[D]espite current media disappointment at the absence of bodies it will soon become apparent that KV63 is in fact a discovery of the most extraordinary significance — not for what the single chamber actually holds but for what it clearly signals, which is the definite presence in the Valley of at least one further tomb. The situation is this: as a chamber full of embalmers’ refuse KV63 stands in relation to a future burial as the KV54 embalming-cache in 1907 stood to the tomb of Tutankhamun. It represents without question an augury of further, significant discoveries to come.

Over the summer I have given much thought to the current state of play in the Valley, to the threat of further uncontrolled excavation and to a peculiar dilemma I find myself in: for the prospect of yet more tombs is based upon rather more than mere academic hypothesis. Just as ARTP’s radar survey of the central Valley first highlighted KV63 in 2000, so our project discovered clear evidence also for the existence and location of what appears to be a second new burial, ‘KV64’ — the tomb to which KV63 quite likely relates. Ought I now to be drawing attention to the freshly reviewed evidence for this tomb — if a tomb is what our feature indeed transpires to be? Or should I be maintaining a discreet silence in the hope that the present archaeological uncertainty in the Valley will eventually pass..?

Scroll down a bit as Nicholas's recent comments start on the 22^nd July 2006. His post of the 31^st goes on to give radar scan images and precise location maps.

Another new tomb in the Valley of the Kings: ‘KV64’ - I, Nicholas Reeves, Amarna Royal Tombs Project, July 28, 2006, via Greg Reeder at the HallOfMaat.

Two thousand years is a long time to wait for a CT scan, even by the standards of the beleaguered NHS.

But a small child mummified in ancient Egypt, became an unlikely patient at the MRI unit of Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital.

Doctors carried out the scan on behalf of the nearby Ashmolean Museum in an attempt to discover what lay beneath the mummy's bandages...

Researchers discovered that it was a young boy aged between four and seven, who was probably killed by pneumonia. Four metal buckles had been placed on the body — on the face and above the heart, stomach and genitals — to keep the bandages in place...

2,000 years on, CT scan reveals mystery of the mummy, Eleanor Mayne, The Daily Mail, UK, July 30, 2006.

The Field Museum in Chicago has sold 500,000 tickets to the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibition. More than 3,000 years after his reign, Tutankhamun, the celebrated "boy king," has proven to be a cultural phenomenon in Chicago and around the world.

The 500,000 tickets sold to Tut include a record number of groups from 41 different states. Visitors have travelled to see the exhibition from as far away as Alaska, California, Florida and Brazil. The Museum has sold more than 4,500 of its popular premium memberships, Tut at Twilight and Royal Tut. Both premium memberships include benefits such as discounted tickets, priority admission and exclusive member viewings.

Due to high ticket demand, The Field Museum will extend its hours to Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs on August 6, 12, 13, 19, 20, 24 and 27 until 9 p.m., with the last entry at 7 p.m. In addition, the Museum will open earlier in the mornings-at 7:30 a.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through September 3, 2006.

The Field Museum also will host Tut at Twilight nights as an opportunity for guests to view Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs during exclusive evening screenings with reduced crowds each Tuesday in August (1, 8, 15, 22, 29) from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. (last admission at 8:30 p.m.). Tut at Twilight gives visitors an opportunity to see the exhibition after work or school in addition to the Museum's regular hours. Tickets cost $50 each and include an audio tour narrated by Egyptian actor Omar Sharif. McDonald's will remain open, as well as the King Tut Store, located at the exit of the exhibition...

500,000 King Tut Tickets Sold at The Field Museum, PRNewswire via Yahoo! Finance, USA, July 31, 2006.

cf. Field Museum Reaches 500K Mark For King Tut, CBS2 Chicago, Illinois, USA, July 31, 2006.

Italian authorities say Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, one of several major U.S. museums accused of harbouring looted artefacts from Italy, has agreed on the outline of a deal to return multiple items.

In a joint statement, MFA Director Malcolm Rogers and Italian officials stopped short of claiming a complete agreement or disclosing details on artefacts, saying only that in a daylong Tuesday meeting, they "made significant progress toward a final agreement that establishes a cultural partnership."

But in an interview, Italian Cultural Ministry attorney Maurizio Fiorilli, the country's lead antiquities prosecutor, indicated that the conversation included discussion of 16 MFA-held objects with disputed provenance and that the core of the pact would include return of more than one object.

He also said he expected the deal to be finalized by Sept. 30 and the first object to be back on Italian soil by Oct. 4 [2006]...

Boston museum agrees to return artefacts, Italy says, Christopher Reynolds and Livia Borghese, Los Angeles Times, California, USA, July 28, 2006.

She's beautiful. She has emotion, character, serenity. And though she's but a plaster reconstruction, she's far more personable than her namesake whose mummified remains lie upstairs in the Reading Public Museum.

Nefrina the mummy was a woman who lived about 2,300 years ago in the Nile River city of Ahkmim.

The museum has had her X-rayed and CT-scanned. From that it has learned much about her life and her death from complications resulting from a badly treated hip fracture.

Still, the dry, gaunt face lying in linen tells little about her spirit.

Nefrina the reconstruction, however, looks at you with a quiet smile, and instantly takes life...

Science takes centuries off mummy's looks, Don Spatz, Reading Eagle, Pennsylvania, USA, July 28, 2006.

The notable French astronomer André Méchain, whose career spanned the French Revolution, said that when war divides peoples, art and science can serve to reunite them. This unusual and fascinating exhibition circles around Méchain’s claim while demonstrating, arguably, that modern democratic principles are deeply rooted in conflict, science, and art — or more precisely, symbolism based upon the visual culture of ancient civilizations.

Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign of 1798-1801 began when the young general set sail from France in 1798 with a fleet of 400 ships carrying some 55,000 soldiers and artist-technicians (known as “savants”). The expedition’s military objective — to block British trade with India — was inseparable from its scientific and artistic ambitions. Napoleon was bringing the French Revolution to Egypt, the better to annex it. Having set events in motion, however, he soon suffered defeat by the British, returned to France, and left the cultural mission in the hands of his soldiers and savants.

These young men, inspired by the ideals of the new France of the Revolution, mapped an area from Upper Egypt to the Nile’s vast delta and somewhat further north to Palestine’s borders. Along the way, they drew, catalogued, categorized, and ordered everything in sight.

What remains of Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign today is known as the “Déscription de L’Egypte...”

Egypt Rediscovered, Deborah Garwood, Gay City News, New York, USA, Volume 5, Number 30, July 27 - August 02, 2006.

NAPOLEON ON THE NILE: SOLDIERS, ARTISTS, AND THE REDISCOVERY OF EGYPT, Dahesh Museum. The site also includes a podcast by Bob Brier: Podcast with Egyptologist Bob Brier.

Archaeologists who measured the Egyptian pyramids at Giza more than 100 years ago were surprisingly accurate, a review of historical surveys has shown.

The paper, posted online by the Queensland University of Technology, reviews the major surveying projects of the pyramids Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus, built around 2600 BC, south of what is now the city of Cairo.

"They weren't that far out; their surveys were quite diligent and systematic and we're getting fairly good agreement using modern technology," said the paper's co-author Robert Webb, a lecturer in surveying in the school of urban development.

But Mr Webb says laser scanning, computer modelling and other modern technology has not brought us any closer to answering one of the most intriguing questions about the pyramids...

Pyramid pioneers were spot on, Judy Skatssoon, ABC News, Australia, July 28, 2006.

cf. Modern science can't unravel the pyramids, rediff News, India, July 28, 2006.

Tomorrow at 2am, when Cairo's traffic is at its quietest, Tahrir Square will be the stage of a major feat of transportation as a replica of the gigantic 19th-Dynasty statue of Ramses II — now at Bab Al-Hadid train station square — is taken on a trial run to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) overlooking the Giza Plateau.

The decision was announced on Monday by Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), at a press conference held in the SCA's premises in Zamalek. Hawass pointed out that the aim of the rehearsal was to experience the circumstances under which the actual move would take place. This will include the technique used in uplifting the statue, putting it in the steel cage and uploading it on the vehicles right through the journey to its new home at the GEM. Hawass said that if the trial proved a success the removal of the actual statue would take place on 25 August.

He told reporters that the statue would be transferred as it was, in one piece, mounted in an iron cage attached on two special vehicles capable of bearing the 83-tonne statue on its 30km trip. The vehicles were fabricated by the Arab Contractors Company, which will handle the moving operation in collaboration with German experts. The statue's scheduled route has been worked out in collaboration with the Cairo and Giza governors as well as the army, police and all the ministries concerned so that any obstacles will be removed.

"Moving the magnificent statue of Ramses II from the chaos that usually defines Ramses Square is the best decision that could be taken to protect this statue from decay," Hawass noted...

Rehearsing the move, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Issue No. 805, July 27 - August 02, 2006.

Living in the arid deserts of Ancient Egypt, a 10-year-old King Tutankhamun wasn't worried about his face paint smearing or his hair frizzing from humidity.

More than 3,000 years later, in the swampy heat that gripped Chicago last week, the young king was u renovation which brought plant operations into a 30,000 square foot facility at the museum.

The cooling system was installed in 2002 as part of a $23 million renovation that brought central plant operations into a 30,000 square foot facility at the museum...

Tut's caretakers require the exhibit to maintain a temperature between 68 and 70 degrees with 45 percent to 50 percent humidity, 24 hours a day. These ranges ensure the resin-soaked linen bandages covering Tut's salt-and baking-soda-treated leathery skin don't crack from climate-related expansion and contraction...

How Tut beats the heat at the Field, Esther J. Cepeda, Chicago Sun-Times, Illinois, USA, July 27, 2006.

Botanists Ahmed Fahmy and Rim Hamdy were out earlier this month to inspect the garlands and floral collars from Coffin ‘E’, with plans to return again next season. A few of our larger ‘treasures’ were transferred to the Luxor SCA magazine for storage, as they have been registered.

Following the installation of an iron gate covering the KV-63 entrance and the clearance of the far corner of the chamber floor (to make sure there were no hidden mummies or tunnels), packing of equipment and securing the crated coffins inside KV-10, both tombs were closed and padlocked on Sunday, July 9th.

After a few days of packing up I was on my way to Cairo via train (yes, via train) for a few days of meetings and paperwork before heading home to Chicago at the end of the month.

I will be bringing with me the long awaited images of Coffin E floral collars and much, much, more to pass on to our Webmaster, Bill Wilson.

Signing off...

Director Otto Schaden

There is also a short note from Bill and Roxanne Wilson.

KV63: Otto's Dig Diary, Dr. Otto Schaden, Amenmesse Project, University of Memphis, Tennessee, July 25, 2006.

A nicely painted but none-too-fancy 2,200-year-old Egyptian coffin that stirred up a hornet's nest of trouble late in May has joined the Field Museum's permanent exhibits on daily life in Egypt in the time of the pharaohs.

The coffin, on extended loan from Exelon Corp.'s chief executive, John Rowe, appeared in the museum's permanent Egyptian gallery Friday. Probably made by provincial artisans for a middle-class person of some means, the coffin, according to one Egyptian authority, is "colourful, whimsical and charming," but the sort of object museums usually don't provide space for public exhibition.

An avid history buff, Rowe bought the beautifully preserved empty wood coffin about 10 years ago from a Chicago dealer to display it in a glass case in his office at Exelon headquarters. He reluctantly gave it up last May 25, a day after Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, publicly castigated Rowe for owning such an object...

A home all can live with, William Mullen, The Chicago Tribune, Illinois, USA, July 25, 2006.

A giant statue of Pharaoh Ramses II will be moved next month from a congested square in downtown Cairo to a more serene home near the Great Pyramids in a bid to save it from corrosive pollution, Egypt's antiquities chief said Monday.

Exhaust fumes from trains, cars and buses, as well as subway vibrations, are damaging the more than 3,200-year-old granite statue at Ramses Square, its home since the early 1950s, when it was taken from a temple at the site of the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis.

The 125-ton statue — a popular feature on postcards and guide books — will become part of a new museum about a mile from the pyramids.

"We have to move that statue," antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said.

Contractors plan to transport a replica next week, as a test. If all goes well, the real thing will make its way through the sprawling city Aug. 25 [2006]...

Egypt to move famous Ramses statue in Cairo, Anna Johnson, AP via USA Today, New York, USA, July 24, 2006.

cf. Archaeologists tackle Ramses statue transfer, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 24, 2006.

An archaeologist who has spent decades studying sites in the Sahara says nomads who roamed the area millennia ago were the first to domesticate cattle.

At the time, what is now desert was a vast savannah with a humid climate, Stefan Kropelin of the University of Cologne told the BBC. When the climate changed and the area became one of the driest places on Earth, its inhabitants moved into the Nile Valley.

"They brought all their know-how to the rest of the continent - the domestication of cattle was invented in the Sahara in the humid phase and was then slowly pushed over the rest of Africa," he said. "This Neolithic way of life, which still is a way of life in a sense; preservation of food for the dry season and many other such cultural elements, was introduced to central and southern Africa from the Sahara."

The dry conditions in the Sahara, which have also left it almost empty of people and any other form of life, have had one ironic result - its archaeological sites are exceptionally well-preserved.

This relates to the two stories from last week.

Cattle first kept in Sahara, archaeologist says, UPI via Middle East Times, Cyprus, July 22, 2006.

In a journey of discovery much like opening an Egyptian tomb, work has begun to refurbish the exhibit that surrounds the mummy at the Wayne County Historical Museum.

The mummy, bought for the museum by its founder Julia Meek Gaar, is one of the most beloved exhibits — intriguing thousands of school children for decades.

The project to refurbish the exhibit and catalog the museum's Egyptian collection developed when Richmond native Bonnie M. Sampsell of Chapel Hill, [North Carolina] — who happens to have a passion for Egyptology — came home to visit her mother, Gene McClelland.

After seeing the current exhibit and talking with museum executive director Jim Harlan, they developed a plan for her to renew and expand the exhibit, catalog the collection and do more research on the items in the collection...

Even mummies need scenery change, Rachel E. Sheeley, Richmond Palladium-Item, Indiana, USA, July 24, 2006.

Scientists have tagged three northern bald ibis, among the last survivors of a species of Middle Eastern bird once so revered that it had its own ancient Egyptian hieroglyph, in an effort to save them from extinction.

Only 13 of the birds remain in Syria, Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the conservation agency BirdLife International said in a news release.

The birds, with their distinctive black Mohican-style plumage and long, downward-curved red bills, were once revered by pharaohs and were found throughout the Middle East, northern Africa and the European Alps...

Rare Ibis Tagged in Race to Save Bird of Pharaohs, Reuters via Environmental News Network, USA, July 25, 2006.

The UIC Department of Anthropology, The Field Museum and the University of Illinois Alumni Association extend an exclusive invitation to alumni and their guests (and the general public) to “An Evening With King Tut.” Activities include an exclusive introduction by James Phillips, exhibit curator and UIC professor. UIC faculty, Field Museum curators and graduate fellows will lead tours of the exhibit. Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres served. Complimentary parking.

Additional sponsors include the Liberal Arts and Sciences Alumni Association and the College of Nursing Alumni Association.

Tickets are limited, [for the August 31st 2006 event,] so register early...

An Evening with King Tut, Oak Park Journal, Illinois, USA, July 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...

Tut, Tut, it’s been almost 30 years since king’s visit, Trine Tsouderos, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Texas, USA, July 23, 2006.

The mummy will be a "wrap" in a week, but the high-tech exhibit is still drawing respectable attendance to the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center.

Mobilians have eight more days to experience the multimedia exhibit “Mummy: the inside story,” which closes July 31 [2006].

More than 85,000 have visited the museum to learn something about the Egyptian process of mummification and a 3,000-year-old priest named Nesperennub. They continue to attend the large-format movie "Mystery of the Nile," take virtual tours of the tomb of Nefertari, and show interest in the science of mummification in the Ciba Lab...

Mobilians have eight days left to see 'Mummy' exhibit, Thomas B. Harrison, Mobile Press-Register, Alabama, USA, July 23, 2006.

The pharaohs of ancient Egypt owed their existence to prehistoric climate change in the eastern Sahara, according to an exhaustive study of archaeological data that bolsters this theory.

Starting at about 8500 B.C., researchers say, broad swaths of what are now Egypt, Chad, Libya, and Sudan experienced a "sudden onset of humid conditions."

For centuries the region supported savannahs full of wildlife, lush acacia forests, and areas so swampy they were uninhabitable.

During this time the prehistoric peoples of the eastern Sahara followed the rains to keep pace with the most hospitable ecosystems.

But around 5300 B.C. this climate-driven environmental abundance started to decline, and most humans began leaving the increasingly arid region.

"Around 5,500 to 6,000 years ago the Egyptian Sahara became so dry that nobody could survive there," said Stefan Kröpelin, a geoarchaeologist at the University of Cologne in Germany and study co-author...

Exodus From Drying Sahara Gave Rise to Pharaohs, Study Says, Sean Markey, National geographic News, District of Columbia, USA, July 20, 2006.

cf. Ancient humans 'followed rains', Helen Briggs, BBC News, UK, July 21, 2006.

[T]his month, as Greece stepped up its campaign against the illegal antiquities trade and announced it would demand the repatriation of hundreds of looted works, the statue again became the focus of scrutiny. Mr Aboutaam may have exercised due diligence when he bought the masterpiece but authorities in Athens believe that before it entered his showroom it was passed through a chain of traffickers on the underground market. "We're investigating this statue and whether it was stolen very closely," says Giorgos Gligoris, who heads Greece's art squad. "We believe that it was, that it's a typical case of antiquities theft. We're in the process of studying photographs. The Italians, we have learned, may be claiming it and so may we. Our information from informers is that it was found in the Ionian Sea and then passed on, through I don't know how many hands, before being sold."

From his sixth-floor office in the Orwellian building that is the Athens police headquarters, the detective oversees a web of informants in and outside Greece. Among his targets is the freeport in Geneva where the sellers of museum-quality pieces often store their stock and where specialists believe the illicit journey of plundered art into some of the world's greatest museums often begins.

"We have people in Geneva because it seems that containers always pass through the freeport," he says. "Smugglers like Switzerland, with its flexible laws and good location, but they can see we're closing in on them..."

It's art squad v tomb raiders as Greece reclaims its pillaged past, Helena Smith, The Guardian, UK, July 21, 2006.

That a victim of a Palestinian suicide bombing would seek legal redress from an American museum might seem baffling to the uninitiated. But for Daniel Miller, 27, it is simply a way of extracting justice from a government that he blames for his suffering.

Because Iran helped to train and support members of Hamas, the militant group that carried out the attack along a Jerusalem shopping promenade in 1997, Mr. Miller and four other Americans who survived the attack decided to seek damages from the Iranian government in American courts.

In 2001 they won a judgment against Iran in federal court in Chicago; in 2003 a United States District judge in Washington awarded them about $71 million in compensatory damages and $180 million in punitive damages, to be paid by the Iranian government, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyer.

To collect on the judgment, the plaintiffs seized upon an unusual strategy shortly afterward: laying claim to some 2,500-year-old cuneiform tablets that are on loan from Iran to the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute. The survivors are demanding that the university sell the tablets, unearthed by American archaeologists at the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis in the 1930s, and compensate them with the proceeds.

Last week the Iranian government finally took notice, dispatching a Washington lawyer to District Court in Chicago to plead its case. In a hearing yesterday Iran was given until Aug. 21 [2006] to respond to the suit...

In a Lawsuit Aimed at Iran, Terror Victims Focus on Ancient Artefacts in a Chicago Museum, Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times, New York, USA, July 18, 2006.

Iran, U.S. Allied in Protecting Artefacts

In a case that raises issues of victims’ rights and cultural heritage, Rhode Island lawyer David J. Strachman aims to seize and sell Iranian property — including thousands of 2,500-year-old clay artefacts known as the Persepolis tablets — and channel the profits to victims of the 1997 terrorist attack...

Iran, U.S. Allied in Protecting Artefacts, Peter Slevin, The Washington Post, District of Columbia, USA, July 18, 2006.

More than a hundred years ago, German archaeologists began to excavate the remarkable tel (mound) of Megiddo. Since then, artefacts galore from 26 layers of civilization built on top of one another have been discovered. However, the site still has many untapped secrets waiting for a trowel or shovel to unearth and expose them to the light of the new millennium.

Scores of students from Israel and abroad, including archaeology buffs of all ages, are hard at work hoping to discover the unknown as they participate in this season's dig on and around Tel Megiddo.

For 25 years a German team worked the site, mentioned in ancient Egyptian writings as Thutmose III — one of the mightiest kings of Egypt — waged war upon the city in 1478 BCE. The battle was described for posterity in hieroglyphic detail on the walls of his upper Egypt temple.

The Germans were followed by teams from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and financed by John D. Rockefeller Jr., some of their finds ending up in the US...

Dig this tel, Lydia Aisenberg, Jerusalem Post, Israel, July 13, 2006.

War, politics, religious movements and natural disasters — all key players in the formation of human history. Now, Kathleen Stewart Howe has just added one more chief element to the list, one that most people would never consider as being pivotal in history: photography. Howe, the Sarah Rempel & Herbert S. Rempel ’23 Director of the Museum of Art and professor of art history at Pomona College, has found that photography played a significant role in shaping archaeology, especially Egyptology, from its very beginnings.

In her March 30 [2006] lecture entitled, “Egypt Recovered: Early Photographic Surveys and the Development of Egyptology,” Howe exposed photography’s dramatic impact on Egyptology. Since its introduction to the public in 1839, photography has been used as a record-keeper for dozens of archaeological expeditions to Egypt. During her informative oration at the Getty Villa, Howe enlightened the audience about three of the most important photographers and their expeditions: Maxime Du Camp, Félix Teynard, and John Beasley Greene.

According to Howe, Du Camp was the first photographer who wanted to “collect impressions of the orient,” which he did through a series of general views and close-up views of hieroglyphic tablets of monuments that he took during his Egyptian expedition. He used daguerreotypes to preserve the images and to create the first photographic travel book.

A few years after Du Camp’s expedition, Teynard travelled to Egypt in hopes of being able to convey a sense of experience through his photographs by actually spending time around the ancient sites. He produced a photographic atlas of Egypt, which included the first photographs of vandalized and defaced monuments.

Greene travelled to Egypt in the 1850s, after Du Camp and Teynard, but he went there as an excavator. He travelled to Egypt and found more to excavate than he had ever imagined existed. He only took photographs in order to keep a record of the excavations in which he participated, such as that of the Sphinx. It was Greene who kept the first systematic documentation of any excavation in history.

Howe said that these photographers have left a legacy that enables people today to understand the origins of both photography and Egyptology...

Modern technology uncovers the glory of ancient Egypt, Megan Westervelt, Pepperdine University, California, USA, July 14, 2006, via EEF News.

Prehistoric humans roamed the world's largest desert for some 5,000 years, archaeologists have revealed.

The Eastern Sahara of Egypt, Sudan, Libya and Chad was home to nomadic people who followed rains that turned the desert into grassland.

When the landscape dried up about 7,000 years ago, there was a mass exodus to the Nile and other parts of Africa.

The close link between human settlement and climate has lessons for today, researchers report in Science...

Ancient humans 'followed rains', Helen Briggs, BBC News, UK, July 21, 2006.

The past three months have not been easy for ALKAN Holding Company (AHC) chairman Mohamed Nosseir, locked as he has been in a bitter feud not only with the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) but, equally, with archaeologists and intellectuals resentful of a LE2.5 billion project to build the Cairo Financial and Tourist Centre (CFTC), a 260,000-square metre business and tourism megacomplex overlooking the Citadel. An ambitious project for which land has been set aside at the foot of the Muqattam Hills, the complex — initially scheduled for completion in 2002 — includes eight office towers, entertainment and shopping facilities, a 600-room five-star hotel and — the highlight, a CFTC donation — a glass-domed trading floor modelled on those of London, Tokyo and New York for the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange (CASE), which agreed to be headquartered there when the project was launched in 1999 but has, since the delay, reportedly backed out; rumour has it that CASE will move, rather, to the Smart Village on the Cairo-Alexandria highway.

Launched early February, the project was halted by Cairo Governor Abdel-Azim Waziri in response to a SCA intervention stating that the project, undertaken without the permission of the SCA Permanent Committee for Islamic and Coptic Antiquities (which refused to grant it in 2001 and again in 2005) constituted an encroachment on an archaeological site, violating Antiquities Law 117 of 1983. Events took a new turn as the media cashed in on the debate, with two seminars held at the Press Syndicate and the Supreme Council of Culture, with numerous parties accusing ALKAN of blocking the view of the Citadel, posing a threat to Islamic monuments and using explosives, thereby undermining the Citadel foundations and damaging an Ancient Egyptian quarry. According to the SCA Islamic and Coptic Antiquities Department head Abdullah Kamel, the project threatens not only the eastern side of the Citadel but the Mohamed Ali Fortress and the neighbouring Jacob Shah Al-Mehmendar dome as well. He added that the Muqattam Hills are already fragile: "The vibration of bulldozers and heavy construction equipment are a daily threat. When the committee granted preliminary approval in May 2006," Kamel elaborates on the official dynamics of the procedure, "it was by proxy, as it were, among a handful of members awaiting the 70-member monthly meeting. At the meeting the verdict was to form another committee to study all possible damage and take legal action where necessary." However, Kamel added, the SCA found out that ALKAN had started the construction work before getting the final approval on the project. In fact by 5 June, the project had been officially rejected again and the SCA demanded that ALKAN provide the required technical reports and abide by stipulations that the building should not be higher than the Citadel's eastern wall in the area from Al-Mubalat to the Al-Remeila Towers and that the architectural style be in harmony with the surroundings...

Who's afraid of Saladin?, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 804, July 20 - 26, 2006.

In the year 1417 a ceremony was held to mark the opening of the Al-Moayyad Sheikh Mosque in Al-Muezz Street. This event, so splendid that it has passed down in legend, was replayed last Sunday evening when the Ministry of Culture celebrated the completion of the mosque's seven-year restoration.

The honey-coloured mosque and mausoleum of Al-Moayyad Sheikh stands on the left hand side as one passes through the newly-restored gate of Bab Zuweila, one of the three Fatimid gates leading to the Khan Al-Khalili, or bazaar section, of Cairo. After its long restoration, the mosque is now ready to receive worshippers and visitors.

This edifice is a great example of Mamluke architecture. It has four façades. The main gate, a huge wooden door inlaid with copper, leads to a small vestibule opening on to the mausoleum where Sheikh Al-Moayyad and his eldest son are buried. A short corridor leads to the mosque's open court with its four colonnaded Iwans. The largest of these, the Iwan Al-Qibla, has a wooden ceiling decorated with gilded foliage. The mosque's two soaring minarets were actually constructed on the fabric of Bab Zuweila.

On the day of the reopening, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, along with scores of other Egyptian ministries and top government officials, watched a 15-minute documentary film narrating in depth the various restoration stages of the mosque — which cost the Ministry of Culture LE14 million...

From prison to prayers, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 804, July 20 - 26, 2006.

Tut clearly still has the ability to attract big audiences. After the Field Museum announced a year ago that Tut would return this year, Adler Planetarium and the Oriental Institute planned Tut-related exhibitions of their own, anticipating high public interest...

Through Oct. 8 [2006], the Oriental Institute, 1155 E. 58th St., in the heart of the University of Chicago campus, will feature a display of the surprisingly elegant photographs taken of Tut's tomb as it was opened in November 1922 by archaeologist Howard Carter...

Tut-related shows will be featured through Jan. 1 [2007] in both of the planetarium's sky-gazing theatres. The Sky Theatre re-creates the night sky in Tut's time, telling how ancient Egyptians incorporated the sky in their daily life and religion. The computer-driven SkyRider Theatre takes viewers on a digitally re-created tour of the temples and tombs of Tut's time, including a look at the boy king's tomb and the sumptuous treasure he was buried with...

Tut glut not quite what it was last time around, William Mullen, The Chicago Tribune, Illinois, July 17, 2006.

Egypt received 638,000 tourists during last May, Chairman of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization Statistics Maj. Gen. Abu-Bakr Al-Gindi said. European tourists to Egypt during this month hit 68.8% while tourists from the Middle East region and Africa amounted to 17% and 4% respectively. Number of Arab tourists increased by 15.3% thus hitting 129,000 tourists.

638,000 tourists visited Egypt last may, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 19, 2006.

We’ve come a long way baby. Peeing on a small, chemically enhanced stick, 4-5 days before our periods are due, to help determine whether or not a little nookie has become a little mass of rapidly developing cells hurtling towards being a baby. If that test can’t be considered reliable, we can duck into a doc’s office for a blood serum test. Poof. The instant results.

But pretend with me, for just a moment. You are an ancient Egyptian lovely, in the New Kingdom period. Some twelve hundred years prior to even Christ’s birth. The desert sands blow by your stone abode, maybe you’re applying your morning kohl and malachite, achieving that perfect Cleopatra look du jour. Suddenly, you feel ill. A bit peakish. Maybe as if you may vomit. Oh, darn that Ra. He’s sooo demanding after a day at the pyramids. Of all his wives, he just had to pick you, already a mother of seven. What to do? Oh, how can you know whether or not your household will be expanding? Whether or not your gold and lapis belt will soon be too snug?

Well, dear, go pee on some barley, of course. Or perhaps, some wheat. The seed to be exact. And if the barley grows, it’s a boy. The wheat? A girl, naturally. Nothing growing? No baby. D’uh.

It seems that the estrogens in a pregnant woman’s urine stimulate growth. At least in these two grains. And a study done in 1963 to determine the accuracy of this ancient pregnancy test revealed a 70% rate of being right-on. Go figure...

A History of the Pregnancy Test (or, Is the Rabbit in Heat?), Allison Welch Tannery, Bella Online, USA, July 15, 2006.

What: The Case of the Missing Scarab: Visitors will search for a missing golden scarab during this full day of activities at Adventure Science Center that includes deciphering hieroglyphics, taking measurements in cubits, exploring how the Egyptians built the pyramids with levers, and examining ancient broken pottery on their quest for the missing beetle.

Who: The Adventure Science Center in conjunction with The Frist Center for the Visual Arts exhibit. “The Quest for Immortality Treasures of Ancient Egypt” presents Pharaoh Forensics...

Midstate Datebook: Adventure Science Center holds Egyptian-theme event, The Tennessean, Tennessee, USA, July 15, 2006.

Who is the rightful owner of ancient artifacts – the famed Elgin marbles taken from the Parthenon, say, or the elegant Nefertiti head? Is it the museums and collectors housing them, or the lands from which these antiquities came?

The question takes on more relevance with each new case of ownership being passed back to the country of origin. In February, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art agreed to return several prized items to Italy. Last week, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles agreed to return two ancient works to Greece. Both countries claimed the items were stolen.

The Getty deal has emboldened Greece, which is drawing up a list of hundreds of suspect objects. "Whatever is Greek, wherever in the world, we want back," Giorgos Voulgarakis, Greek's minister of culture, told the British newspaper The Guardian.

That might send shudders through the museum world, but the key criteria for Greece and other countries is valid: They seek objects they believe were taken illegally. But just as important, they should keep in mind the concept of stewardship – the care of an object and the idea behind it...

The fine art of returning art, The Christian Science Monitor, Massachusetts, USA, July 18, 2006.

The Culture Ministry aims to build a museum in every city in Egypt to preserve its heritage and raise cultural and archaeological awareness among residents and visitors.

High-profile developments underway include the building of the Grand Egyptian Museum, National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation and Al Arish National Museum, and renovation of the Rashid National Museum, Coptic Museum and Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria.

The $350 million Grand Egyptian Museum, expected to attract five million visitors annually, will be the world's largest with around 150,000 artefacts when it opens in 2010 – making it larger than the Metropolitan in New York or British Museum in London...

New outlook for ancient wonders in Egypt, Janeta Novakovic, AME Info, United Arab Emirates, July 18, 2006.

cf. New outlook for Ancient Wonders in Egypt, Mena Reports / Al Bawaba, United Arab Emirates, July 18, 2006.

As archaeologists explore the latest tomb to be uncovered in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt's chief of antiquities says he believes 30% of the country's ancient monuments have yet to be found.

Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo, says many ancient cities are buried under modern ones. Some prominent ancient Egyptians, including the "most beautiful, famous queen," Nefertiti, probably were buried in the Valley of the Kings, but their tombs have never been found, he says.

... But Hawass announced last month that he believes the first tomb uncovered in the Valley of the Kings in more than eight decades might have once contained the remains of Queen Kiya, Tutankhamun's mother...

... The tomb, less than 50 feet from Tutankhamun's, contained seven sarcophagi but no mummies. Instead, archaeologists say, they have found artifacts that date back more than 3,000 years ago to the time of the boy king...

Nearly a third of ancient Egypt still uncovered, Jessica Sidman, USA Today, New York, USA, July 16, 2006.

For decades, Greece has noisily lobbied for the return of relics — especially the British Museum's Elgin Marbles, which were stripped from Athens' Parthenon in the early 1800s. Its efforts got a big boost last year, when Italian authorities put former Getty antiquities curator Marion True on trial for trafficking in looted works. Then in February, New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art agreed to return to Italy the Euphronios krater, a 2,500-year-old vase.

The Greek government is negotiating with the Getty for two other artefacts — a gold funerary wreath from the 4th century B.C., and a 6th century B.C. marble statue of a young woman. And it won't stop there. Time has seen an internal Culture Ministry memo listing 10 more wanted works...

Relics' Return, Anthee Carassava, Time Magazine, USA, Vol. 168, No. 4, July 24, 2006.

Romans lived in Coventry city centre and may have trained soldiers here, a secret archaeological dig has revealed.

Excavations behind the Herbert Museum have found the best evidence yet to suggest the city has Roman roots.

Previously experts believed the only Roman activity was at the [Lunt] fort in Baginton, but this sensational discovering [sic] means they were at the very heart of the city.

Archaeological director at The Herbert, Paul Thompson, says the finds from the dig are most likely to be from a military marching camp.

"The marching camps were used by the Romans to practice military manoeuvres like building trenches and forts", he said.

"Similar to TA exercises today, the soldiers would go off into the woods, if there were woods and practice."

"It could also be a Roman farm but there was evidence the ditch was backfilled quickly that suggests a temporary camp."

"We only found a few shards of Roman pottery which further supports the idea of a temporary site rather than a farm that would create more finds."

Paul explains this dig forms part of continuous archaeological activity across the city.

He said: "The finds in this site and at others in Coventry are important because of the way they fit into a bigger picture."

"We can definitely say this site is Roman and we are sending some charcoal pieces for carbon dating to get the date."

National Archaeology Week, July 15-23 [2006], coincides with this find and could be the perfect opportunity for you to discover what our ancient city has to offer.

Visit www.britarch.ac.uk for more information [or] drop in to The Herbert Museum.

Roman Camp Found, Richard Ashmore, Coventry Citizen, UK, July 13, 2006.

The Egyptian mission working in a subterranean water project at Karnak and Luxor temples found new statue of Ram during digging operations, said chairman of the Higher Council of Luxor Samir Farag on Thursday.

He said the company assigned of lowering the underground water level in the area found the statue by chance.

The project, carried out by a Swiss company with a US aid of LE 20 million , is scheduled to take two years to get the job done.

Egyptian mission finds new Ram statue in Luxor, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 14, 2006.

Two centuries ago, they walked like Egyptians. Now they're on the move again.

The Land of the Pharaohs exhibition was a huge hit with families at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle from 1993 until April this year, when the museum closed for a major renovation.

Children and adults alike got a taste of the everyday lives of the ancient Egyptians, exploring farming, personal adornment and religious beliefs.

But yesterday, two of the exhibition's mummies were being carefully boxed up in preparation for the exhibition's move to Segedunum Roman Fort, Baths and Museum...

Mummies on the move, Helen Rae, The Newcastle Evening Chronicle, UK, July 14, 2006.

Greece is to reclaim hundreds of looted art works and antiquities from museums and private collections around the world, the government said yesterday.

Emboldened by the J Paul Getty Museum's move to return two prized antiquities to Greek ownership, Athens had decided to demand more repatriations, said the culture minister, Giorgos Voulgarakis. A list is being made of items believed to have been illicitly removed.

"Whatever is Greek, wherever in the world, we want back," Mr Voulgarakis told the Guardian. "This development with the Getty is a very important step, but just the beginning." Asked how many works were in question, he said: "We're not talking about a handful, we're talking about hundreds of artefacts that have ended up in many different places..."

Greece demands return of stolen heritage, Helena Smith, The Guardian, UK, July 11, 2006.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni refused to budge an inch over the planned removal of the statue of Ramses II from Ramses Square. The move is scheduled for August 25 [2006].

At a press conference last month, Hosni explained that the statue was originally slated to be moved after the construction of the Grand Egyptian Museum wraps up, but the ministry has decided not to wait. Hosni said delays at the GEM and the fact that the massive statue stands in the way of urban development plans for Ramses Square factored into the decision.

While it waits for the GEM to open in 2011, the statue will be housed in a special hangar where experts will begin restoring it.

Culture 101: Carved in Stone, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 07, July 2006.

After well over two centuries of excavation, it is almost impossible to fathom the number of discoveries that have been made in Egypt — to the point that many have receded into history.

“If you dig anywhere in Egypt, you’ll find something,” says Azza Shawarby, national project director of the recently formed Egyptian Antiquities Information System (EAIS). She smiles and adds, “Even if you fall down, you will probably land on an artifact.”

And as the number of historical sites being excavated in Egypt continues to increase, so do the threats to their preservation. Natural menaces such as sand and wind remain threats, and their impact has only been compounded by man-made factors. Urban expansion have already covered many sites, as well as the agricultural growth needed to feed the expanding population. Forgotten sites, many of which are partially excavated and unprotected, easily fall prey to antiquities smugglers and developers.

The need for a single comprehensive database has become more pressing than ever, and since 2000, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) has been working with the Finnish Foreign Ministry to create an organization to map and describe all of Egypt’s historical sites.

EAIS recently inaugurated its Geographic Information System for use by various branches of the SCA. The cutting-edge system is a multi-functional computerized tool capable of collecting, storing, retrieving, transforming, displaying and analyzing massive amounts of data...

Site-ing the Source, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 07, July 2006.

It was to be a book like no other: bigger, more beautifully bound, more lavishly illustrated. But the man behind the world's most expensive travel book was no gentleman adventurer. He was a painter and decorator from Edinburgh with a big talent, and an even bigger ambition.

David Roberts travelled through the Middle East in the 1830s when such journeys were virtually unknown, sketching as he went. He published his work, The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia, in six immense, folio-sized volumes. Three of these volumes, covering the Holy Land and the surrounding area, bound in two magnificent books, will be auctioned at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh on Tuesday.

Valued at between £8,000 and £12,000, these books are increasingly rare. "So many copies have been broken up and sold as prints, it has reduced the number of complete copies enormously. It is very likely that this copy has been in Edinburgh since it was bought by an original subscriber," says Simon Vickers, a books specialist at Lyon & Turnbull...

The big draw, Susan Mansfield, The Scotsman, UK, July 08, 2006, via EEF News.

David Roberts Gallery at Museum Tours

Search for books on at Amazon.

For decades, scholars at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute have painstakingly pieced together ancient clay tablets they had on loan from the government of Iran — deciphering the cuneiform writings and studying what these thousands of fragments revealed about the history of Persia.

But now, this treasure trove sits in the middle of a politically charged legal battle that has museum professionals worried about the willingness of other countries to loan artefacts to the U.S.

A federal court last month upheld a decision to seize and sell off the collection, in order to raise funds to compensate Americans injured in a terrorist attack in the Middle East. The reasoning, according to court documents, is that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism...

Patty Gerstenblith, a professor of cultural property law at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, said this was believed to be the first case to link cultural artefacts on loan to terrorism litigation.

"The question now becomes, 'How do you treat cultural artefacts? Are they to be seen like any other kind of property, like land?' " Gerstenblith said...

Not a good direction to be heading in really. If these are seized to be auctioned merely for their monetary value then they are lost to the world and the archaeological community as they will end up in private collections.

Antiquities Stuck in Legal Limbo, P.J. Huffstutter and Kasra Naji, Los Angeles Times, California, USA, July 13, 2006.

cf. Iran wants disputed clay tablets returned from US, Edmund Blair, Reuters via Yahoo! News, USA, July 12, 2006.

Last year I wrote about the problems I had with American Customs at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. At the time I was on a lecture tour to promote my book, Hidden Treasures of Ancient Egypt, published by National Geographic. At the airport, the officer who was looking at my passport said politely, "sir, you will have to follow me," and took me to a room full of foreigners who did not speak English. After giving the officials in charge my passport and lecture schedule in the US, I sat in the waiting room for half an hour. This was especially remarkable, because my first lecture was at the White House. I was extremely upset, and I kept asking myself why this was happening to me.

I thought that my problems with American customs were solved when the American Embassy gave me an A1 Visa, the equivalent of diplomatic status. However, when I arrived at the airport in New York in May of this year, the customs officer asked me why I was there. I told him that I had been chosen by Time magazine as one of the Top 100 Influential People of the Year, and that I was attending a party at Lincoln Center in honour of this occasion. I even showed him a copy of the magazine...

Dig Days: Again a problem with the American customs, Zahi Hawass, Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt, Issue No. 803, July 13 - 19, 2006.

cf. Dig-days: A recent visit to the States, Zahi Hawass, Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt, Issue No. 705, August 26 - September 01, 2004.

cf. Dig days: Ambassadors remembered, Zahi Hawass, Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt, Issue No. 694, June 10 - 16, 2004.

Setting up an offshore, submarine archaeological site anywhere is not an easy task, let alone in a city with the water pollution problems of Alexandria. Yet the remarkable discoveries made by underwater archaeologists over the last decade justify further serious efforts for what would be Egypt's first ever offshore underwater museum.

The site and form gives cause for conjecture. Should it be in Alexandria's Eastern Harbour, the Sisila area, or Abu Qir Bay? What will it look like? Should it resemble the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney or the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology at the spectacular Uluburun Wreck in Turkey, or the Musée de Marine in Paris? All these display a collection of sunken ship wrecks, flora and fauna.

These questions and more were raised at an international workshop held last week in Alexandria to discuss the feasibility of constructing such a museum. On the table were a projected ground plan, an architectural design and a programme to study the environmental conditions of Alexandria's Mediterranean Sea and its state of marine pollution, the socio- economic problems related to the success of the underwater archaeological museum project and urban impacts. The workshop was held under the umbrella of UNESCO and the Ministry of Culture at the Alexandria Art Creativity Centre, where a multidisciplinary team of 28 international and Egyptian experts were gathered...

Under the waves, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt, Issue No. 803, July 13 - 19, 2006.

We began to restore the chest of the sphinx in April 2006. The reason for the restoration [was] because the chest was restored by lime and sand. We found that the wind took all the old restoration out. The restoration [is] finished.

That's the whole of the text. There are some nice photographs that accompany it though.

Sphinx Restoration Update, Zahi Hawass, Guardian's Egypt, July 2006.

Egyptian kings have magic for all of us. But even more than kings, queens — especially the great ones like Nefertiti and Cleopatra — capture our imaginations. It is perhaps Hatshepsut, who was both king and queen, who is the most fascinating.

We know that only four women became pharaohs in ancient Egypt. Three of these ruled at the end of dynasties, when power was slipping from the hands of the ruling houses. There was Nitokerty (Nitocris) from the end of the Old Kingdom; Sobekneferu at the end of the Middle Kingdom; and Queen Twosert, who ruled after the dynastic crisis at the end of the 19th Dynasty. In contrast, Hatshepsut ruled as a pharaoh during the golden age of Egyptian history, when Egypt ruled the East.

Recently, I was invited by Dorothea Arnold to give a lecture on Queen Hatshepsut on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition that is currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Hatshepsut, which means “united with Amun in front of the nobles,” was the daughter of Tuthmosis I and Queen Ahmose. She married her brother Tuthmosis II and had one daughter Neferure. She was the fifth queen of the 18th Dynasty, and had many great titles during this time. Some believe that her title “the divine wife of Amun” was her passport to becoming the pharaoh. After the death of Tuthmosis II, a son of a secondary wife Isis, Tuthmosis III, became the king, with his wife and stepmother, Hatshepsut, as his regent...

Quest for the Mummy of Hatshepsut, Zahi Hawass, Guardian's Egypt, June 2006.

During the opening of such sarcophagus, Hawass announced that this tomb was originally belonged to Tutankhamun's mother Kiya who died during giving birth to the boy king and was robbed during antiquities and used as a store house for embalming materials. His belief based on initial findings that include seals and inscriptions, a ceremonial bowl that exactly matches one found in King Tutankhamun's tomb including an identical hieroglyphics text. In addition Hawass added that the face depicted on top of one of the sarcophagi found is totally similar to the one of the boy king specially the nose and the cheeks.

Hawass asserted that such tomb could not ever belong to Tutankhamun's wife who had enough time to carve a large beautiful tomb that bode to a royal queen. She was the wife of Tutankhamun for ten years and then king Iye [Ay] for another couple of years.

In September, after the completion of cleaning works, all hieroglyphic texts engraved on the sarcophagi will be studied in an attempt to reveal more secrets of the tomb or it could solve one of the mysteries of Tutankhamun...

Last Sarcophagus Opened at KV 63!!, Zahi Hawass, Guardian's Egypt, July 2006.

Excuse the delay in updating the diary, as events have been very hectic these last few weeks with the clearance of Coffin ‘E’ and preparations for shutting down the site for the season.

Coffin ‘D’, the infant coffin, has been removed from KV-63. The wood coffin is covered in gold, but unfortunately empty. The face and head area appear to be in good condition and elaborately ‘executed’; but the remainder of the wood is in poor condition due to termite damage. The coffin measures ca. 46 cm in length, thus a bit longer than the gilt coffinette from Coffin ‘G’.

Coffin E — Many garlands and floral collars appear to be in very good condition, including some with papyrus backing and one with gold intertwined.

Shortly, a multitude of images displaying Coffin ‘E’ and its contents of exquisite garlands and collars will be posted. In the meantime, a few images have been added on Photo Page 2. We apologize for the delay in posting new images but all photos for the website need prior approval by Dr. Zahi Hawass before posting...

KV63: Otto's Dig Diary, Dr. Otto Schaden, Amenmesse Project, University of Memphis, Tennessee, July 09, 2006.

An Egyptian archaeological expedition has discovered Greek-language engravings in Alexandria, Egypt's Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni announced on Tuesday.

The engravings, which were discovered close to the Amoud al-Sawari monument, are said to date back to the times of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (ruled 161-180 AD.)

The secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said the engravings are six lines long and were found etched on an artefact measuring 50 centimetres long and 36 centimetres wide, which may perhaps be part of an ancient altar.

The engravings are said to be writings glorifying the supreme ancient Greek deity Zeus along with several other Greek gods...

Greek language engravings discovered in Alexandria, dpa via Monsters & Critics, UK, July 11, 2006.

After months of intense scrutiny of its collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles said today ay that it had agreed to relinquish ownership of two of four rare ancient works that the government of Greece says were illegally removed from within its borders.

The compromise accord, which was initially reached in May at a meeting in Athens between the museum’s director, Michael Brand, and the Greek culture minister, Georgios A. Voulgarakis, provides for the return to Greece of a large stele, or grave marker, acquired by the museum in 1993 and a small marble relief from the island of Thasos bought by the museum’s founder, the oil magnate J. Paul Getty, in 1955.

The Getty has not yet worked out the formal arrangement under which the stele and the relief will be repatriated, but officials said the accord might include a provision for long-term loans from Greece. Talks are continuing on the other two objects sought by the Greek government, with goal of reaching an accord by late August, officials said.

Mr. Brand said the museum decided to give up title to the stele and votive relief even though negotiations are incomplete because the Getty was eager to establish a new working relationship with Greece...

Getty Museum Will Return 2 Antiquities to Greece, Hugh Eakin, The New York Times, New York, USA, July 10, 2006.

cf. Getty Will Return 2 Greek Artefacts, Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino, The Los Angeles Times, California, USA, July 11, 2006.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) supported the Egyptian government's development project in the ancient Karnak area in Luxor.

A UNESCO report said that the Karnak project is very well planned and systematic, striking the right balance between preserving Egypt's legacy and Luxor's planning.

There was a fuss about protecting the residential compound and the 19th century house of the French Egyptologist Georges Legrain, being situated on the doorstep of the Karnak Temple.

UNESCO officials said that protecting the historical site in Egypt is the sole responsibility of the Egyptian government which has every right whether to keep or demolish Legrain's house and the residential compound.

UNESCO supports Egypt's development plan in Luxor, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 09, 2006.

Egypt will launch a roaming Pharaonic museum to tour 10 Japanese cities for two years, as a token of gratitude for Japan's support for the establishment of the Grand Museum of Egypt.

Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni told reporters Monday that the museum, to be launched on July 14, would exhibit pieces discovered during the last 40 years by the Japanese Waseda University's archaeological mission to Egypt.

Japan, he noted, insured the mobile museum, which included 327 pieces chosen from various Egyptian archaeological locations, with USD 25 million , and would provide advanced equipment and expertise to the Egyptian Museum as well as grants for four training courses in Japan for Egyptian archaeologists.

The Japanese government loaned Egypt USD 298 million for the establishment of the Grand Museum of Egypt project near the Pyramids of Giza plateau.

The project aims at establishing a state-of-the-art complex of museums and facilities to provide visitors with access to a broad range of information via advanced technologies.

Egypt launches roaming Pharaonic museum in Japan, Kuwait News Agency, Kuwait, July 10, 2006.

An Ancient Egyptian poem could be the oldest description of suicidal thoughts.

The poem, entitled Dispute over Suicide, was written by an unnamed Egyptian writer between 2000 and 1740 BC.

A new analysis by a psychiatrist and an Egyptologist claims that the poem describes the "psychopathology" of suicidal thoughts.

The analysis suggests ancient civilisations could provide insight into wider mental health issues.

It comes as the Royal College of Psychiatrists gathers in Glasgow for its annual meeting today.

That's the lot. The poem comes from Berlin Papyrus No. 3024 and is variously know as "The dispute between a man and his ba" or "The discourse between a man and his ba" or "The conversation between a man and his ba" the first being the one Lichtheim uses. There is an earlier translation by Faulkner called "The man who was tired of life".

A copy of the Faulkner translation can be found here: Debate between a man tired of life and his soul. The hieroglyphs from Faulkner are reproduced here: The Man who was tired of Life, Faulkner, R.O., Journal for Egyptian Archaeology, No. 42, 1956, pp. 22-26.

An essay on the subject can be found here: Discourse of a Man with his Ba: the chaotic heart and the just ways of the living soul in Ancient Egyptian didactical literature & funerary anthropology, Wim van den Dungen, 2001.

Ancient poem's insight into suicide, The Scotsman, UK, July 10, 2006.

UPDATE: I have found the original press release for this here: Ancient Egyptian poem could be oldest description of suicidal thoughts, The Royal College of Psychiatrists, London, UK, July 10, 2006. This states that the poem in question is actually "The Eloquent Peasant" but the lines quoted are from the original poem I listed above.

Pharaoh (Fir'auna) stands tall in the annals of the history of man's interaction with power. On Monday, April 24, 2006, I found myself in the presence of the remains of the famous Pharaoh Rameses II (Rameses the Great), who arguably had his reign during the period of Prophet Musa (AS).

To this very day, the experiences within it restate the vanity of man. In that small corner of Cairo Museum lies helplessly the once great man, who wielded so much power and influence. Where is the power or influence-? The answer is not far fetched. Power, except that of Almighty Allah, is ephemeral no matter the length of time.

Apart from Rameses the Great, a good number of Pharaohs reigned in ancient Egypt. It is widely believed that about 7000 years ago, a young prince called Narmer or Menes, unified the northern (Red) and southern (White) ancient Egyptian territories to become Egypt's first Pharaoh. Subsequently, many other Pharaohs emerged including Djoser, Khufu or Cheops, Khafre or Chephren, Menkaure or Mycerinus, Unas, King Ahmosis, Tuthmosis III, Akhenaten, Tutankhamen or King Tut, and others...

At Home With the Pharaohs, Abdullahi M. Gulloma, allAfrica.com, July 07, 2006.

A report released recently by the Central Agency for Public mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) said that the total number of tourists who visited Egypt from January to April 2006 hit about 3 million with an increase of 13% against the figure of the same period in 2005.

The report added the tourist nights reached about 21 million in the same period.

Tourist number increased by 13% in 4 months, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 06, 2006.

This Sunday — July 9, at 9:00 pm ET/PT — Discovery Channel will air "King Tut's Mystery Tomb Opened." The program is about the recent discovery and opening of KV63, the first tomb found in the Valley of the Kings since the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb (KV62) in 1922.

KV63 seemed to have coffins but no mummies. The finds included embalming supplies (natron and linen), sealings (linking the tomb with Tut), pillows, oil and storage jars, and a miniature coffin of pink gold ... At the beginning of summer, there was still hope that the coffin farthest from the entrance might contain a mummy.

The new Discovery Channel documentary covers the opening of that coffin, what was found inside it, and what archaeologists thought of the tomb. The raw footage I was able to view showed an on-site interview with Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities; discussion between Hawass and project director Otto Schaden about the pink gold coffinette; and the opening of the coffin. The film of the opening is amazing: conservator Nadia Lokma seems out of her mind with worry, Hawass is giving orders, and Hawass and Schaden can't help but pitch in with the lifting...

The Final Coffin, Mark Rose, Archaeology Magazine, Archaeological Institute of America, New York, USA, July 06, 2006.

On our way back to the hotel we passed by the Cleopatra baths, a natural basin of immense beauty, fit only for the mysterious queen that has captivated minds for centuries. A natural sea water entrance and exit that has been chiselled into rectangles, allows the water inside the basin to renew itself depending on the level of current. Just sitting inside, one hears the echoes of waves while the rays of sunlight illuminate its entrance like a star-lit tomb. The sounds and smells of the Cleopatra baths provide an intimate experience with nature in its most rudimentary form. Some daredevils were diving from the top of the basin's alarmingly high structure, as an elderly man fished for crabs in the surrounding rocks.

In terms of archaeological finds, Matrouh might not stand out yet it has had its fair share of historical events partly due to its geographical importance to Egypt as one of its major western entry points. It is from Matrouh that Alexander the Great embarked on his quest for the Oracle of Amun in Siwa in 331 BC so as to confirm his divinity. Its coastal route represented the safest passage way across North Africa for everyone from the Greeks, Romans and Arab merchants to pilgrim caravans. According to Harvard scholar Oric Bates, Matrouh came to be known as Paraetonium during the time of Alexander. Bates says the name came after one of Alexander's men shot an arrow at a gazelle which missed, prompting Alexander to say, "fellow you have shot wide of the mark," which evolved into "wide of the mark", paraetonium in Latin.

Paraetonium also witnessed the romantic saga of Anthony and Cleopatra versus Octavian, later to become Emperor Augustus. Cleopatra anchored her fleet in present day Matrouh, where she directed part of her military campaign. After Anthony's men mutinied against him in Paraetonium, siding with Cornellius Gallus, he again rallied some of his fleet hoping to re-enter Paraetonium and bring his men back under his leadership. As Anthony called to his men across the walls to return to his allegiance, Gallus sounded trumpets so that his voice could not be heard. After Gallus destroyed most of his fleet, a weary Anthony headed east to fight Augustus in Pelsium, where he met his final defeat. According to some accounts the two lovers may have spent their last hours together in Paraetonium...

Where Cleopatra loved, Pierre Loza, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 802, July 06 - 12, 2006.

The pearl of the Mediterranean, Alexandria is not only renowned for its Bibliotheca, the Great Lighthouse and its sunken treasures but also hidden archaeologies obscured amidst bustling streets of Egypt's second largest city.

The tallest monument still standing in Alexandria is Amoud Al-Sawari (Column of the Horsemen). This is what the Arabs called the granite monolith of Aswan with a shaft 30 metres high, better known as Pompey's Pillar. Pompey was one of Julius Caesar's bitter foes. Having lost the civil war to the renowned Caesar, he fled to Alexandria. In 48 BC and once Pompey reached Alexandria, he was decapitated, with his head being sent to Rome as a token to gain the emperor's favour. It was believed that Pompey was buried where the pillar stands today. However, this is not true and the name Pompey's Pillar is a misnomer as the pillar was erected in 293 AD in honour of Roman Emperor Diocletian.

Pompey's Pillar is the obvious remains of what was once a religious complex dedicated to the cult of Serapis. Ptolemy I, founder of the Greek dynasty of rulers, formulated an Egyptian-Hellenistic God. His objective was to melt the ancient Greek and Egyptian religions into one and thus unit the two civilisations; he named his newly invented God Serapis. Ptolemy's plan worked and soon Serapis' cult not only spread across Egypt but the entire Mediterranean area. Soon, each Greek city was building its own Serapeion. Alexandria was no different and it also built its Serapis-dedicated temple in the area of Pompey's Pillar. Unfortunately, the whole complex was laid to ground in 391 AD when Bishop Theophilus decreed the eradication of paganism. Only the pillar and a couple of sphinx-like statues remain.

Snap Shots, Mohamed El-Hebeishy, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 802, July 06 - 12, 2006.

... While brushing the sand off the discovery, Hawass announced that he believes the tomb originally belonged to Tutankhamun's mother Kiya, who died while giving birth to him. In antiquity the tomb was robbed and used by embalmers to store their materials. Hawass's belief is based on initial findings which include seals, inscriptions, and a ceremonial bowl similar to one found in Tutankhamun's tomb. Hawass added that what gave his theory more credence was that the face depicted on top of one of the sarcophagi was very similar to the face of the boy king as we know it, especially the nose and the cheeks. "Such a tomb could never belong to Tutankhamun's wife," Hawass insisted. He explained that as the wife of Tutankhamun for 10 years, and afterwards the royal wife of his successor, Iye, for two more, she had enough time to carve a large, beautiful tomb for herself that would be fitting for a royal burial.

Hawass also promised that in September, after complete cleaning, all the hieroglyphic texts engraved on the seven sarcophagi would be studied in an attempt to reveal more secrets of the tomb, or even help solve one of the mysteries of Tutankhamun...

... Hawass continued that inscriptions had been found on some of the pottery shards, one of which said: "Year five, wine of Tjaru, a place in Sinai." A beautiful alabaster jar that was found inside one of the coffins bears the remnants of a faint text, but again no royal names were found...

A thing for ever, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 802, July 06 - 12, 2006.

Protected for Eternity Opens October 8, 2003 at Memorial Art Gallery.

Journey back in time to ancient Egypt. Explore a world ruled by gods and goddesses. Unlock the secrets of the hieroglyphs. Learn about the elaborate processes and magical rituals intended to protect body and spirit alike. The journey begins with the Memorial Art Gallery's latest interactive installation for all ages, Protected for Eternity: The Coffins of Pa-debehu-Aset.

The installation showcases one of the most significant MAG acquisitions ever-a pair of coffins that once held the mummy of an Egyptian official of the 4th century BCE. Pa-debehu-Aset’s lavishly decorated anthropoid coffin (shown here) was unveiled in 2001 to much media fanfare. Protected for Eternity: The Coffins of Pa-debehu-Aset also displays his equally colourful outer coffin, antiquities from the Gallery’s collection and a mummy and other objects on long-term loan from the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA.

Space is limited in the Gill Centre, so while you’re at the Gallery, plan to visit our ancient collection on the second floor. Take advantage of a variety of activities for all ages offered in conjunction with the new exhibit. Entrance to the Gill Centre is free with Gallery admission.

This is an ongoing exhibition I spotted in an arts roundup article.

Ancient Egyptian coffins are focal point of new interactive exhibit, Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, New York, USA, 2003.

If reporters write the first draft of history, explorers and archaeologists produce the first sketches of prehistory. Surveying a ruin before few suspected that anything existed there before, and until recently feeling free to carry off artefacts in the name of art and science, they have enjoyed the special privilege of nosing around remote places, from Petra to Mesa Verde, without a plane to catch.

The idea behind this smart collection [— — ], edited by the anthropologist Brian Fagan, is that any number of visitors over the centuries to sites in the Middle East, Rome, Greece, China, Central Asia and Mexico have been in a broad sense archaeologists. Recorded accounts from any period, even if wrong-headed, form layers that can be profitably sifted.

The book excerpts dozens of restless and incongruous writers — Gustave Flaubert, Hiram Bingham, Mark Twain, Robert Byron and Rose Macaulay, and contemporary trekkers like Paul Theroux and Tom Bissell — so that we can compare their notes to near and faraway places.

For example, William Stukeley, the 18th-century English doctor and clergyman who promoted a theory of Stonehenge as home to a priestly caste of Druids, now qualifies as a kook. "Stonehenge has never fully recovered from the Reverend Stukeley's vision," remarks one modern-day scholar. And yet in his eagerness to mystify the meaning of the stones, Stukeley encapsulates the amateur spirit of the period. "He was one of many travellers of modest means who went in search of the past by simply riding out close to home," Mr. Fagan observes...

Looking down on other tourists is also a centuries-old pastime. Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, whose "Handbook for Travellers in Egypt" was published in 1847, wrote that "the travellers who go up the Nile will I fear soon be like Rhine tourists. & Cheapside will pour out its Legions upon Egypt..."

An Anthology of Archaeological Travel Writing, Richard B. Woodward, The New York Times, New York, USA, July 02, 2006.

‘Time is money’. Haven’t you heard this statement very often? From our childhood we are taught to value time and not to waste it carelessly. In today’s fast hi-tech life all our voluntary activities, from eating to sleeping, are performed minute-by-minute according to the clock. Today, it is unthinkable to function without our time-measuring machines.

It is interesting to find out how the measurement of time first began. We know that time was first split into day and night and finally into various units of time. The history of time-keeping is the story of the search for even more consistent actions to regulate the rate of a clock.

All clocks must have two basic components: a repetitive process to mark off equal increments of time. Early examples of such processes included movement of the sun and stars, increment marked candles, oil lamps with marked reservoirs, hourglasses and in the Orient, small stone mazes filled with incense that would burn at a certain pace.

These were means of keeping track of increments of time and displaying the result. Our means of keeping track of time include the position of clock hands and a digital time display. So, from huge ancient sun-dials to contemporary atomic clocks, here's something to interest you...

Measuring Time, Mukul Sharma, The Statesman, India, July 04, 2006.

The remnants of ancient civilizations inspire a certain awe, and not only for their artistry. They are like voices from people who lived thousands of years ago — exotic but strangely familiar.

On Wednesday, the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum in Springfield will unveil a permanent gallery called the "Hall of Ancient Treasures," featuring art from ancient Egypt, China, Rome, Greece and other areas.

"We have such a strong collection of ancient art, some of which has never been displayed," says Heather R. Haskell, director of the Springfield Art Museums on the Quadrangle...

Museum offers a modern look at ancient art, Pat Cahill, The Republican, Massachusetts, USA, July 02, 2006.

An increasing number of traces indicate that on a rock shelf above the temple of Hatshepsut is a tomb belonging to a Pharaoh from the 21st dynasty — says Prof. Andrzej Niwiński of the Institute of Archaeology at Warsaw University. If this hypothesis proves right, Polish archaeologists are a step away from a great find. However, there is one obstacle in the way of solving the mystery — a 1000 ton rock hanging over the precipice.

Prof. Niwiński is heading the work on the Rock Archaeological Expedition run by Warsaw University in collaboration with the Ain Shams University in Cairo. The area of research is a 100m tall rock wall on the back of the temple of Hatshepsut, which is being reconstructed by Polish archaeologists.

According to Prof. Niwiński, Egyptian pharaohs who have not been found in the Valley of the Kings, or other known necropolises, may be resting in Deir el Bahari.

“There is a text from the beginning of the 18th dynasty in Egypt, which talks of a huge downpour that destroyed earlier tombs. After this natural disaster, the kings decided to move their place of burial to a higher spot. This matches my hypothesis about a tomb above the temple of Hatshepsut” — explains Prof. Niwiński...

A Tomb under hanging Rock, Szymon Łucyk, Science & Scholarship in Poland, Poland, June 30, 2006.

Swiss archaeologists are joining the scramble to recover invaluable ancient remains in Egypt before they are lost forever beneath modern developments.

Cornelius von Pilgrim is leading efforts to unearth evidence of how people lived thousands of years ago near the southern city of Aswan.

"Many ancient towns are being covered by modern towns with deep foundations that destroy the ancient remains," von Pilgrim told swissinfo.

The archaeologist from the Swiss Institute for Egyptian Architectural and Archaeological Research in Cairo has been working alongside Egyptian experts for the past six years in Aswan.

"We still do not know much about these old towns. They have been neglected because they are more difficult to dig and not as spectacular as tombs and pyramids..."

Race on to save Egypt's ancient treasures, Matthew Allen, Swissinfo, Switzerland, July 04, 2006.

Last week, two mummies from the Milwaukee Public Museum received state-of-the-art computerized tomography, or CT, scans at GE Healthcare in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

The scans will produce three-dimensional images of the mummies that will help uncover how these ancient Egyptians lived and died.

Researchers also will be able to visualize what the mummies looked like when they were alive and build sculptures of their faces.

Carter Lupton, an archaeologist and vice president of museum programs, will analyze the images over the next few weeks. Because the mummies have been scanned before, he has a general idea of what he'll find. But, he said, advances in technology will provide clearer pictures...

Mummies yield more secrets to a new generation of scanners, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin, USA, June 30, 2006.

cf. Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium.

Archaeologists labelled it "The Golden Age of the Pharoahs". Perhaps no other single treasure from that era has done more to mesmerise public attention than the glowing, gold-bejewelled mask of ill-fated young King Tutankhamun.

Travellers from North and South America have been following Tut's slow progress across the US on an almost two-year odyssey, displaying incomparable treasures from his family during the Eighteenth Dynasty.

It turned out to be much safer and far less expensive than jetting off to Cairo to view them at the Egyptian Museum. Perhaps you might like to do the same, with air service now making it easily accessible.

Nearly 130 pieces of ancient treasure that may never leave Egypt again are definitely worth the effort. It will be at Chicago's Field Museum until January 1, when it goes to Philadelphia's [Franklin Institute] for a final exhibit.

Although it has drawn captivated crowds, the museum offers several less crowded, more private ways to savour the treasures in more solitude. More about that later ... Come along as we tour the wonders last seen in America 30 years ago...

King Tut reigns in Chicago, Shirley Rose Higgins, The Bermuda Royal Gazette, Bermuda, June 30, 2006.

cf. Tutankhamun Returns to Chicago, Trine Tsouderos, The Southern Illinoisian, Illinois, USA, July 02, 2006.

Three exhibits at New York museums display Swiss, Mayan and Napoleon-themed pieces.

When the Met mounts one of its Egyptian shows, there's no better theater in town - these monumental works are invariably presented and lit with a majesty that evokes their original intentions. The show about the 15th-century B.C. female Pharaoh Hatshepsut is no exception...

The Dahesh Museum, at 580 Madison Ave., has an extremely stimulating show, "Napoleon on the Nile," on the impact of the French army on Egypt and of Egypt on the French mind. In addition to his army, Napoleon brought a battalion of French scientists and artists with him. Among their achievements was the discovery of the Rosetta stone, which enabled modern men to translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The show is full of fascinating material, including some breathtaking drawings of Egyptian animals by Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire...

Triple your local treasures, New York Daily News, New York, USA, June 25, 2006.

You'll still have time to see one of the summer's family favorites at the Met. It's a queen who would be king. This queen's name is a mouthful, but CBS 2's Dana Tyler reports that her royal legend is full of intrigue.

As soon as you walk into the Met's great hall, there's a 15,000 pound hint of what you should see in the museum. This imposing sphinx depicting Egypt's first important female head of state welcomes and directs museum-goers to the second floor for "Hatshepsut: From Queen To Pharaoh." This show explores a kind of sovereign gender switch.

Hatshepsut: From Queen To Pharaoh rules at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until July 9 [2006]...

At The Met: 'Hatshepsut From Queen To Pharaoh', WCBS-TV, New York, New York, USA, July 02, 2006. Includes video.