman world," with a series of 270 inscriptions and drawings from the 3rd century and a representation of a Calvary, "the most ancient known up to this moment."

The managers of the archaeological site, located near the Alavan town of Nanclares de Oca, have officially unveiled these findings, identified and analysed last summer...

The Egypt expert of the University of Barcelona Montserrat Rius has explained that some Latin inscriptions refer to the ancient Egyptian history and its divinities, and has noted there are also hieroglyphic inscriptions "with a perfect layout" that make experts think they were taught to children.

In the findings, the "early and extraordinary testimonies of Christianisation" stand out. For instance, the presentation of a Calvary, "the most ancient known up to this moment," a small piece "between eight and ten square centimetres..."

Third century Roman inscriptions discovered in the Basque Country, eitb, Spain, June 08, 2006.

A good write up and debunking of some of the Bosnian 'pyramid' discoveries and claims.

Bosnian Pyramids: Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Atlantis, Alun Salt, History News Network, USA, May 29, 2006.

Problems surrounding the Karnak Development Project still seem unsolved despite the reported approval of all concerned. Nevine El-Aref investigates the continuing controversy.

The mood at this year's annual meeting in Luxor between the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the French mission of the Centre Franco-Egyptien D'Étude des Temples de Karnak (CFEETK) was tense despite a friendly veneer. Some observers have reported that the planned Karnak Development Project drawn up by the SCA in collaboration with the Luxor City Council (LCC) was the cause of the underlying ill feeling, especially since part of the project's plan involves the demolition of the French mission's residential compound and the 19th-century-dig house of French Egyptologist George Legrain. Situated right on the doorstep of Karnak Temple, this colonial-style house carries a special symbolic meaning for the French.

According to Egyptologist Ali Radwan, co- director of the CFEETK scientific delegation with French Egyptologist Dominique Valbelle, the LE50 million project will protect the monument from progressive infringements as well as restoring the temple to its former glory. It will remove all encroachment from the forefront of the temple and allow excavation work to uncover the ancient harbour and canal that once connected it to the Nile. According to an old map, the Ancient Egyptians used this canal to gain access to the West Bank of the Nile in a position corresponding to Hatshepsut's Deir Al-Bahari Temple, which was built on the same axis.

Karnak's avenue of trees will be preserved, and a row of acacia and ficus will be planted to separate the temple from the road beside it. Bazaars beside the temple walls will be removed to what was formerly the Luxor stadium on the Nile Corniche..

A trifle over bazaars, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 799, June 15 - 21, 2006.

Where Egypt was concerned, Napoleon came, saw and only briefly conquered. But he had there his first taste of totalitarian domination over a large nation, which did not bode well for Europe. More to the point of "Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists and the Rediscovery of Egypt," an engrossing exhibition at the Dahesh Museum of Art, he set in motion one of the most ambitious fact-finding missions in modern history. It was carried out by 150 handpicked scientists, artists and engineers, known as the savants, who accompanied the 55,000 troops of the Armée de l'Orient to Egypt.

Landing at Alexandria on July 1, 1798, Napoleon intended to establish a colony, disrupt British trade with India, free the Egyptians from their Mameluke oppressors and impose liberty and equality on a benighted land. (The last goal sounds distressingly familiar.)

After he walked into Alexandria and forced the Mamelukes from Cairo, disaster struck on Aug. 1. The French had correctly faced the cannons on their 400 vessels out toward the sea in case of attack but incorrectly dropped anchor so far from shore that British ships, under Lord Nelson, easily intervened from the landward side and destroyed the French fleet.

After a period of what was basically a Mameluke insurgency aided and abetted by the British and the Ottoman Turks, Napoleon secretly fled to France on Oct. 11, 1799, leaving only a short note for his second in command, Jean Baptiste Kléber, a handwritten copy of which, by Kléber's chief of staff, is on display. Its first sentence (of only five) might have been that of a weekend houseguest called suddenly back to the city: "The news from Europe has caused me to decide to leave for France." He never returned...

When French Savants Were in Egypt's Land, New York Times, New York, USA, June 16, 2006.

When Christie's holds its antiquities sale today, one object whose photograph appears in the catalog will not be present: a 4,000-year-old Egyptian alabaster offering vessel pulled from the auction on Monday, after a Metropolitan Museum curator recognized the object and tipped off Christie's that it may have been stolen from a storage facility in Egypt. In an atmosphere in which the antiquities trade is already under suspicion because of rising concern about cultural patrimony and looted art, the case at Christie's highlights just how difficult it is to determine an object's provenance and authenticity.

The Met curator recognized the offering vessel in the catalog because he had taken part in excavating it in Egypt in 1979. And he knew the object had resided at a facility in Egypt. "I don't think it was a matter of [his] saying it was stolen," the Met's spokesman, Harold Holzer, said. "It was a matter of saying, 'The last I heard, the object was stored at this particular facility, and I thought I'd let you know.' And I think he was not surprised by the course that it then took..."

Antiquities: The Problem of Provenance, The New York Sun, New York, USA, June 16, 2006. Requires subscription.

I have had a catastrophic hard disk failure on my home machine that hosts the Radio Userland blogging software this morning [Thursday June 15th] so I'm not sure when the blog posts that follow this will appear.

Don't you just love Windows XP? Not being the average user I was aware this was going to happen and had made backups and have a new hard disk arriving soon, it just happened sooner than I expected. How did I know? The Windows Event Log is full of error messages like "the hard disk is reporting a bad sector" from the disk subsystem, errors from the NTFS subsystem, and warning messages from the disk subsystem again saying something along the lines of "the hard disk's controller is reporting imminent failure, please backup your data". Did XP once alert the user to this with some sort of warning message? Nope! I bet most average users do not even know that the Event Log even exists, so where would they be right now?

Update: Ordered the hard disk from dabs.com Thursday 15th and paid extra for next day delivery to my work address. Dabs didn't ship the item until Friday 16th telling the courier it was next working day delivery so it arrived Monday 19th. I was working a half day in the morning on Monday and it arrived in the afternoon after I had left so I finally got it Tuesday!

Luckily for me I had backed my blog directories and was able to recover, unfortunately it flushed all of the posts that were waiting! I'll repost those again after this.

Previously:

Hooray! I'm back online!, November 15, 2005.

Modern medical science has exposed the villainy of the crocodile mummy sellers of Hawara, more than 2,000 years after they defied the edict of a Pharaoh and turned neatly bandaged bundles of rubbish into a nice little earner.

Before the reopening this month of the Egyptian Galleries at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, curators took their animal and human mummies to the city's Addenbrooke's Hospital, as part of a £1.5m re-display of the internationally renowned collection, which dates in part back to the founding of the museum in 1816.

Analysis continues after the mummies were run through a CT scanner and other tests, but the preliminary results are startling. The two baby crocodile shaped mummies were originally sold to worshippers at the temple at Hawara, to be buried in ritual pits as an offering to the god Sobek. There was clearly a history of problems with the animal sellers: a pharaonic decree a century earlier had ordered that each mummy should contain the body of one animal...

Massive mummy fraud discovered after 2,000 years, The Guardian, UK, June 21, 2006.

At a preview of a King Tut display at Chicago's Field Museum last month, Hawass, whose critics call him "the Show-Biz Pharaoh," a "media-whore" and "part P.T. Barnum, part Indiana Jones," asked museum officials to remove one of the exhibition's corporate sponsors after learning its chief executive owned a 2,600-year-old Egyptian coffin. "Antiquities should be in museums, not in people's homes," he told those in attendance, referring to John W. Rowe, of Exelon, a Chicago energy company. Rowe immediately offered to send the sarcophagus to the museum on indefinite loan.

Also last month, Hawass gave St. Louis Art Museum director Brent Benjamin a May 15 deadline to return a 3,200-old funerary mask that Hawass says was illegally taken in the early 1990s from a storage facility near the site of its excavation. In April, he fired off a letter to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, asking him to return a 71-foot-high Egyptian obelisk in Central Park if he didn't start taking care of it. The pillar, which is in poor condition because of neglect, has been in the park since 1881 — a gift from the Egyptian government in return for American aid in constructing the Suez Canal. Bloomberg has yet to reply, Hawass says.

Since Hawass became director of Egypt's 34,000-member Supreme Council of Antiquities in 2002, many Egyptologists agree that the feisty 59-year-old archaeologist has done more than anyone yet to bring Egyptian civilization to the world stage, appearing on cable television, writing newspaper articles, travelling the world giving lectures and launching exhibits of Egyptian treasures. Last month, Time magazine named him as one of the planet's "100 most influential people..."

In Egypt, the Pharaohs' outspoken defender kicks up a dust storm, The San Francisco Chronicle, California, USA, June 14, 2006.

The British government agreed Tuesday to support Egypt's Great National Museum to be built on 117 feddans along the Cairo-Alexandria desert road. Visiting British Secretary of Media, Culture and Sport Tessa Jowell said Britain must be proud to take part in this unique cultural project.

UK supports Egypt's grand museum, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, June 14, 2006.

The Egyptian government wants Germany to return the Nefertiti bust currently at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. In case Germany does not return the work, they at least want it loaned.

Zahi Hawass, director of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, had the idea of at least getting the work on loan in case Germany did not accept to return it. There would be a signed agreement to return the work after a defined period. Next November will be the centennial of the foundation of the German Institute of Archaeology, which would be a good place to make the agreement effective.

So far the Egyptian Museum in Berlin has not responded. Hawass sated, “We do not want (all European countries) to return everything they have on Egypt, only the unique items.” Hawass is currently preparing an international archaeology conference with countries who lost works next year in El Cairo.

Egypt Wants Nefertiti Bust At Least on Loan, Art Daily, Mexico, June 14, 2006.

Here's why we love King Tut so much: There's a tiny, 18-inch Tut coffin that is so elaborate, so gorgeous, it takes your breath away.

And that golden coffin was crafted to hold the boy king's liver. That's right. His liver.

This coffinette is just one of the marvels of the new "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" show, which opened May 26 at the Field Museum. It is the first time King Tut has been back in Chicago since the blockbuster 1977 exhibition.

...

But you won't be seeing the solid gold death mask, the highlight of the 1977 show, or Tut's coffin. Those will stay put in Egypt. And, it must be said, there are no mummies.

"This is not about gold and the curse," said Hawass, in town for the opening of the exhibition. Instead, the aim is to educate the public about the life and times of the boy king, he said...

From what I understand, the Tutankhamun mask shown on the promotional material for the show — that causes cries of "where's the mask?" from the public — is actually a blown up photograph of the face of the above-mentioned miniature coffinette.

A Field full of gold embodies mystery of Egypt's boy king, South Bend Tribune, Indiana, USA, June 11, 2006.

cf. Show Puts Focus On Tut's Life And Time, Hartford Courant, Connecticut, USA, June 11, 2006.

Ethereal Tut

Five restaurants close to museum offer eats, and a chocolate pharaoh for fun.

Ethereal Tut, South Bend Tribune, Indiana, USA, June 11, 2006.

Just as we finally learn how to pronounce Tutankhamun, along comes Wenudjebauendjed.

A military leader of Egypt's 21st Dynasty, his gleaming gold funeral mask is the "face" of the travelling exhibition "The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt," which opened Friday at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville.

His serene countenance stares out from kohl-rimmed eyes on billboards, banners and brochures promoting the exhibition that features more than 100 artefacts that relate to the Egyptians' belief in the afterlife.

On loan from the Egyptian government, the priceless antiquities come from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the Luxor Museum and the archaeological sites of Tanis and Deir el-Bahari. After opening at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in June 2002, the exhibition has travelled to seven other museums across the country and will go on to Portland, Ore., and Houston before returning to Egypt...

Ancient Egyptian military leader's mask exhibited, St. Paul Pionner Press, Minnesota, USA, June 11, 2006.

Nashvillians are getting a firsthand look at that alluring and mystical world with The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt, which opened at the Frist on Friday. Organized by the United Exhibits Group, Copenhagen, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in association with the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo, the show is the largest collection of artefacts ever loaned by Egypt to travel across North America.

With objects spanning more than a millennium, from 1550 B.C. to 332 B.C., the Frist Center galleries will be overflowing with the materials that make Egyptology so engrossing: gold, intricately wrought jewels, enormous stone sculptures, ornately decorated coffins, hieroglyphic texts. As an added bonus, the Frist has pulled together an accompanying exhibit of human and animal mummies — giving visitors an up-close look at life and death in a civilization thousands of years removed from our own.

As the title suggests, The Quest for Immortality focuses on the defining trait of the ancient Egyptians: their belief that, through careful preparation and observance, their bodies and their belongings could transcend death and find eternal life in the great beyond. And it is this fixation in particular, suggests Frist Center curator Mark Scala, that continues to capture our attention thousands of years later...

Frist exhibit unmasks Ancient Egypt, The Tennessean, Tennessee, USA, June 11, 2006.

cf. Frist exhibit unmasks Ancient Egypt, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia, USA, June 11, 2006.

In conjunction with the newly displayed "The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt" exhibit at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, renowned archaeologist and Egyptologist Zahi Hawass will present a lecture titled "Recent Discoveries in Egypt" at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center's James K. Polk Theater.

A regular on the Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Channel, Hawass has earned celebrity status as a master scholar of Egyptian antiquities and culture. His lecture will cover topics including the recent finding of two intact tombs at Giza, a new pyramid found at Saqqara, and the discovery of 105 perfectly preserved mummies among an estimated 10,000 at the Valley of the Golden Mummies.

Tickets are $20 for Frist Center members and $25 for non-members, and are expected to sell out.

Lecture digs into 'Egypt' exhibit, The Tennessean, Tennessee, USA, June 12, 2006.

An ancient Egyptian vessel expected to sell for as much as $30,000 at auction this week has been pulled from the sale over concerns about how it was removed from Egypt, Christie's auction house said Monday.

"Upon receiving information which led us to believe that the object had possibly been improperly taken out of Egypt, we contacted the appropriate U.S. authorities and withdrew the item from the sale," the auction house said in a statement.

The auction house would not elaborate on what it had learned about the object's removal from Egypt.

The piece was part of a private collection in Israel and was acquired prior to 1975, the catalogue said...

There is not that much new information here than the Reuters version of the story I posted yesterday.

An ancient Egyptian vessel expected to sell for as much as $30,000..., AP via Lexington Herald-Leader, Kentucky, USA, June 12, 2006.

cf. Auction Ends After Concerns Artefact Was Stolen, 1010 Wins, California, USA, June 12, 2006.

Stone blocks believed by Bosnian researchers to be part of Europe's first pyramid are nothing but a natural formation, European experts said on Friday after examining the hillside site near Sarajevo.

"My opinion and the opinion of my colleagues is what we saw was entirely geological in nature," said Anthony Harding, head of the European Association of Archaeologists.

Harding, a professor of archaeology at the University of Exeter in Britain, was speaking here after a brief visit on June 8 to the hills near Visoko, a town some 30 kilometres (19 miles) north of Sarajevo, where excavation work has been taking place since April.

"Further work of the same kind would simply produce the same results. I don't think it would change any view about what the nature of the hill is," he told reporters...

Click the photograph above for five pictures from the press conference.

Bosnian 'pyramid' created by nature, say European experts, AFP via Middle East Times, Cyprus, June 12, 2006.

A 4000-year-old Egyptian alabaster container shaped like a duck and used for a funeral offering has been withdrawn from auction because it may be stolen property, Christie's auction house said on Monday.

The Old Kingdom alabaster offering vessel dating from 2575 to 2134 BC was expected to sell for $20,000 to $30,000 before it was withdrawn from the sale, according to the Christie's online catalog for its June 16 sale of antiquities in New York.

"Upon receiving information which led us to believe that the object had possibly been improperly taken out of Egypt, we contacted the appropriate U.S. authorities and withdrew the item from the sale," Christie's said in a statement...

Stolen Egyptian artefact removed from NY auction, Reuters, USA, June 12, 2006.

cf. Stolen Egyptian artefact removed from NY auction, Reuters via Yahoo! News, USA, June 12, 2006.

By Jill Kamil.

Treasures from the Roman period have been transported for exhibition at the Egyptian Museum in conjunction with the fifth conference of the Dakhla Oasis Project (DOP), which opened last Saturday. It was fitting introduction to an international gathering, at which presentations related to current fieldwork revealed how dramatically our knowledge of life in the oasis has increased in recent years.

Although the DOP, under the directorship of Anthony Mills of the Royal Ontario Museum, has been ongoing since 1977, Dakhla is the least known oasis of the Western Desert — or it was until this week. The conference organised by the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC) in collaboration with the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the Egyptian Museum has remedied that. Fred Leemhuis and Olaf Kaper of the NVIC invited scholars who have excavated and studied in Dakhla and the surrounding desert, as well as in neighbouring oases, to talk about their fields of specialisation, and the response was exceptional.

In addition to members of the DOP, Dutch, French, German and Egyptian experts presented papers on subjects that ranged from Palaeolithic and Neolithic activities to relatively recent 19th-century houses; from rock art and graffiti to Greek texts; and from pottery to temples to burial grounds. Papers were given on such diverse subjects as children and childhood as revealed in studies at a Kellis cemetery, infant weaning and feeding, evidence of arthritis within the Dakhla community, and magic...

Distant Dakhla, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 798, June 08 - 14, 2006.

By Jill Kamil.

To appreciate the significance of this African kingdom, which once controlled important trade routes from central Africa to the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and in the third century BC held sway over the Nile to within reach of Aswan, it is important to note that Egyptologists tend to regard Lower Nubia as Egyptian territory, virtually an extension of Egypt.

This is not surprising, since it was their colony as far as the Second Cataract, where the powerful Pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom constructed huge fortresses around 2000 BC. This frontier was later pushed further south when, in the New Kingdom (1567-1080 BC), Egypt controlled areas that Thutmose I claimed were "not known to my ancestors". Fine Pharaonic temples were built at Semna, Soleb and Sesibi, and Egyptian viceroys were appointed to govern all of Lower Nubia. For nearly 500 years it remained in the hands of high-ranking officials whose titles included "son of Kush". Egyptians were encouraged to take up residence in Nubia and Egypt's technological capabilities were introduced to the region.

A change came in the status of Nubia and Kush following a period of decline in Egypt when it became an ecclesiastical state under the High Priest Hrihor in about 1000 BC. Liberated from Egyptian domination, the Kushites set up an independent kingdom at Napata below the Fourth Cataract. This was African in origin but Egyptian in tradition and religious belief. That is to say, there was a Pharaonic-style court with its assembly of officials, Pharaonic titles, and a temple to the Egyptian god Amun-Re near Gebel Barkal...

An African kingdom on the Nile, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 798, June 08 - 14, 2006.

Sudan's fabled city on the Lower Nile is being excavated, conserved, and prepared for tourism, reports Jill Kamil.

In a lecture at the Canadian Institute of Archaeology in Cairo last month, Krzys Grzymski of the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) described the use of modern technology to uncover the origins and topography, history and development of Meroe, an African kingdom which developed along the upper reaches of the Nile about 200km north of Khartoum between 800 BC and 350 AD.

"We began our operations in October 1999, and ancient Meroe is slowly coming to light," Grzymski said. "We first carried out a comprehensive survey of the area, and we are doing our work slowly and thoroughly. There is probably no greater danger to the preservation of an ancient site than hasty excavations, and much of our first season was spent walking over the entire area and recording surface material."

This exercise produced a number of surprises which included errors in earlier published plans of various buildings, numerous unrecorded inscriptions, some graffiti, and many beautifully carved blocks. "Perhaps the most exciting discovery was a stone block bearing the name of King Anlamani (c. 620-600 BC), one of the earliest datable objects ever found at Meroe," Grzymski said...

An African kingdom on the Nile, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 798, June 08 - 14, 2006.

At a gala on Tuesday evening in the enchanting Mohamed Ali Shubra Palace, Mrs Suzanne Mubarak witnessed the launching of a fund-raising campaign for the construction of the planned Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) overlooking the Giza Plateau, writes Nevine El-Aref. The campaign aims at collecting $250 million from Egyptian and international businessmen and banks as part of a total approximate budget projected at $550 million. Early last month, the Japanese government granted Egypt a $300 million loan on easy terms, due after a 10-year grace period, to be settled in instalments in another 30 years with an interest rate of 1.5 per cent.

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said the dinner was "a great opportunity to encourage every Egyptian to contribute even a brick to build such an awe-inspiring cultural, archaeological and touristic institute." He announced that the Federation of Egyptian Banks had promised to contribute LE7.5 million.

Farouk Abdel-Salam, first undersecretary at the Ministry of Culture, listed several options when contributing. "It could be via financing the cultivation of a garden like Egypt's Land or Nile Garden or by providing a kids museum and one for scientists and a lab."

Newsreel: Museum funds, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 798, June 08 - 14, 2006.

Rumours surrounding the Karnak Development Project have finally been scotched, reports Nevine El-Aref.

Rumours of the environmental disaster that would be wreaked by the Karnak Development Project, approved by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and Luxor City Council (LCC), began to circulate early in May. The project would, said its detractors, destroy the context of Karnak Temple, and in its attempts to prevent further encroachment had opted for cosmetic solutions. A two-metres wide concrete wall to be built around the temple, violating archaeological layers and creating a ring over the remains of five temples from the time of Akhenaten, almost dividing them in two areas, came in for special criticism, as did uprooting trees planted on the temple's northern side.

It was also reported that both the SCA and LCC had agreed that a marina be established, and that a 129 000-square-metre space between the temple and the Nile Bank be cleared, involving the demolition of bazaars, residential houses, the French mission's dig house and the wooden house built for French Egyptologist George Legrain. There were also rumours that the development project included a commercial centre comprising restaurants, a shopping mall and a parking area.

Shahira Mehrez, a specialist in Islamic Art, led a counter campaign against both SCA and LCC, sending a four-page report to UNESCO, accompanied with photos, criticising the project. In the report Mehrez argued that the isometric views of the project were misleading, since they ignored the differences in the level of the temple and the projected road. Nor, she said, had the project considered what the view would be like once the buildings had been demolished. "They want to demolish a charming mud brick village and thus expose five-storey high concrete buildings painted in an array of garish colours and covered in commercial advertising hoardings," Mehrez told Al-Ahram Weekly...

Karnak facelift approved, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 798, June 08 - 14, 2006.

Starting Friday, Nashvillians will have the rare opportunity to peer into this ancient [Egyptian] culture through an exhibit hosted by the Frist called The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt.

The largest collection of artefacts ever loaned out by the Egyptian government for display in North America, the exhibit explores the ancient Egyptians' fascination with death and the afterlife through the opulent and meticulously crafted objects they created to ensure their passage into immortality. The project has been in the works for nearly four years, and many of the 107 artefacts have never been viewed outside of Egypt.

“The exhibit gives a good view into our civilization,” said Egyptian archaeologist Maged Hafez, who was on hand at the Frist to help unpack the artefacts and educate the museum’s staff on their importance. “People will learn about our art, the steps of mummification, ink preparation, about the inscriptions on statues, papyrus paper.”

The exhibition is divided into six themes: the New Kingdom, the Reign of Thutmose III, Tombs of Nobles, Royal Tombs, the Realm of the Gods, and the Tomb of Thutmose III and the Amduat (a funerary text, reserved only for pharaohs or those favoured by the noble class)...

Frist ancient Egyptian exhibit is largest of its kind, The Nashville City Paper, Tennessee, USA, June 08, 2006.

When Giuseppe Passalacqua went to Egypt in the 1820s his plan was to do a bit of horse-trading. He soon discovered a more lucrative line of work — excavating ancient tombs and selling off their contents. While Passalacqua found many priceless treasures, unlike most tomb-robbers he also made off with the more mundane. If something could be carried off, it was — right down to the dried-up offerings left to feed the ancients in the afterlife. Among these were some strange shrivelled fruits that have posed a series of puzzles ever since. They came from some sort of palm tree, but not one anyone recognised. Had the tree vanished along with the pharaohs?

In 1826 Giuseppe Passalacqua, an Italian horse-trader turned tomb-digger, left Egypt and headed for Paris. His plan was to show off his vast collection of Egyptian antiquities and tempt the French government into buying it for the Louvre. Passalacqua had excavated tombs at several sites in Egypt and had made important discoveries. He was the first to investigate an intact burial, complete with mummy, coffins and funeral offerings, all of which he added to his haul. But although the French were fascinated by all things Egyptian, they baulked at Passalacqua's price. Disappointed, he took his collection to Berlin, where he sold it to Crown prince Frederick of Prussia for a knock-down price plus a job for life as director of the Berlin Museum.

Passalacqua's diligence in stripping tombs clean meant there was plenty in his collection for the serious scientist. For Carl Kunth, Berlin's leading botanist of the day, the greatest treasure was the assortment of plant material preserved since the days of the pharaohs. Among the bits and pieces, Kunth was intrigued to find three sorts of palm fruit. He recognised dates and the fruits of the doum palm but he couldn't identify the third. Although he had only dried and shrivelled fruits, Kunth knew they came from a tree that was new to science. He named it Areca passalacquae. Others simply called it the Egyptologists' palm...

Egyptologists' palm nearly extinct, New Scientist via FreeRepublic.

cf. Histories: Fruits of the tomb, Stephanie Pain, New Scientist, UK, Issue 2554, June 03, 2006, p. 54.

Ancient Egypt was brought to life during Museums and Galleries Month, in a family-friendly workshop called Putting Egypt on Display held at Bristol’s City Museum and Art Gallery on Saturday May 13 2006.

There was a chance to see a range of artefacts close-up and to meet the team of conservators who have spent the last year preparing them for display in the museum’s new Egypt gallery, due to open in spring 2007.

“We wanted to do something special for Museums and Galleries Month,” said Ticca Ogilvie, the Egypt department’s Conservation Manager. “The Egypt gallery has been closed since last May, and we wanted to make up for it by holding an event that adults could enjoy as well as children”...

Putting Egypt on display at Bristol City Museum for MGM 2006, 24-Hour Museum, UK, June 07, 2006.

Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 had all the earmarks of colonial expansionism. Under the guise of freeing the Egyptians from the oppressive Mamelukes, he aimed to bring the eastern Mediterranean into the French orbit and threaten Britain's trade routes to India.

One aspect of the expedition, however, reflected the nobler impulses of the Enlightenment: the 150 "savants" — mathematicians, engineers, architects, artists, natural scientists, Orientalists — brought along to record all they could of ancient and contemporary Egypt. Militarily, the expedition proved to be a disaster, but its legacy was the remarkable "Description de l'Egypte," an immense compendium of texts and engravings that sparked the beginnings of Egyptology and the European public's appetite for Egyptian-themed paintings and objets d'art...

All The Emperor's Savants, The New York Sun, New York, USA, June 08, 2006. Subscription required.

Mrs Suzanne Mubarak attended Tuesday 06/06/2006 a ceremony organized by the Ministry of Culture and the Central Bank of Egypt to launch a fund- raising campaign for establishing the Grand National Museum on Cairo-Alexandria desert road.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni has said that ceremony encourages the Egyptians to donate for the museum to bring this great project to the light. The Union of Egyptian Banks donated $7.5 million , the minister added.

The Museum will cost a total of $550 million according to feasibility studies, of which Japan has provided $300 million , the minister added. Names of the donors will be inscribed on a museum wall. Donors can also buy one brick used in the construction work for $500 and will have his/her name inscribed on it.

Mrs. Mubarak raises funds for Grand National museum, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, June 07, 2006.

The program begins with the usual for television archaeology: portentous language ("a time of darkness and violence") and a flurry of questions ("Who or what lies inside?" "Is this the final resting place of his lost queen?"). Fortunately this dies down to a great extent after the opening, and the re-creations that Discovery favours (and which I find distracting) are kept to a minimum. Instead, Ken Nystrom arrives on scene. A biological anthropologist, he was one of the team that appeared in the Discovery Channel series "Mummy Autopsy." His job here is to prompt Schaden and his colleagues with questions and periodically summarize the evidence for the viewers, and this works pretty well (though I wish he hadn't said on entering the tomb, "An honest to goodness Egyptian find!").

Some effort was made to highlight stress in the unfolding story of the investigation: the project blows through its budget for workmen simply clearing the entrance shaft; once opened, the tomb is vulnerable to the occasional flashfloods that hit the valley of the Kings. Then there's the removal of the 90-100 pound storage jars, encased in bubble wrap and wafted up using a basket-rope-pulley mechanism. (More stress there when, later in the show, fragile wooden coffins are lifted up.)

A brief interlude (narrator plus re-creation) introduces mummy caches and the efforts later priests made to protect the royal dead ("archaeologists call these simple chambers cache tombs"). That had been one possible explanation of KV 63. But soon we get back to the investigation, with Salima Ikram opening one of the storage jars. She removes a large plug of mud and plaster, then reaches in and brings out things, such as a carved wooden cobra head and sherds, on two of which are inscriptions. One of these has "year five" (a regnal year) and "wine" but lacks the name of the pharaoh...

Valley of the Kings Cliffhanger, Mark Rose, Archaeology Magazine, New York, USA, May 31, 2006.

"An Egyptian-French project to develop the Karnak Temple area in Luxor aims at protecting the priceless monuments", said Zahi Hawass, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The project will include specific lanes for tourists to head off any damage to the monuments, Hawass told reporters after a meeting of an Egyptian-French committee implementing the project.

He added that bazaars, parking lots and cafeterias will be built a distance form the temple to serve tourists without affecting the temple. Hawass said part of the 50 million-pound budget will be paid in compensation for affected families...

French-Egyptian development project to protect monuments, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, June 05, 2006.

The most beautiful piece of work in the garden museum of legendary sculptor Hassan Heshmat is The Victory Leap, the artist’s testament to the heroism of Egyptian troops in the 1973 War. In this isolated venue, Egyptians from all walks of life can visit and walk among the masterpieces bequeathed to the nation in the late artist’s will.

Or at least they could until last month, when a monaqqaba (women dressed in full niqab) broke into the Heshmat Museum and destroyed a number of statues including The Victory Leap. Promptly arrested, the woman declared she was merely doing her duty as a good Muslim by adhering to a fatwa recently issued by Grand Mufti of Egypt Ali Gomaa in which he said it was forbidden for Muslims to use statuary representing living beings, particularly humans, as home decorations.

Though Gomaa did nothing to place his fatwa in context or make clear why he was issuing it, the fatwa was strictly limited to statues of human beings in homes and did not mention works or art in museums or Pharaonic statuary on display at antiquity sites around the nation.

In fact, the fatwa seemed to confuse just about everyone. Even as they attacked Gomaa’s declaration, liberals noted that Gomaa had been the senior-most Islamic cleric to speak out against the Taliban’s destruction of the famed statues of Buddha in Bamiyan.

“When Amr ibn Al-Aas invaded Egypt, he left every single [Ancient] Egyptian statue intact,” Gomaa said in early 2001 when the Taliban destroyed the Buddha figures, one of which was believed to be the largest statue of its kind in the world...

On Islam and Intellect, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 06, June 2006.

In Rome's central Piazza del Popolo, the landmark obelisk that Emperor Augustus brought from Egypt in 10 BC was recently covered in metal caging topped with a huge ad for a Ford sports car. A sign says the obelisk is being covered "for observations." And above the famous Spanish Steps, central meeting point for Romans and tourists alike, the 16th century Trinita dei Monti Church has been encased in ad-swathed scaffolding for years, ruining what should be a spectacular view. At another corner of the Piazza di Spagna, a building designed by Bernini has ads for cellphones, Dolce & Gabbana and lots more.

Defenders of the practice say getting advertisers to pay for much-needed renovations is smart, especially because the government is strapped for cash and can't pay the upkeep on Italy's vast cultural heritage.

"This has been a brilliant initiative that has dramatically helped clean up the city," said Jonathan Doria Pamphili, scion of an aristocratic family with important real estate holdings, including a 17th century mansion on Piazza Navona...

Need a Place for an Ad? Then Adopt an Obelisk, Los Angeles Times, California, USA, June 05, 2006.

Bosnia's mystery pyramid will now be probed and inspected by a team of experts from the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

"We shall send a UNESCO expert team to Visoko to determine exactly what it is all about," UNESCO Secretary General Koichiro Matsuura said in an interview published on Monday in Dnevni Avaz newspaper.

Amateur archaeologist Semir Osmanagic has caused a stir with his find, although local and European archaeologists denounce it as nonsense.

Geologist Aly Abd Barakat, an Egyptian researcher sent by Cairo to assist Osmanagic's team last month, has said that the Visocica hill did appear to be a primitive man-made pyramid of uncertain age...

UNESCO team to probe Bosnia's "ancient pyramid", Reuters, UK, June 05, 2006.

The Utah Museum of Fine Arts presents the exhibit Africa: Arts of a Continent. After several years of rest, African art from the permanent collection returns for public viewing at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA). The exhibition, Africa: Arts of a Continent, is a permanent rotating exhibition, and includes several new acquisitions never seen before by the public. The forms and meanings of traditional African art are strikingly diverse. To illustrate this diversity, Africa: Arts of a Continent focuses on four cultures: the Dogon of Mali, the Baulé of the Ivory Coast, the Yoruba of Nigeria and the Kuba Kingdom of the Congo. This organization makes evident the patterns of form and meaning that are unique to a region as well as the differences in works from other areas. Africa: Arts of a Continent also incorporates several ancient Egyptian burial objects from various dynasties and explores the importance of the Nile.

"The UMFA is pleased to see the return of African art to our galleries," states UMFA Director David Dee. "Each work has a unique story behind its creation and utilization. Visitors to the exhibition are taken on a journey through regions of Africa to experience the rites and rituals of its native cultures..."

African Art at Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Arts Daily, USA, June 06, 2006.

... once a region such as the Sahara becomes dry and brown it requires exceptional rains to trigger a regreening. Beyond a certain point — such as that reached 5,500 years ago — virtually no amount of extra rain is likely to be enough. Lack of vegetation "acts to lock in and reinforce the drought".

The people of the Sahara couldn't have known if the droughts were permanent. But as the desert asserted control, and waterways dried up, they had to leave. Lakeside settlements near the Sudanese border in Egypt were all abandoned at about the same time.

One was Nabta, famous as the site of the world's earliest known stone structures with an astronomical purpose. They predate Stonehenge by 1,000 years. The key stones point to where the sun would have set at the summer solstice 6,000 years ago. Nobody can be sure what the structures' precise purpose was, but it is intriguing to suppose that they were used in an attempt to track the celestial changes that were disrupting the rains.

It may have been from such places that the myths of past golden ages, and of the Garden of Eden, emerged. The people who departed from the Sahara would have taken their memories of a golden past. Biblical scholars have calculated mankind's expulsion from Eden at around 6,000 years ago, when kingdoms across the Sahara would have been collapsing...

Why deserts will inherit the Earth, The Independent, UK, June 05, 2006.

Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, doesn't mind standing up for the rights of the dead. He may not have the same enthusiasm to stand up for the rights of the living.

Hawass is a Pharaoh when it comes to Egyptian antiquities. And, he has the courage of a Third World tyrant to confront the injustices committed by others, even if not in his own country.

In Chicago for the opening of the exhibit of King Tut, the Egyptian boy king who symbolized an era of ancient tyrants, Hawass threatened to end his association with the exhibit's host, Chicago's prestigious Field Museum, and to remove Exelon, one of the American Midwest's largest energy giants, as an exhibit sponsor...

King Tut brings old, new issues to fore, Ray Hanania, The Arab American, USA, June 03, 2006.

Egyptologists are holding their breath over the mystery surrounding the first tomb discovered in Luxor's Valley of the Kings since that of the boy king Tutankhamun in 1922.

News of the surprise discovery in February by an American team from the University of Memphis has had repercussions far beyond this famous necropolis from the time of the pharaohs.

Could the small tomb, designated KV63, hold a royal mummy, perhaps that of Tutankhamun's widow or even his mother?

"I think there is a 70 percent chance that is a royal mummy in the last coffin," [Mansur Boraik] said, referring to the last of seven wooden coffins that lay for 3,000 years amid 28 earthenware urns...

Cliffhanger in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, AFP via Independent Online, South Africa, June 06, 2006.

cf. Tut's mum's mummy? Cliffhanger in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, AFP via Middle East Times, Cyprus, June 06, 2006.

"Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," a show of less spectacular objects than those in 1977 — the great mask, for example, is gone, shown only in a hyped-up video — nonetheless follows a similar pattern. It presents more than 130 pieces from Tut's tomb and others in the Valley of the Kings. Several of the works — a balustrade carving of Akhenaten and his family, a fan depicting an ostrich hunt, two inlaid pectorals, a long-legged chest with decorative fretwork — are of high artistic interest. But only the smallest of its 10 galleries have text on "The Art of the Period," while the rest are devoted to the lives of Tut and his reputed ancestors as well as rituals of life and death.

Admittedly, anything made by the hand of man is an artefact, and neither Tut show was promoted as an art exhibition. (The 2000 "Pharaohs of the Sun: Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Tutankhamen," at the Art Institute of Chicago, was a stellar art exhibition emphasizing the fineness of its objects over the people who owned them, but it drew far fewer viewers.) In all such exhibitions we silently ask, Why are these artefacts worth seeing? The Tut show's answer: Because of an exotic teenager whose tomb was discovered complete, unlooted, and the excitement of that story.

If the answer were truthful, it would say, because of the artistry of the objects that sets them apart from others. And the show then would explain how the pieces are different — and how our interest is galvanized by the difference. But at a time when not even the recent Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition at the Art Institute sought to explain what raised his posters above mere advertising, what can we expect from a museum dedicated to natural history..?

'Tut' is all show, no art, Chicago Tribune, Illinois, USA, June 04, 2006.

A travel Q&A from the Daily Mirror.

Q. We're thinking about taking a cruise down the Nile, so when is the best time and will we need to get a visa?

A. Unless you want to be flash-fried on deck and come home looking like a mixed grill, don't go to Egypt in July and August. Temperatures can soar well above 37¡C and even Indiana Jones might think twice about visiting the temples and tombs or pyramids of Giza in such stifling heat.

That said, a Nile cruise is one of those things everyone ought to try at least once in their lifetime...

Travel: Nautical Nile, Daily Mirror, UK, June 03, 2006.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said Friday June 2nd that a research mission has discovered the remnants of a two-room house dating back to the era of Salaheddin El-Ayoubi and a single golden dinar of the same age in Al-Shaboul district of Daqahliya governorate.

On his part, Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters that the dinar is of a great scientific and historical value.

Old as it is, the coin gains its importance being of the Ayoubi age when minting gold money was a rarity. The names of leader Salaheddin El-Ayoubi and Abbasid Calif Abul-Abbas Ahmed (575-622 AH) are engraved on the dinar.

Research mission discovers ancient dinar, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, June 03, 2006.

cf. Salahuddin era dinar found in Egypt, NNN-MENA via Indian Muslim News, California, USA, June 03, 2006.

"A US archaeological mission from Memphis University has deciphered new mysteries about the life of ancient Egyptians, their rites before burial and mummification in preparation for the other life," Dr. Zahi Hawass, the Secretary-General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said on Saturday.

He said the American archaeologists had found a sarcophagus in an area five kilometres away from Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor.

Hawass said the secrets included rituals for burials, mummification and preparations for the after death period...

Heh, we're back to the spurious five kilometres again! Quite confusing this article as it is not obvious at first glance that they are talking about KV63.

Valley of the Kings reveals new secrets on life of pharaohs, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, June 04, 2006.

The Chicago House, a conservation group based in Luxor under the auspices of the University of Chicago, has been collecting and creating photographs and prints of antiquities dating back to the late nineteenth century. Their unique collection of nearly 40,000 images allows them to track the deterioration and help pinpoint the causes.

“What took centuries in antiquity is now only taking a few years,” says the project's Dr. Raymond Johnson. Johnson goes on to tell how even during his tenure here in Luxor, reliefs in photographs from the late 1800s, which were just as clear when he first arrived close to a decade ago as they were back then, are now completely gone.

Many archaeologists believe that if the present situation continues, the columns in the Luxor and Karnak temples will be so eroded that the entire structures will be in danger of total collapse in a few short years.

“There has been a huge change in the water table since ancient times,” Johnson says. “These temples never settled, and the only reason they’re still standing is because of the genius of the ancients’ building techniques.” He compares the process of the water leeching up into the stones to dipping the edge of a paper towel into a glass of water — the water will eventually climb all the way to the top of the paper towel...

High-Water Mark, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 06, June 2006.

FOX have several video clips from last night's Discovery Channel showing of Egypt's New Tomb Revealed.

The gold coffin was found under a grouping of 3,000+ year-old Pharaonic pillows inside a youth size coffin.

The surprise find is one of a series of recent treasures revealed by a team of world-renowned archaeologists led by Dr. Otto Schaden and the University of Memphis.

In what has become a true detective story, the team investigates clues that suggest the tomb is tied to Tutankhamun (it lies less than 50 feet from Tut's tomb)...

The First Egyptian Tomb Found in Over 80 Years, FOX6 San Diego, California, USA, June 04, 2006.

cf. The First Egyptian Tomb Found in Over 80 Years, FOX23 Albany, New York, USA, June 04, 2006.

There are also some clips to be found on the Discovery Channel's website Discovery Channel: Egypt's New Tomb Revealed.

Naperville Central could be the only high school in the country to have a resident, authenticated mummy...

"They had done a search, and the only area they ever found was Naperville Central," Henneberry said.

The mummified young girl — who was initially thought to be a boy before DNA evidence proved otherwise four years ago — was probably 5 or 6 years old when she died more than 2,000 years ago. She was brought to the school in the 1940s after being donated by Dr. Winifred Martin of Naperville, but sat in the basement for decades collecting dust until a teacher rescued her 22 years ago.

"It was in very bad condition, as you can imagine," Henneberry said.

Tom Paulsen, Naperville Central's principal at the time, donated $1,500 in 1992 for a restoration of the mummy by conservation expert Laura D'Alssandro of the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute...

Mummy rests peacefully at Naperville Central, The Chicago Beacon News, Illinois, USA, June 05, 2006.

University of Memphis archeology team members could know soon whether a bandage-wrapped body rests inside one of the seven ancient coffins they discovered in February in Egypt's Valley of the Kings.

Team members were pleasantly teased last week when they opened the fifth of the chamber's seven coffins and discovered a gold infant-sized sarcophagus under 3,000-year-old pillows. There was no mummy inside.

The team hopes to get a portable X-ray machine and scanner to the site within "a week or so" to peer into the last two, made brittle by ravaging termites, the team's leader, Dr. Otto Schaden, said in a phone interview from Luxor, Egypt, shortly before his 9 p.m. bedtime Thursday.

"The big coffin in the back looked very good," Schaden...

With 5 coffins down, no mummy to be found, Commercial Appeal, Tennessee, USA, June 02, 2006.

Ancient Egyptian tombs are priceless, and conserving them is a challenge to conservators. For the first time ever, researchers have used laser light to remove the accumulated dirt of millennia. The setting was the tomb of a high-ranking official not far from the Valley of the Kings.

If only Neferhotep could see it: 3,300 years after his death, a researcher enters his tomb, directs a beam of light at the wall, and the accumulated dirt of millennia comes off with no trouble at all! Dr. Michael Panzner of the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS in Dresden is the first scientist to use a laser for cleaning an Egyptian tomb. Adorned with wall paintings, stone sculptures and reliefs, the tomb was once that of the senior scribe Neferhotep, who served in the temple of the god Amun. "The paintings on the walls are immeasurably valuable, for they tell us a great deal about the life of a high-ranking official", explains conservator Birte Graue. In this project sponsored by the Gerda-Henkel-Stiftung, she and her colleagues Susanne Brinkmann and Christina Verbeek are seeking new techniques for cleaning the surfaces of ancient Egyptian tombs. The team is supported by the physicist Michael Panzner.

Armed with a mobile laser supplied by Clean-Lasersysteme GmbH, the Fraunhofer researcher went up into Neferhotep's burial chamber and started his pioneering work on a narrow strip of wall just a few millimetres wide...

High Tech Laser Cleaning Egyptian Tomb, Technology News Daily, undated.

Here's the scene: I'm riding into the Sahara Desert, inhaling a dry wind that has remained unchanged for thousands of years. I'm on my way to run my fingertips over the last remaining Wonder of the World — the hulking and hauntingly beautiful Pyramids of Giza, silhouetted against a sky so bright it's white. And I'm on the back of a camel named Michael Jackson.

Hold the phone. Let's talk about temporal confusion.

I came to Egypt expecting, as I suppose everyone does, a nation steeped in antiquity. It is, after all, the seat of one of the oldest advanced human civilizations. As any sixth grader worth his salt will tell you, it's where writing was invented, where nomadic wandering became an agricultural bureaucracy, and where architectural feats impressive even to those equipped with modern technology were completed with a flourish of human willpower. Beyond all that, I'm beginning to discover that Egypt is a nation whose 5000-year-old recorded history has been — and continues to be — profoundly moulded by outsiders. In the last 2000 years alone, this place has been run by Persians, Romans, Turkish Mamluks, Arabs, the French (briefly under Napoleon), the Ottomans, and the British. And now, even an independent Egypt (since 1952) depends, as the cornerstone of its economy, on the droves of tourists who enter its borders each year, cameras and guidebooks and Euros and dollars in tow...

A week in Egypt with Michael Jackson, the pyramids and unrelenting beauty, The Seattle Times, District of Columbia, USA, June 02, 2006.

The burnt remains of a 2,400-year-old scroll buried with an ancient Greek nobleman may help unlock the secrets of early monotheistic religion — using new digital technology.

A team of U.S., British and Greek experts is working on a new reading of the enigmatic Derveni papyrus, a philosophical treatise on ancient faith that is Europe's oldest surviving manuscript.

More than four decades after the papyrus was found in a grave in northern Greece, researchers said Thursday they are close to uncovering new text from the blackened fragments left after the scroll was burned on its owner's funeral pyre.

Large sections of the mid-4th century B.C. document — written in ancient Greek — were read by scholars years ago.

But now, archaeologist Polyxeni Veleni believes U.S. imaging and scanning techniques used to decipher the Judas Gospel — which portrays Judas not as a sinister betrayer but as Jesus' confidant — will considerably expand and clarify that text...

Not Egyptology I know but I thought it might be of interest.

Technology could 'fill in many gaps' of ancient papyrus, The Miami Herald, Florida, USA, June 02, 2006.

The ad said, "Mummy: The Inside Story."

It promised the inside skinny, so to speak, for anyone visiting Nesperennub, a 2,800-year-old Egyptian mummy on display at the Gulf Coast Exploreum in downtown Mobile.

The Exploreum is across the street from a stylish new convention centre and a huge cruise ship — two items that Pensacola talked about acquiring but never did.

Nesperennub is under a glass case at the Exploreum, a kid-friendly place that makes subjects fun and educational — a tough combination.

It's also thought-provoking for adults, especially those who like "CSI: Miami" and other television shows where medical examiners and forensics experts help unravel clues and answer questions...

After 2,800 years, mummy gets new life as teaching tool, Pensacola News Journal, Florida, USA, May 29, 2006.

An exhibition showing ancient Egyptian papyri opened in Sofia's National Library.

"The eternal charm of Egyptian papyri" is organised by the Egyptian Embassy in response to the active interest of Bulgarians towards the history of this ancient civilisation.

Much of the knowledge of Ancient Egypt comes from papyri and tomb paintings, created as early as 4000 BC.

Papyrus is first known to have been used in ancient Egypt, but it was also widely used throughout the Mediterranean region, as well as inland parts of Europe and south-west Asia...

Egyptian Papyri Art Secrets Unveiled in Sofia, Sofia Morning News, Bulgaria, June 02, 2006.

The regular antiquities roundup from TravelVideo.TV includes:

• Restoration of Rosetta
• Key archaeological finds in Sinai
• Queen’s mummy arrives in Cairo
• SCA to take legal action to retrieve mask
• Tutankhamen Antiquities Exhibition in US harvest $20M

Antiquity News from Egypt June 2006, TravelVideo.TV, Ontario, Canada, June 01, 2006.

... Although finding the mummified remains of a member of the royal family would be a boon for Schaden and his team, it's perhaps more important to public perception than it is to the archaeologists working in the Valley.

"The public perception is that the dig is a failure if there's no mummy, and that's just not true," Nystrom said. "For archaeologists, it's just as incredible to find a name, an inscription."

Nystrom says that's an important distinction because what gets the public excited isn't always what gets archaeologists excited.

Still, it's the public's furore over finds like KV 63 that keep the money flowing and the digs going...

A Royal Find in Valley of the Kings?, ABC News, USA, June 02, 2006.

German President Horst Koehler has conferred Merit on illustrious Egyptian archaeologist Dr. Ali Radwan, Professor of Antiquities at Cairo University.

Radwan was granted the medal for his contribution in enhancing cultural cooperation between Egypt and Germany.

Meanwhile, Director General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass, in statements to MENA, lauded Radwan's efforts and described him as the doyen of Arab and Egyptian archaeologists...

German President confers order of merit on Egyptian archaeologist, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, June 01, 2006.

By Zahi Hawass

Although I have spent most of my life working around the Pyramids, at the beginning of my career as an archaeologist in 1973 (right after the war) I worked in the Valley of the Kings. At that time, for security reasons, foreign expeditions were only allowed to work in Luxor, Aswan or Saqqara. I was sent with about 15 other Egyptian archaeologists to accompany foreign expeditions working on the West and East banks in Luxor. I left my post at Abu Simbel and joined the Yale-Pennsylvania mission working at Malqatta on the West Bank of Thebes. While I was there I met two great Egyptologists who have contributed to the field with their excellent work, David O'Conner and Barry Kemp.

In the afternoons we used to gather at the Marsham Hotel. Sheikh Ali Abdel-Rassoul was the owner of the hotel, and more importantly he was the last member of his family to know the secrets of the valley. It was this family that found the cache of royal mummies in 1871, and they even helped Victor Loret find the other cache in the Valley of the Kings known as KV 35. Also, everyone believes that the water bearer who found the entrance of the tomb of golden- boy Tutankhamun was a member of the Abdel-Rassoul family.

At that time, two things bothered me. The first thing that plagued my mind was something I had seen on a television film which featured the young — at that time — American Egyptologist Kent Weeks. In one scene the foreign film director showed Weeks entering the tomb of Nefertari. The tomb had been opened by the chief inspector of the West Bank, who held a lamp in his hand to make the scene more dramatic. Weeks was explaining the tomb to the chief inspector, who was holding the lamp and listening with his mouth open. He did not say a word..!

Dig days: Treasure without an end IV (Valley of the Kings), Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 797, June 01 - 07, 2006.

After more than eight decades in Germany, will Nefertiti make the trip back to her homeland, Nevine El-Aref asks.

When I first saw the serenely elegant bust of Queen Nefertiti in Berlin's Egyptian Museum, where a stream of visitors crowds in front of her gleaming showcase, I wondered if this fragile beauty, painted so vividly as if it had been completed only yesterday, would ever return to its homeland? This question is being debated by Egyptologists since it was raised recently in a speech by Zahi Hawass, the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) before presidents Hosni Mubarak and Horst Khöler during the official inauguration of the “Egypt's Sunken Treasures” exhibition in Berlin. Hawass asked the German government to offer the famous bust to Egypt on a three-month loan so that it could go on show at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to coincide with the centenary celebrations of the German Archaeological Institute in Egypt in November 2006.

In return, Hawass pledged that the SCA would offer another statue on loan to the Egyptian Museum in Berlin for the three months while Nefertiti was in Egypt.

Hawass told Al-Ahram Weekly that the SCA was willing to provide the Germans with all the guarantees required to assure the return of the bust after the completion of the exhibition. "However that would not affect or contravene Egypt's request to repossess this key item of the country's cultural heritage which it had been deprived of for almost a century," Hawass insisted...

The most beautiful of all, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 797, June 01 - 07, 2006.

By Lubna Abdel-Aziz

He is everywhere — London, Paris, New York, Rome, Luxor, Sharm, Hurghada, Alexandria. You can see him on NBC, ABC, BBC, CNN, TV5, DEUTSCHE WEILE, also, the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic, The History and the Learning Channels. You can read about him on the pages of The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and Le Figaro. His 33 books are in every bookstore around the globe, and if you cruise the Internet, you are sure to Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia him. You are likely to run into him at meetings, lectures, seminars, receptions, re-unions, graduations and memorials. He is charming, accessible and knowledgeable, and there is a sun that shines with constant splendour within him. Judging by his attire, he is an ultra-modern man, judging by his grey mane, he is a very ancient soul. His smile is permanent and infectious, his voice animated and passionate, his conversation, intense and engaging. Despite his swinging gait, his burden is heavy, for on his shoulders he carries a colossal legacy, passed on by those who came before him. Clearly, he was chosen to reclaim the glory of his forefathers.

Among the numerous awards bestowed upon him in the last two decades, the most recent was by TIME Inc in its 8 May issue of the world's 100 Most Influential People. This is the culmination of a tireless effort to keep the spotlight on his beloved Egypt, blazing and burning like the desert's midday sun. Zahi Hawass — for that is his name — has been selected by the popular US publication as one of 100 people who shape our world. Hawass's importance unquestionably lies in his activism, but also in his persona. He is confident, authoritative, flamboyant, and charming. It is not only what Zahi does, it is what Zahi is...

Limelight: Son of Pharaoh, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 797, June 01 - 07, 2006.

Tremendous interest surrounds the world premiere of artefacts that have lain under the sea for more than millennium — already thousands have visited in the few first weeks since the Martin Gropius Bau including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his German counterpart Horst Kohler opened the show.

Curators say the exhibit brings "a lost history" to light through some 500 artefacts never shown before. The exhibition owes its origin to marine archaeologist Franck Goddio.

For the past 15-20 years he has found and excavated 14 ships that have been resting on the bottom of the sea for hundreds of years, along with unique artefacts of Egyptian history, dating from the 7th century BC to the 8th century AD, off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt and in the nearby Bay of Abu Qir. It has taken years of painstaking work and state-of-the-art technology to recover them.

Berlin tourism official Hanns Peter Nergeron calls the exhibit the "cultural highlight" for 2006: "This exhibition will, without a doubt, attract and enthral many tourists and inhabitants of Berlin..."

Berlin museum's sunken treasures a hit, Expatia, Netherlands, June 01, 2006.

Visitors to the Tut exhibit may be puzzled by the dates listed on the information placards.

Tut, for example, is said to have been born in 1340 BCE.

His father, Amenhotep IV, began his reign in 1353 BCE.

Traditionally, years have been designated with "BC," meaning "Before Christ." Or with "AD," or Anno Domini, which is Latin for "year of the Lord," to roughly describe years after Jesus Christ's death.

The new BCE designation means Before Common Era.

The letters CE replace AD and mean Common Era...

BCE date designation called more sensitive, Chicago Sun-Times, Illinois, USA, May 27, 2006.

cf. Wikipedia entry for Common Era.

... archaeologists believe they have stumbled across one final secret: The mummified remains of the boy king's widow buried 3000 years ago.

In a mysterious shaft less than 15m from Tutankhamen's burial ground, US archaeologists found seven coffins.

They believe one they have not yet been able to open may contain the remains of Queen Ankhesenpaaten.

The tomb — found by accident by Memphis University team leader Dr Otto Schaden — contained seven coffins stacked closely together and ringed by 28 clay jars, each decorated with a beautiful face mask. The coffins were buried about 1320BC...

... Ankhesenpaaten's link to the tomb was further underlined when a coffin seal was found with part of her name on it.

"I think there is a 70 per cent chance that Ankhesenpaaten's mummy is in that last coffin," Egyptian antiquities head Dr Mansour Boraik said...

Mystery tomb could hold Tutankhamen's widow, The Daily Telegraph, Australia, June 02, 2006.

The Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA) website provides a window into the ongoing work of Dr. Mark Lehner and the international team of the Giza Plateau Mapping Project.

If you haven't visited their website yet then you are in for a treat. It is very slick and professional and jam packed with information and essays.

Ancient Egypt Research Associates.

The Discovery Channel have launched the official website that accompanies the documentary Egypt's New Tomb Revealed which is scheduled to air on the Discovery Channel at 9PM ET/PT on Sunday 4th June.

The site contains a nice interactive map of the tomb which allows you to click objects for more information.

Egypt's New Tomb Revealed, The Discovery Channel, USA.

It had been 84 years since a tomb was unearthed here in the scorching desert burial ground for pharaohs, and the hope, of course, was for mummies. What else could be inside the seven coffins, at the bottom of a shaft that until February had been sealed off from all but termites for over three millenniums?

Very nice pillows, for starters.

"No idea, I'm sorry," Elsie van Rooij, an expert on ancient textiles, said, when asked why it was that some burial worker had stuffed five pillows into the child-size coffin she was examining. Coffins usually hold bodies. She had never seen anything like it. Naturally, that pleased her.

"A tomb should be mysterious," she said.

After three months of painstaking work since the February discovery, with five of the coffins opened, no mummies have been found. So there is a chance that this is not a tomb at all, but rather a cache for used embalming materials.

But there is one big coffin left to open — the most tantalizing one, sealed, wedged into the back of the space and supported by pillows at its head and feet, with the kind of care that could suggest that someone important is inside...

At Tomb, Pillows but No Mummies So Far, The New York Times, New York, USA, May 31, 2006.

cf. Infant-Sized Gold Coffin Found! Newest Treasure is the Latest of Many Unearthed in the First Tomb Discovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings in Over 80 Years, Discovery Channel via PR Newswire, USA, May 30, 2006.

cf. The Roxanne Wilson interview page has been updated with the infant-sized coffin find including a couple of pictures, KV 63: A Look at the New Tomb, Archaeology Magazine, New York, USA, May 30, 2006.

cf. The KV63 official website has also been updated with the infant-sized coffin find including nine superb pictures, KV 63: A Look at the New Tomb, Amenmesse Project, University of Memphis, Tennessee, May 30, 2006.

They have been called mystical, awe-inspiring, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. But it is safe to say that in the 45 centuries the great pyramids of Giza have cast their formidable shadow over the desert, they have never before been described as a cuckoo clock.

But that is what Jean-Pierre Houdin said as he lifted his tall lanky body up the steps into the pyramid of Cheops, the largest of the three pyramids high up on the Giza plateau overlooking this teeming, ancient city on the Nile.

"This is not just a pile of rocks," he said, his words curled around a soft French accent. "This is a cuckoo clock."

Then with a short, friendly laugh, he loped through the cool, dank passage and examined his cuckoo clock with the enthusiasm of a child. He pointed excitedly at what he calls its mechanics — every carving, every joint, every scratch — all, he said, part of a fabulously intricate engineering design by ancient Egyptians.

"It is an engineering project, from A to Z," he said, again with the same friendly chuckle...

Great Pyramid as Cuckoo Clock? It Might Not Be Crazy, The New York Times, New York, USA, May 27, 2006.

A lengthy article from MSNBC about the discoveries in KV63 and an interview with Dr. Otto Schaden.

"Until we examine each coffin to some extent, we can't draw a conclusion," University of Memphis archaeologist Otto Schaden told MSNBC.com. "We can draw one, but it might be wrong."

Schaden spoke via telephone from the Valley of the Kings, where he and his colleagues are continuing to remove artefacts from the chamber, including jars of mummification materials and the coffins labelled A through G. During the interview, he gave a progress report on the dig as well as a behind-the-scenes perspective on a TV show chronicling the find, "Egypt's New Tomb Revealed," which premieres June 4 on the Discovery Channel.

Professional Egyptologists, as well as legions of fans, are keeping a close eye on what Schaden and his team are up to, because it's so rare to find a completely new chamber in the thoroughly-explored Valley of the Kings...

Mysteries still surround Egyptian chamber, MSNBC, USA, May 26, 2006.

When she was rediscovered three decades ago, in a darkened storage area at Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences, she caused a bit of a sensation.

Lying in a plain wooden crate was an Egyptian mummy, her gilded death mask undimmed by the passage of centuries.

The Egyptian government had restricted the export of such artefacts decades earlier, so the appearance in 1977 of a "new" one outside the country drew some interest.

X-rays taken at the time led researchers to identify the body tentatively as that of a 14-year-old girl.

But mysteries remained. When did she live, and where? How did she die? Might her dusty linen wrappings hold any clues as to her place in society, or the customs of her time?

In short, who was she..?

It's the oldest of cold cases: A girl's death 2,200 years ago, Grand Forks Herald, North Dakota, USA, May 26, 2006.

Adorned with lotus and papyrus columns, Egypt's top courthouse evokes the pharaonic temples of the country's ancient past.

The Supreme Constitutional Court, built in 2000, marked the most prominent attempt in decades to revive the pharaonic style in Egypt.

On the east bank of the Nile south of Cairo, the court has inspired more attempts to imitate the ancient.

The government has erected a series of neo-pharaonic buildings, the style apparently striking a chord with officials...

Architects try to revive pharaonic style in Egypt, Al-Arab Online, May 26, 2006.