Ancient Egypt developed over 3,000 years ago, and still today I'm fascinated by that historical period. And I'm even more fascinated by the Japanese company Solid Alliance's announcement of the new Hieroglyph Love USB Memory keys. What's special about these USB keys is that hieroglyphics are on them.

From left to right, the five USB Keys mean: Ankh (Always Together), Gentle Heart, Courtship, Love, and Joy.

According to the company, "In ancient Egypt, hieroglyphs carried a sacred power to chronicle events and protect beliefs. We have created USB keys containing the same powerful words as the hieroglyphic script of ancient times. A surge of "love", "joy" and the like can be drawn to you even as your data is protected."

Each Hieroglyph Love USB Memory key holds 256MB, supports USB 2.0, and sells for ¥3,680 Yen (˜$31.50 USD, [˜£16.50]).

That's quite expensive really for a 256MB USB flash drive as you can easily get a branded 1GB one from for the same price. For example the Sandisk Cruzer Crossfire 1GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive.

Hieroglyph Love USB Memory Keys: Spread the Love, Jennifer DeLeo, GearLog, August 30, 2006.

The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia will open its next major exhibition, Treasures of Ancient Egypt, on Oct. 5 [2006].

The exhibit will feature more than 200 Egyptian artefacts on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

"After listening to our visitors and understanding that it was the Egyptian portion of Art of the Ancient Mediterranean World that was of most interest, we booked this exhibition from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston," notes gallery director Jeffrey Spalding.

Treasures of Ancient Egypt presents a broad range of works from statuary and relief, to coffins, the funerary arts and everyday objects. Much of what we know about ancient Egypt comes from the temples and tombs that housed the gods and served as eternal resting places for the dead. These tombs were filled with statuary, clothing, jewellery, furniture, pottery, tools and weapons.

Egyptian treasures coming to AGNS, The Halifax Chronicle Herald, Nova Scotia, Canada, August 30, 2006.

Andrew Dalby, author of , argues that the attribution of the poems to Homer was founded on a falsehood.

Homer’s link to the poems, Dalby writes, stems from an “ill- informed postclassical text, the anonymous Life of Homer, fraudulently ascribed to Herodotus,” a respected Greek historian who lived from around 484-425 B.C.

Herodotus does mention Homer in his work Histories, but by then the legend of the mysterious, blind, male poet had already taken root, Dalby says.

Dalby explained to Discovery News that the earliest references to Homer by writers such as Herodotus and the Greek poet Pindar indicate the poet lived around 800 B.C.

But based on geographical references in the poems, Dalby believes the Iliad was composed in 650 B.C., while the Odyssey was written in 630 B.C., well after Homer’s supposed lifetime...

Scholar: Iliad, Odyssey Penned by Woman, Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News, USA, August 28, 2006.

The US billionaire Philip Anschutz will rein back investment at the Millennium Dome, scrapping plans to build two luxury hotels, a Cirque du Soleil-style theatre and exhibition centre, if the licence to build Britain's first mega-casino is not granted to the Greenwich site, an inquiry heard yesterday...

But the government last year cut the number of mega-casino licences to one. Since then, AEG has made clear it will scrap a string of investments if casino plans are thwarted. Vulnerable proposals include that of making London the European stop for its Tutankhamun exhibition. AEG will also withdraw its involvement in film promotions at the dome's proposed cinema complex...

Dome hotels will be axed if casino is refused, inquiry told, Simon Bowers, The Guardian, UK, August 31, 2006.

Before the Kimbell Art Museum opens “Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh” on Sunday, bone up on your mummy myths and facts [with this quiz]...

I expect nothing less than 100%!

Trivia: Ancient Egypt 101, Shannon Sutlief, The Dallas Morning News, Texas, USA, August 25, 2006.

See how the former King of Egypt lived when you browse about the Egyptian Museum, located in Cairo, Egypt. More than 120,000 items can be found at this museum, ranging from ancient sculptures to alluring artefacts hailing from the tomb of King Tut. With a collection boasting intriguing items from around the world, the British Museum in London is a great alternative for the Egyptian Museum, which offers the largest ancient Egyptian art outside of Cairo. Although this museum is home to roughly 7 million artefacts, you will have the opportunity to visit 4 million of these highly regarded gems...

The Most Visited Worldwide Museums, Yona Williams, Associated Content, Colorado, USA, August 29, 2006.

Archaeologists moving graves in an old cemetery discovered something that looks like it came straight out of ancient Egypt.

Dan Allen, an archaeologist hired by developers, has seen it all over the years while clearing coffins and bodies.

But, a discovery made Tuesday is rare. Allen and other archaeologists found a pre-Civil War cast-iron coffin shaped like an Egyptian mummy while moving a cemetery for developers at a site on Whites Creek Pike in North Nashville.

“I've only seen three of these in my life,” Allen said...

Mummy-Shaped Coffin Found While Moving Cemetery, News Channel 5, Tennessee, USA, August 29, 2006.

cf. Video footage: Mummy-Shaped Coffin Found While Moving Cemetery, News Channel 5, Tennessee, USA, August 29, 2006.

The key issue for scholars in evaluating the volcano's effect is in resolving a dispute over the exact time of the eruption, Cline says. Some archaeologists, based on pottery and ancient Egyptian inscriptions, put the date at 1500 B.C. Experts in radiocarbon dating put it further back, to at least 1600 B.C. In April, a pair of new radiocarbon reports in Science magazine, one based on leaves and twigs buried in the eruption, overlapped to pin the date to between 1613 to 1627 B.C. Egyptologists such as Manfred Bietak of Austria's University of Vienna told Science they were unimpressed with the new dates however, so the debate continues...

Ye gods! Ancient volcano could have blasted Atlantis myth, Dan Vergano, USA Today, New York, USA, August 27, 2006.

cf. New Carbon Dates Support Revised History of Ancient Mediterranean, Michael Balter, Science, USA, Vol. 312. no. 5773, pp. 508 - 509, April 28, 2006.

cf. Santorini Eruption Radiocarbon Dated to 1627-1600 B.C., Walter L. Friedrich, Bernd Kromer, Michael Friedrich, Jan Heinemeier, Tom Pfeiffer, Sahra Talamo, Science, USA, Vol. 312. no. 5773, p. 548, April 28, 2006.

cf. Chronology for the Aegean Late Bronze Age 1700-1400 B.C., Sturt W. Manning, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Walter Kutschera, Thomas Higham, Bernd Kromer, Peter Steier, Eva M. Wild, Science, USA, Vol. 312. no. 5773, pp. 565 - 569, April 28, 2006.

She's not as famous as Cleopatra, but Hatshepsut's rise to power in ancient Egypt has the makings of a movie. Add the fact that her name was effectively erased from history after a prosperous reign of 20 years, and this compelling saga takes on the aura of mystery.

The timing couldn't be better. The actual mummy of the world's first great female ruler was found [Hatshepsut's mummy found] during preparations for "Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh," a blockbuster show that opens today at the Kimbell Art Museum.

Hatshepsut ascended the throne about 1473 B.C., in a manner that would hardly be approved of nowadays. As the eldest daughter of King Thutmose I, she married her younger half brother, Thutmose II, serving first as queen and then, following his death, as regent to her young nephew and stepson Thutmose III...

She Who Must Be Obeyed, Janet Kutner, WFAA-TV, Texas, USA, August 27, 2006.

As well as savouring an array of artistic and architectural delights, visitors to Siena can now learn how to make the cosmetics of the Pharaohs.

The Tuscan city's Santa Maria della Scala complex is holding workshops on preparing ancient Egyptian make-up, skin creams and beauty potions.

The initiative is accompanying an exhibition at the complex entitled 'Igiene e bellezza nell' antico Egitto' (Hygiene and Beauty in Ancient Egypt).

"Oils, perfumes and beauty products were used daily in ancient Egypt for aesthetic and hygienic reasons, but also to protect people from the sun, sand and wind," organizers said...

Ancient Egyptian beauty lessons, ANSA, Italy, August 29, 2006.

BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF ART

Old-fashioned museological Egyptology meets state-of-the-art, user-friendly installation in the permanent exhibition “Egypt Reborn.” The sunny, spacious galleries present thousands of objects, tracing an evolution from the pre-dynastic period in 3500 B.C. to the era of Roman influence. Wonders include a lavishly painted cartonnage with matching interior coffin lid, a frog-shaped childbirth amulet in brilliant blue faience, and a mummified crocodile from the crocodile cemetery at Kahun. An almost infinite listing of favourites is possible — just don’t miss the bird-headed terra-cotta figure thought to be a fertility goddess, one of the oldest, most renowned, and most beautiful artefacts in the world. A new section of the exhibition, a set of thirty old and rare books assembled under the heading “Egypt Through Other Eyes,” documents Western fascination with ancient Egypt over the last couple of centuries. Through Nov. 12 [2006]...

Art: Museums and Libraries: Brooklyn Museum of Art, The New Yorker, New York, USA, August 28, 2006.

Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to bid farewell to the 3,200-year-old red granite statue, which weighs 83 tonnes and was wrapped in plastic and thick padding for the painstakingly slow 35km journey, which took 10 hours.

Only the face was visible.

"We are going to miss you. Cairo will never be the same again," shouted 23-year-old Ahmad Sami as the statue started moving...

Thousands bid adieu to 3,200-year-old statue, Reuters via Gulf News, UAE, August 26, 2006.

Along with the Suez Canal and oil and gas revenues, tourism is one of Egypt’s main sources of foreign currency and, as the number of tourists increase every year, so does the importance of the money they pump into the national economy.

Patterns, however, are shifting, with tourists looking for something more than just the traditional tour of the monuments or cold drinks on a hot beach. With a little bit of development and forethought, Egypt has the potential to meet the new demands of worldwide tourists.

The scale of the industry is impressive. Last year, the number of visitors to Egypt increased from 8.1 million to 8.6 million, with Germany provided the largest number of visitors, 979,000, more than any other European country.

Egypt has always been famous as the land of the Pharaohs, and has relied on this for its tourism for a long time. But Egypt has much more to offer than the Valley of the Kings and the Giza Plateau...

Egypt more than just the land of Pharaohs, African News Dimension, August 27, 2006.

The red granite statue of Ramses II now stands before Babul Hadid Train Station in downtown Cairo. It is one of the most splendid statues carved for this renowned pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty, who lived for 90 years and ruled Egypt for 67 years. The statue was discovered in 1882, broken into six pieces, in a palm jungle at Mit Rahina village in Saqqara, almost 30km away from the Giza Plateau. All attempts to restore the statue in situ failed until 1954, when it was transported to its current location at Babul Hadid where it was restored and reassembled by inserting iron bars inside the body. The statue of Ramses II soon became one of Cairo's most famous landmarks and a symbol of the ancient Egyptian civilization in the capital city of Cairo — the square bears his name.

But throughout the decades, urban development, housing expansion, traffic congestion, and the increasing rate of pollution in the square has affected the statue. To protect such a great colossus from decay, a decision was made by the minister of Culture and approved by the Supreme Council of Antiquities' Permanent Committee to relocate the statue to the location of the Grand Egyptian Museum overlooking the Giza Plateau...

Good Move for Ramses II in Egypt, Hazel Heyer, TravelVideo.TV, Ontario, Canada, August 29. 2006.

The red granite statue of Ramses II now stands before Babul Hadid Train Station down- town Cairo. It is one of the most splendid statues carved for this renowned pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty, who lived for 90 years and ruled Egypt for 67 years.

This statue was discovered in 1882, broken into six pieces, in a palm jungle at Mit Rahina village in Saqqara, almost 30km away from the Giza Plateau. All attempts to restore the statue in situ failed until 1954, when it was transported to its current location at Babul Hadid where it was restored and reassembled by inserting iron bars inside the body. The statue of Ramses II soon became one of Cairo's most famous landmarks and a symbol of the ancient Egyptian civilization in the capital city of Egypt, even the square bears his name. But through out the decades, urban development, housing expansion, traffic congestion, and the increasing rate of pollution in the square has affected the statue. To protect such a great colossus from decay, a decision was made by the Minister of Culture and approved by the Supreme Council of Antiquities' Permanent Committee to relocate the statue to the location of the Grand Egyptian Museum overlooking the Giza Plateau...

The removal of Ramses II Statue, Zahi Hawass, The Plateau, Guardians.net, August 27, 2006.

Tourist artistic "Charming Egypt" exhibition was opened in the Chinese capital Beijing on Sunday 27/08/2006 as part of Egyptian tourist promotion efforts.

The exhibition houses 150 artistic paintings depicting the history of Egypt and the way of life of Egyptians over the various historical eras.

The exhibition was held on the occasion marking the 50th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between Cairo and Beijing.

Attending the exhibition were Egyptian ambassador in China Mahmoud Allam along with other Egyptian embassy staffers and representatives of Arab and diplomatic missions.

Egyptian exhibition opens in Beijing, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, August 28, 2006.

The BBC have a picture slideshow and a video of the Rameses statue move.

Slideshow: Cairo moves 3,200-year-old Pharaoh, BBC News, UK, August 25, 2006.

cf. Giant Ramses statue gets new home, BBC News, UK, August 25, 2006.

cf. Video: Giant Ramses statue moved, BBC News, UK, August 25, 2006.

cf. Ramses statue moved to new home, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, August 26, 2006.

A review of Jonathan Tokeley's .

His proposal to free us from this belief system is to argue that objects from ancient Egypt are a commodity or resource like any other. Like such things, they can be bought and sold, and they can also be privatized. Western dealers and auction houses should be free to operate within Egypt. This would force prices up to international levels, and eliminate corruption and secretive dealing. (More money might well put an end to the improvised cutting of corners which the author detects everywhere in Egypt, but it would also introduce other forms of behaviour, some of them less than desirable, and probably less than legal.) Because the market would be freed, objects of art would find their way into the hands of the latter-day equivalent of Plato’s Guardians, people of sensibility and wisdom who are fit to be entrusted with the benefits of civilization.

Presumably there is a difference between stealing to order and buying to order, but one still wonders how brave this proposed new world would turn out to be in practice. In recent years the economy of Egypt has been liberalized to some degree, and the beginnings of a freer market in antiquities have made themselves felt. But if there is progress of a sort being made here, one can only conclude that it will come in spite of a book like this, and not because of it...

How to own an artefact, John Ray, Times Literary Supplement, UK, August 16, 2006.

The exhibit [the Field Museum] in Chicago, titled "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," has 130 treasures from the tombs of Tut and his royal ancestors loaned by the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt.

The exhibit includes about 50 major artefacts from Tut's tomb, including one of the gold and inlaid canopic coffinettes that held internal organs. This one held his liver.

The other artefacts, including statues and jewellery of gold and semiprecious stones, are from other royal graves of the 18th Dynasty (1555-1305 BC)...

FIVE THINGS: About King Tut's return, Patricia Schroth, Detroit Free Press, Michigan, USA, August 25, 2006.

Nothing looks better in the Kimbell Art Museum than extremely large pieces of stone sculpture. Though the building was designed to hold a collection of European portraits and Asian art, when an ancient Egyptian show is installed, it seems as if the building were designed specifically for that purpose, and the works look like they were made for this particular space. No other period of art strikes such a resonant chord with the Kimbell.

Such is the case with "Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh," an exhibit organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The large pink granite sphinxes of Hatshepsut; the black diorite figure of Senenmut holding Neferure, Hatshepsut's daughter; and the giant sandstone head of Thutmose I, Hatshepsut's father, look like they were made to reside for eternity in the marble halls of the Kimbell. The textural surfaces of rough stone polished to a sheen then pitted by time play against the similar surface of the Kimbell's cement and marble walls.

And the scale of gallery height to larger-than-life statue is quite flattering. Paintings hug the walls and leave the middle space a void, but these large statues fill the barrel vaults and command the gallery centre. They project like actors on a stage, becoming larger and more heroic...

A majestic use of Kimbell's space, Gaile Robinson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas, USA, August 25, 2006.

With her scandalous back story of incest, usurpation and disappearance, you'd think that Hatshepsut would be one of the best-known Egyptian monarchs. Instead, she was lost for more than 3,000 years. Her stepson Thutmose III saw to that — he struck her name from official records, destroyed her temples and defaced her statues. Her cultural achievements that influenced successive dynasties were smashed into rubble, and the sands of millennia eventually buried all traces that she or they had ever existed...

The lost pharaoh, Gaile Robinson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas, USA, August 25, 2006.

The hieroglyphics that cover the columns and walls of Egyptian temples are in danger of washing away. Groundwater constantly seeps into the stone on which they are engraved, depositing a corrosive layer of salt on the surface as it evaporates. Yet despite the danger that the precious inscriptions could soon be lost, Egyptologists still trace them by hand — a laborious and time consuming process. “It can take years to produce a final drawing,” says Peter Brand of the University of Memphis in Tennessee, who directs the Hypostyle Hall project at the temple of Amun-Re at Karnak, near Luxor.

Now researchers working at Amun-Re are hoping a simple software tool developed by a team led by Élise Meyer of the National Institute of Applied Sciences of Strasbourg, France, will speed up the process. “The history of the Egyptian people is engraved on these walls and columns,” says Meyer. “If these inscriptions disappear, that history is lost.”

To transcribe the engravings, the system first transforms photographs of the object taken from different angles into a flattened, head-on image of its surface, using a technique commonly used to turn aerial images into maps. The Egyptologist then uses an adapted version of the AutoCAD 3D drawing program to record the hieroglyphic...

Egyptian inscriptions saved by a mouse, Celeste Biever, AlphaGalileo, August 23, 2006.

cf. Egyptian inscriptions saved by software, Celeste Biever, New Scientist, Issue 2566, August 26, 2006.

Last Tuesday Ramses Square was a hive of activity as engineers and technicians surrounded the 83-tonne red granite colossus of Ramses II while the massive vehicle which will be used to transport the statue to its new home approached to rest beneath the statue, which was already suspended in its stainless steel cage. On the other side Egyptian and foreign photographers, journalists and TV crews gathered to record the unique event. A sense of tension prevailed over the square, but everything went according to the planned schedule. The statue will remain in its cage on the vehicles until tomorrow at 1:00 am, when it will begin its overnight journey to the site of the planned Grand Egyptian Museum overlooking the Giza Plateau.

The move comes after three trial runs implemented by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the Arab Contractors Company. The first and second runs took place using limestone blocks to test the weight of the colossus on the vehicles, the Monib Bridge and the roads, while the third was made with a replica statue to prepare the engineers and workmen sociologically and technically for handling the real statue, as well as checking any obstacle that might obstruct the smooth flow of the "royal" cavalcade.

Ramses II's journey from Cairo's main train station to the museum is expected to take from eight to 10 hours with a speed varying between five and seven kilometres per hour...

The pharaoh stirs, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 809, August 24 - 30, 2006.

cf. Massive statue of pharaoh to be moved from central Cairo, CBC, Canada, August 24, 2006.

cf. Giant Ramses statue gets new home, BBC News, UK, August 25, 2006.

Fascinated with ancient Egypt and the engineering marvels that this ancient civilization was able to pull off? Now imagine seeing a pyramid, a life-sized sarcophagus, a re-creation of Tutankhamen’s mask, plus much more all made entirely from hundreds of thousands of LEGO® bricks! Come discover the beauty and wonder of this lost world or challenge yourself to build your own version of Egypt. But don’t forget to take your picture as the face of an intricate Egyptian sarcophagus!

Until September 04, 2006.

LEGO®: Secrets of the Pharaohs, ScienceWorld, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 2006.

An Egyptian mystery to rival the cursed tomb of King Tut emerged this week at Forty Hall when a researcher from the British Museum contacted the Museum's Manager about some mysterious Egyptian figures in the museum collection.

The museum discovered the four valuable and ancient Egyptian Shabti, or funerary figures, in its collection; but as they had been there as long as the team could remember no-one knew who had donated them or where they had come from.

The Egyptian Shabtis are small figures of adult male or female form inscribed with a special formula taken from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which it is intended should be recited. They would have been placed in the tombs of pharaohs and other important dignitaries, to do work for the pharaoh in the afterlife...

Mummy figures unearthed in Enfield, Londra Gazette, UK, August 24, 2006.

It is only few hours that King Rameses II statue leaves its 54 years old location at Rameses square to head by midnight to his new location at the grand Museum at the Cairo-Alexandria desert Road.

Cairo and Giza governorates are getting ready for the move of king Rameses which is considered an important event.

King Rameses II to move Friday to the grand museum, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, August 23, 2006.

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said that the Supreme Council of Antiquities mission has discovered five statues of sphinx each are as long as 120cm at the rams road, Luxor.

This discovery falls within the plan of the council to rediscover road which is one of the most sacred roads linking the temples of Luxor and Karnak, Zahi Hawass secretary general of the council said.

Five statues for the Sphinx discovered at Rams Road, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, August 24, 2006.

cf. Archaeologists find five headless sphinxes in Luxor, Dpa via Monsters & Critics, UK, August 24, 2006.

This Friday, August 25th at 6am local time, when Cairo traffic is at its calmest, the colossal statue of 19th Dynasty Pharaoh Ramses II will begin its journey from outside Bab Al-Hadid train station in Cairo to its new home at the site of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) overlooking the Giza Plateau. For over 50 years, exhaust fumes from trains, cars and buses, as well as subway vibrations, have been damaging the 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.

Archaeology enthusiasts, Egyptian history buffs, or simply anyone interested in great feats of engineering can witness Ramses' 24-hour journey from Cairo in Google Earth with the click of a mouse. This historic 16-mile relocation has been documented as a KML (Keyhole Markup Language) file which will overlay this route in Google Earth or Google Maps on the Google Blog at: googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-to-move-ramses-ii.html. In addition, broadcast-quality video footage is available from theNewsMarket at: thenewsmarket.com/Google.

Google Earth Fly-Over Imagery Available for Historic Move of Pharoah Ramses II Statue, Megan Quinn, Google Inc. via BusinessWire, USA, August, 23, 2006.

cf. How to move Ramses II, Sherif Iskander, Google Inc., Google Blog, USA, August 23, 2006.

The History Channel special "The Egyptian Book Of The Dead" focuses on perhaps the most famous known example of the scroll. It was commissioned by a temple scribe named Ani at a period around 1250 B.C.E..

This two-hour special is incredibly informative, and gives the viewer a real sense of both the history and tradition behind the scrolls known as "The Book Of The Dead." It also provides a nice glimpse of what it was like to track down ancient objects in the anything goes period of archaeology.

It's a real treat to watch, but my only complaint is that it includes a bit too much unnecessary padding. It would have been a much better 90-minute special than it is weighing in at two hours. Cutting the extra time wouldn't have excised anything of importance, and would have drastically increased the pacing...

Review: The Egyptian Book Of The Dead, Rick Ellis, All Your TV, USA, August 21, 2006.

Through Sept. 15, the Oriental Institute Museum will present an exhibit: Wonderful Things! Photographs of the Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun by Harry Burton consisting of 45 of the images. The clearance of the tomb took 10 years, and in that time, photographer Harry Burton took more than 1,400 large format black and white images. The photos in this exhibit document the Valley of the Kings, the initial discovery of the tomb, the dramatic moment when the excavators first glimpsed the dazzling array of artefacts, the entry to the burial chamber, the series of shrines and coffins that protected the king, and the king's mummy, wreathed in floral collars and bedecked with gold jewellery.

The exhibit consists of 45 photographs with explanatory labels, wall panels that discuss the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun and the role of the Oriental Institute in its interpretation, the early use of photography in archaeology, the photographic career of Harry Burton, and how the photos fuelled the public relations campaign of the excavators and spawned the myth of the curse of Tutankhamun. Examples of the publicity generated by the photos will also be exhibited. A brief silent film made by Burton showing activity in the Valley of the Kings will be screened in gallery kiosks...

Visitors can view photos from King Tut excavation, The Northwest Indiana Times, Indiana, USA, August 23, 2006.

The Polish capital Warsaw will host as of August 27 [2006] a conference on Nubian monuments, Polish Cultural Counsellor in Cairo Gabriela Piotrowska told MENA on Monday.

The conference, to last till September 2, will be organized by several Polish institutes.

Some 200 researchers will attend the conference, in which at least 156 papers will be presented.

Poland hosts conference on Nubian monuments, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, August 22, 2006.

"Tourist arrivals in Egypt over the past four years have increased by 66 per cent," according to official statistics. Around 8.6 million tourists visited Egypt last year against 5.1 million in 2002, said Abu Bakr el-Gendi, the Chairman of the Central Agency for General Mobilisation and Statistics, in a newsletter quoted by the Middle East News Agency.

Visitors from west and south Europe topped the arrivals in Egypt last year with 4.6 million, followed by eastern Europeans 1.34 million and the Middle Easterners 1.31 million.

Tourists to Egypt 66 pct up in 4 years, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, August 23, 2006.

Stargate SG-1, the longest-running science fiction series on American television, has been cancelled.

The Sci Fi Channel, which airs the show in the US, has said it will not broadcast any potential 11th series.

The show, based on the 1994 film Stargate, aired its 200th episode last week. It airs in Sky One in the UK...

Stargate shut by Sci Fi Channel, BBC News, UK, August 22, 2006.

"Studio executives are working to identify an alternative outlet for Stargate SG-1..."

Stargate shut by Sci Fi Channel, GateWorld, August 21, 2006.

My daughter Dana, granddaughters Meredith, aged 10, and Remy, eight, and I have just returned from an exhausting, but very short trip to Chicago. It was wonderful!

Chicago is straight north from Holly Springs — and it's about a 10-hour trip by car. Unless you get lost, then it's more like 11-12. And I always get lost..!

[T]he very best thing about Chicago was the reason we drove 10-11 hours one way — The Field Museum. This huge, wonderful, beautiful building houses exhibits from everywhere and about everything — ranging from the days of Pompeii to Gregor Mendel, the evolution of our planet, bugs, Auschwitz and Black Sue (more about her later), King Tutankhamun and the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt.

The King Tut exhibit was breathtaking. We actually saw the coffin — beautifully carved and gilded with gold and wonderful colours.

For me, the most exquisite piece there was the Canopic jar lid with the famous head of King Tut. I could have stood there for hours and looked at it...

The Windy City's Field Museum blew us away, Linda Jones, Borders Today, Scotland, UK, August 17, 2006.

Over the last ten years, exhibition "Mysteries of Ancient Egypt Itinerant Museum" has been travelling Brazilian states taking replicas and original items from the past of the Arab country. This time, the show is in the country capital, Brasília, and includes 70 articles, of which 16 are original, belonging to Brazilian researcher Maisur Musa, who is a son of Palestinian immigrants.

"The objective behind the fair is to transmit knowledge about the history of civilization," stated Musa, who is the organizer of the event. The exhibition was opened on Thursday (17) and follows through to September 20, at the Conjunto Nacional .

Mummies, sarcophagi, papyruses, weapons, coins and vases are some of the articles exhibited at the fair. Among the objects, Musa pointed out the mask of pharaoh Tutankhamun, the bust of Nefertiti and an antique statue of Venus...

A trip to ancient Egypt in Brasília, Marina Sarruf, Brazil-Arab News Agency, Brazil, August 21, 2006.

The Brooklyn Museum of Art presents the exhibit Egypt Through Other Eyes: The Popularization of Ancient Egypt. The show is presenting more than thirty books from the Museum’s Libraries, documents Western fascination with ancient Egypt in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Showcasing many works never before on public view, the exhibition includes rare material from the Museum’s Wilbour Library of Egyptology, one of the world’s most comprehensive Egyptological research collections.

During the nineteenth century, publications on Egypt multiplied as advances in printing technology allowed for the production of larger and cheaper editions of travel literature and history books, as well as newspapers and periodicals. Scholarly publications had an increasing impact on popular culture in Europe and America, especially on architecture, fashion, and literature. The exhibition covers the generation of explorers and scholars who were inspired by Description de l’Égypte, published from 1809 to 1827. The images on view demonstrate the allure that Egypt has long held for a Western audience.

Included is an illustrated plate from a rare book by Giovanni Belzoni, one of the first Europeans to excavate Egyptian temples and tombs. Other works include a catalogue and poster for the first major North American exhibition of Egyptian antiquities of the Abbott collection, now part of the Brooklyn Museum collection. Also on view are chromolithographs from books by Émile Prisse D’Avennes, whose work provided the earliest reliable images of Egyptian architecture, and a book by Charles Dana Gibson, depicting the Temple of the goddess Mut, where the Brooklyn Museum and Johns Hopkins University currently maintain an excavation site...

Egypt Through Other Eyes: The Popularization, Art Daily, Mexico, August 22, 2006.

Cairo Governor Abdel Azim Wazir accidentally came across an ancient tomb while inspecting new extensions on the autostrade.

Digging work has led to two sarcophagi made of lime stone. The governor notified Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni.

Experts from the Supreme Council for Antiquities will inspect the monument.

Two ancient sarcophagi found in Cairo, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, August 14, 2006.

What if it is all true — Moses parted the waters, 10 plagues fell on Egypt, the Israelites took a mass journey out of Egypt? Simcha Jacobovici, an investigative reporter and filmmaker, contends that he has assembled a compelling case for the veracity of the biblical story of the Exodus. He unveils his theories in a 90-minute documentary called “The Exodus Decoded,” to be broadcast at 8 p.m. Sunday on the History Channel.

Mr. Jacobovici, an Emmy-winning documentary maker, directed, produced and narrated “Exodus Decoded,” based on six years of research and three years of filmmaking. The $3.5 million film was broadcast on the Discovery Channel in Canada in April and was shown in Israel in July at the Jerusalem Film Festival. He made front-page news in both countries with the film.

Among his attention-getting ideas is that the Exodus occurred more than 200 years earlier than most scholars believe. He suggests that the biblical plagues and the parting of the Red Sea can be attributed to a volcanic eruption some 3,500 years ago in what is modern Greece. And he believes that he has located the lost Ark of the Covenant (in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens) and identified the real Mt. Sinai (Gebel Hashem el-Tarif in Northeast Sinai, close to the border of modern Israel)...

Plagued by No Doubts, a Filmmaking Detective Turns to the Exodus, Felicia R. Lee, New York Times, New York, USA, August 17, 2006.

A couple of reviews follow.

‘The Exodus Decoded’: A Biblical Theory in Video Game Graphics, Virginia Heffernan, New York Times, New York, USA, August 19, 2006.

Unearthing Clues to the Exodus, Judith S. Gillies, Washington Post, District of Columbia, USA, August 20, 2006.

For the ancient Egyptians, beliefs about life after physical death demanded elaborate preparations in hopes of ensuring immortality.

For them, there was life after death only if funeral preparations were successful, one had a heart of sufficient goodness, and if powerful spiritual beings did not undermine the effort, according to Diana Hutchison, resident anthropology/archaeology expert at the South Florida Science Museum. If all went well, one existed. If not, one's soul — actually, several separate components of the soul — perished forever. Hutchison gave a talk on ancient Egyptians and the afterlife Thursday at the museum...

Mummy talk a soul connection, David Rogers, Palm Beach Daily News, Florida, USA, August 20, 2006.

The people of Richmond, Ind., are preparing for a big birthday bash this weekend as the city is marking its 200th birthday.

There will be parades, tours and special art exhibits planned to celebrate the bicentennial celebration.

One of the exhibits that is being put together is The Life and Death In Ancient Egypt which is being shown at the Wayne County Historical Museum...

Wayne Co. Historical Museum Offers Egyptian Exhibit, WHIO-TV7, Indiana, USA, August 16, 2006.

Liverpool's prestigious Egyptian collection is to get a new look – thanks to a £300,000 grant.

World Museum Liverpool is one of 43 institutions across the country to benefit from grants totalling almost £4m, jointly funded by the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Wolfson Foundation Museums amp; Galleries Improvement Fund.

The grant will involve completely refurbishing the museum's Egyptian gallery, which is now 30 years old...

£300k for exotic Egyptian collection's new gallery, Alan Weston, Liverpool Daily Post, UK, August 16, 2006.

The Dahesh Museum of Art presents the exhibit Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists, and the Rediscovery of Egypt through December 31 [2006]. This summer the Museum will focus on the Description de l’Egypte, the seminal multi-volume work that remains the single most important European scholarly study of ancient and modern Egypt. Initiated under the patronage of the young General Napoleon Bonaparte as he invaded Egypt in 1798, and completed in 1829 during the reign of King Charles X, the Description was among the most significant, and certainly the most tangible, consequences of the French military’s occupation of Egypt (1798-1801). Not only did it form the foundation for the modern discipline of Egyptology, but its large and magnificent plate illustrations influenced the course of “Egyptomania” and “Orientalism” in western fine and decorative arts for two centuries. These plates, along with letters, documents, medals, decorative artworks, maps, and prints, will be selected by Dahesh Associate Curator Lisa Small from the Bob Brier Collection. The majority of paintings in the exhibition were drawn from the Dahesh Museum of Art’s permanent collection of Orientalist works. The Museum’s Trustees and staff gratefully acknowledge our colleague Professor Bob Brier (C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University), the renowned Egyptologist and host of the TLC Series, The Great Egyptians, for his advice and enthusiastic encouragement. The Museum is also indebted to Princeton University Museum of Art, the Fordham Library and to generous private collectors, including The David Markham Collection, for their loans to the exhibition...

Napoleon on the Nile at the Dahesh Museum of Art, Art Daily, Mexico, August 11, 2006.

Miroslav Barta, an Egyptologist with the Czech Institute of Egyptology in Prague, will speak next week about recent discoveries at the Abusir pyramid cemetery in Egypt.

The free talk will begin at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 24 [2006] in Room 294 of the Smith Memorial Student Union at Portland State University.

Barta will discuss how excavations and satellite imagery are giving insights into what ended the age of the pyramid builders.

The talk is sponsored by the Oregon chapter of the American Research Centre in Egypt. Call 503-725-8566 for more information.

Egyptologist to discuss discoveries at cemetery, The Oregonian, Oregon, USA, August 16, 2006.

In the fifth century BC, Herodotus wrote of Egypt that "nowhere are there so many marvellous things".

Now, some of those wondrous items — or in some cases replicas of them — are here in Port Macquarie.

The Seventh-day Adventist School is presenting about 300 historical pieces in an Egyptian Exhibition.

Principal Phil Lillehagen said the display had been brought to town because "children in regional areas don't often get close contact with this sort of stuff"...

Get ready to walk with the Egyptians, Terri Van Dijk, Port Macquarie News, Australia, August 18, 2006.

Nearly 130 Egyptian treasures from the tombs of King Tut and his royal ancestors are on display through Jan. 1, 2007, at the Field Museum.

When the exhibition came to Chicago in 1977, millions came to see it. Thirty years later, it has returned with many objects that are travelling to the United States for the first time. The exhibition, from National Geographic, is enhanced with technology such as a CT scan of Tut's mummy...

New exhibition brings King Tut to Field Museum, The Northwest Indiana Times, Indiana, USA, August 17, 2006.

Though it has not had the same gee-whiz, almost non-stop media attention that the 1977 "Treasures of Tutankhamun" exhibit enjoyed, this year's King Tut show at Chicago's Field Museum has all the signs of being a blockbuster in its own right.

Visitors — including those who also saw the 1977 show — seem pleased with the new extravaganza that features selected riches buried with the boy king 3,400 years ago. Lines to get in have been long and constant, forming before the museum opens at 8 a.m.; tickets usually sell out by early afternoon every day, often by 9 a.m. on weekends.

"Your best bet is to get here early in the morning to buy a ticket for the same day," spokeswoman Pat Kremer said recently as she walked through the Field Museum's air-conditioned east entrance hall, where people waited to enter the exhibit. "We have lines waiting outside every morning before we unlock the doors..."

Visitors queue up to see latest King Tut exhibition, William Mullen, Reno Gazette-Journal, Nevada, USA, August 13, 2006.

In little over two months, famed Egyptologist Dr Zahi Hawass hopes to unearth the discovery of his lifetime: the tomb of one of history's greatest women, Cleopatra.

The celebrity archaeologist, who is on a whistle stop lecture tour of South Africa, said that "the discovery would even be bigger than that of King Tut".

Hawass told The Star on Wednesday that he suspects Cleopatra is buried with her Roman lover Mark Antony at a temple 30km [19 miles] from Alexandra called Tabusiris Magna.

"I believe it is a very sacred place and this is where they would have hidden Cleopatra and Marc Antony from Octavian," Hawass explained...

First Tut, now Cleo in Dr Zahi's sights, Shaun Smillie, Independent Online, South Africa, August 17, 2006.

[The] response from Hawass, known for insisting on researchers publishing reports in scientific forums, has not been a positive one. In a letter to USA TODAY, he writes, "If what Mr. Reeves says is true, then why didn't he present this report to the Supreme Council of Antiquities." He adds: "Radar can also show anomalies that are not necessarily tomb shafts. It seems to me that Mr. Reeves wants publicity more than conducting his work through a scientific approach. For this reason, I am writing you to state that the information is not true."

Reeves responds that he alerted Hawass and the Supreme Council to KV 63's location in August of 2005, but received no reply. Anticipating a similar response for KV 64, "rightly or wrongly," Reeves says, he decided to release the information about the possible new tomb without any delay. "Yes, I am clearly seeking publicity - but not for my own ends," he says by e-mail. "My sole ambition in this is to see archaeological work in the Valley of the Kings carried out with the care and attention it deserves and so desperately needs."

Undoubtedly, the contested site will attract the attention of more researchers, who may resolve the question of its existence within the year. On Egyptology websites there is some support for a go-slow approach, and big doubts about whether Reeves will be allowed by Egypt to be part of any research in the area. The tombs date from more than 3000 years ago, so perhaps some waiting to open this latest discovery wouldn't be too surprising...

Egyptian tomb digs up controversy, Dan Vergano, USA Today, New York, USA, August 13, 2006.

The second Royal Mummies Hall which opened last week crosses the Ts on mummification and reveals an obscure era of instability in the history of ancient Egyptians...

Preserving the likeness of the deceased was of utmost importance to ancient Egyptians. The immortal spirit, released upon death, needed to be able to identify the body in which it was to repose. Century upon century, efforts were made to perfect a technique once believed to have reached its peak during the New Kingdom in the 19th Dynasty to the 21st Dynasty, with mummies like that of Ramses II, and began to decline thereafter.

The Pharaohs of the New Kingdom hid their tombs in the Valley of the Kings, hoping this would help keep their mummies safe from tomb robbers. But the glittering jewels and precious funerary furniture that filled the royal burials frequently proved too alluring to thieves, and some tombs were violated and robbed soon after their royal occupants were laid to rest. Tutankhamun's tomb, for example, was threatened with robbery at least twice in antiquity, but each time the thieves were caught or frightened away by the necropolis police and the tomb remained intact. On the whole, apart from isolated incidents such as this, the tombs were well-guarded for many years and were relatively secure...

The elite of the millennia, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 808, August 17 - 23, 2006.

Excavations continue in the Valley of the Kings inside tomb KV63, which has now been identified as a storage place for embalming materials. The little curse of this tomb continues. In a previous article, I told the story of this remarkable discovery and the fight between the two Egyptologists Otto Schaden and Lorelei Corcoran, who both wanted to be director of the excavation. Since that article was published many things have happened. Corcoran came back to Egypt from Memphis and wanted to take photographs of the excavation. Schaden, as the official director according to the concession, prevented her from doing so. Mansour Boraik, director of Luxor antiquities, told me that Corcoran had been seen sobbing in the valley.

I do not know what we can do to resolve this problem but I believe we must encourage them both to finish their work, because the wood is deteriorating and they still have two coffins (one for an adult and one for a child) that have not been opened. Schaden wanted to leave the excavation for 10 days while he presented a talk at the American Research Centre in New Jersey, and planned to close the excavation because he would not be there. I thought this might be dangerous because the work should have continued and conservation needed to be done. The Discovery Channel was also filming a documentary, and they cannot just stop production for 10 days. This film is not exclusive. In fact, it will be aired all over the world and shown free on Egyptian TV...

Dig Days: Secrets from the embalming storeroom, Zahi Hawass, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 808, August 17 - 23, 2006.

The concrete base of the giant statue of Pharaoh Ramses II, scheduled to be moved to a new location, has been disconnected safely here, Director of Arab Contractors Company Ibrahim Mehleb has said.

The company, in charge of a project to move the statue to another location, confirmed that no damage was done to the Pharaoh in the process.

The 125-tonne statue will be moved next week to a more serene home near the Great Pyramids from a congested square in downtown Cairo named after him in a bid to save the megalithic statue from corrosive pollution, Egypt's Antiquities Chief Zahi Hawass had said...

Concrete base of Ramses II disconnected, PTI via New Kerala, India, August 21, 2006.

Two articles of interest in the University of Pennsylvania latest Expedition magazine

• The Archaeology of South Abydos — Egypt's Late Middle Kingdom in Microcosm
  Josef Wegner
• David Randall-MacIver — Explorer of Abydos and Curator of the Egyptian Section
  Jennifer Houser Wegner

Expedition Magazine, University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, USA, Volume 48, Number 2, Summer 2006.

The new issue of Minerva magazine is available now. It contains a couple of articles that may be of interest to Egyptophiles as follows.

• Egypt’s Sunken Treasures in Berlin
  Peter Clayton
• A Tale of Two Cities: The Coins from Herakleion and Canopus
  Andrew Meadows

Minerva Magazine, London, UK, Volume 17, Number 4, July / August 2006.

Subscribe to Minerva Magazine via Amazon.com.

The latest issue of Current World Archaeology is out now and contains three article of interest to Egyptophiles.

• The cemetery of Zoser
  The excavations at a fashionable Old Kingdom cemetery lying just behind the step pyramid of Zoser [Djoser], Saqqara, Egypt. (12 pages)
• View from the Field: In search of desert glass
  Egypt's green-yellow desert glass (2 pages)
• King Tut at Oxford
  The many and diverse records of the Tutankhamun tomb excavation are brought into the 21^st century. (4 pages)

Current World Archaeology, Think Publishing, London, UK, Volume 2, No. 6, Issue 18, August / September 2006.

Subscribe to Current World Archaeology Magazine via Amazon.com.

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

• Hedgehogs in ancient Egyptian art
  Magda van Ryneveld explains why the humble hedgehog features so often in ancient Egyptian art.
• Harvesting a pharaoh
  An unexpected discovery in the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Anen at Thebes brought a lost painting back to life. Lyla Pinch-Brock describes how.
• Clothing culture: dress in Egypt in the first millennium AD
  Frances Pritchard reports on a new exhibition at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester.
• Menkaura’s anthropoid coffin
  A wooden coffin found in the pyramid of Menkaure bears the king’s name. But was it really his? Paul Boughton investigates.
• Vivant Denon’s “mysterious cache”
  Marianne Luban reports on the activities of one of the first collectors of Egyptian antiquities, at the end of the eighteenth century.
• The New Tomb in the Valley of the Kings
  Another update from Roxanne Wilson, a member of the excavation team, on the recent discovery and the progress made in clearing the small chamber.
• Friends of Nekhen News
  Renée Friedman looks at the decorated tombs at Hierakonpolis, whose inscriptions and decoration can tell us so much about life in the city in Dynastic times.
• Two Sphinxes of Amenhotep III in St Petersburg
  Robert Partridge.

Ancient Egypt Magazine, Empire Publications, Manchester, UK, Volume 7, No. 1, Issue 37, August / September 2006.

Subscribe to Ancient Egypt Magazine via Amazon.com.

World famous archaeologist, author and international television personality Dr Zahi Hawass, arrives in South Africa this month for a one week lecture tour. Hawass, renowned equally as head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities as for his regular appearances on DSTV’s National Geographic Channel, will present a series of illustrated talks on new discoveries in the Pyramids.

Scheduled to take place in Johannesburg (Monday 14 August) and Cape Town (Wednesday 16 and Thursday 17 August), Hawass’s lectures will be compelling for all members of the public who are intrigued by the mysteries and marvels of Egypt.

Since ancient times the pyramids have engendered great fascination. This is particularly true of the pyramids of Giza, especially Khufu’s Great Pyramid with its enigmatic chambers, shafts and passages. As Director of the Giza Pyramids excavation, Dr Hawass is in a unique position to investigate these mysteries, and to share his insight and experiences with audiences around the world...

'King of Egyptology' visits SA, Iafrica.com, South Africa, August 11, 2006.

cf. WORLD RENOWNED EGYPTOLOGIST TO SPEAK AT WITS UNIVERSITY, lin2media, South Africa, August 11, 2006.

cf. University of Witswatersrand, Johannesburg.

Radiocarbon data from 150 archaeological excavations in the now hyper-arid Eastern Sahara of Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and Chad reveal close links between climatic variations and prehistoric occupation during the past 12,000 years. Synoptic multiple-indicator views for major time slices demonstrate the transition from initial settlement after the sudden onset of humid conditions at 8500 B.C.E. to the exodus resulting from gradual desiccation since 5300 B.C.E. Southward shifting of the desert margin helped trigger the emergence of pharaonic civilization along the Nile, influenced the spread of pastoralism throughout the continent, and affects sub-Saharan Africa to the present day...

Climate-Controlled Holocene Occupation in the Sahara: Motor of Africa's Evolution, Rudolph Kuper and Stefan Kröpelin, Science, Vol. 313, no. 5788, pp. 803 - 807, August 11, 2006. Subscription required

cf. This post from last month Exodus From Drying Sahara Gave Rise to Pharaohs, Study Says.

El-Raghy, founder of Centamin Mining, had returned home to look at the Rosetta Mineral Sands Deposit, a valuable, if unglamorous, 37-metric-ton deposit of ilmenite and zircon located 60 kilometres east of Alexandria. While he was visiting the offices of the Egyptian Geological Survey and Mining Authority (EGSMA), he noticed an unusual wall hanging: a copy of the oldest geologic map in the world.

The 3,200-year-old papyrus map, discovered in Luxor in 1820, showed the locations of the Pharaonic mines in the Fawakhir district between present-day Edfu and Marsa Alam.

Intrigued, Sami quickly concluded his business in Rosetta and made his way to the Eastern Desert to seek out the long-dormant mines of the Pharaohs...

A Gold Mine Worth LE 23 Billion (and counting), Cache Seel, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 08, August 2006.

Centamin, I knew, was doing some interesting things down near Marsa Alam, where it has a concession that includes several old Pharaonic gold mines that have sat largely unworked for centuries. In fact, the Pharaohs mined more than 95 percent of all the gold that has ever been produced in Egypt, and the last to work the site were the British, who had barely started exploring the long-forgotten mines before they were booted out of the country in the run-up to the revolution...

Go for Gold, Patrick FitzPatrick, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 08, August 2006.

Enraged guides are taking a stand against what they call illegal guiding, which mostly takes the form of unlicensed foreigners accompanying tour groups in the country. Local professionals claim the phenomenon threatens not just the economy, but the nation’s heritage and even national security.

Egyptologist Aladdin Khalifa is an executive member of the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations (WFTGA) and its official representative for Africa. The WFTGA is a non-profit, non-political organization, composed of national tourist guide associations, individual guides, educational institutions and convention and visitor’s bureaus.

According to Khalifa, a tourist guide for more than 15 years, illegal guiding is at the top of the WFTGA’s agenda, as members believe it brings down the overall standards of the profession...

I wonder if this includes the well-known archaeologists that accompany the specialist archaeological tours from the UK, the US and such?

Foreigners Invade, Amira Salah-Ahmed, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 08, August 2006.

Egypt filed an application with UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee to include the Temple of Sarabit El-Khadim in its list of World Heritage Sites.

The Ministry of Culture had teamed up with French experts for the 18-year-long restoration of the temple, also known as the Turquoise Temple. The Ancient Egyptian masterpiece dedicated to the god Hat-Hor graces one of Sinai’s highest mountains, and is located in the middle of the area’s richest copper and turquoise mines.

If the application is successful, the temple will become the sixth Egyptian site to be included in the list of the world’s most important monuments.

The King’s Temple, Manal el-Jesri and Sherif Awad, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 08, August 2006.

The past year has been a busy one for the Theban Mapping Project. We worked for about two months in the spring of this year, continuing to clear KV 5, and, as usual, continued to find more chambers. I think the total number of rooms has now reached about 128, and there is no sign that we've yet reached the end. Future seasons will undoubtedly turn up even more parts of this most perplexing tomb.

We have published a new edition of " ," adding sixteen pages of photographs, drawings, plans, and text that update our work in this fascinating mausoleum since the first publication in 2000. A third edition may well prove necessary in a few more years, as KV 5 continues to grow. A new edition of the " " has also appeared, updating the plans and sections of KV 5. (Most of the new material in these updates is also available on our website, so you aren't obligated to buy second copies of the books to keep abreast of new discoveries...)

Theban Mapping Project Progress Report August 2006, Dr. Kent R. Weeks, Theban Mapping Project, August 09, 2006.

Transferring Ramses II statue from Mit Rahina, where it was originally found in 1882, to the Ramses square was a mistake," Dr Zahi Hawass the Secretary-General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) said at a press conference Monday.

Hawass said Egyptian engineers will transfer the statue to the new Egyptian Museum on August 25 and the event will be aired live by the Egyptian TV.

Hawass also said that the SCA would also transfer the obelisk currently standing in El-Gezira area in Giza to the Grand Museum of Egypt...

Hawass: Transfer of Ramses II statue from original place mistake, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, August 08, 2006.

About 1,300 years ago several major natural disasters sent parts of three Egyptian cities under the sea off the coast of the modern-day port city of Alexandria.

Today a display of more than 500 artefacts recovered from the depths is drawing crowds to the Martin-Gropius-Bau museum in Berlin, Germany — the first public exhibition of the once watery relics.

Take a virtual tour of the exhibit, which spans nearly 1,500 years of Egyptian history, and see footage of the underwater excavation in action.

Video: Egypt's Sunken Treasures Showcased at Berlin Museum, Stefan Lovgren, National Geographic News, District of Columbia, USA, August 07, 2006.

Pseudoscience as news? The Fox Network's handling of its primetime special "Opening the Lost Tombs: Live from Egypt" raises ethical questions.

I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a Sunday night, on the ten o'clock news. Right between a report on Y2K and another on a fine against a local construction company, Fox 5 News in New York saw fit to give us a "special report" on who built the pyramids. The graphic behind the announcer, on a backdrop of the Giza pyramids, asks the question: "Alien Architects?" The announcer plugs the upcoming Fox television network special "Opening the Lost Tombs: Live From Egypt," then segues into the story with the campy introduction, "There are many mysteries in Egypt, like the pyramids. Who built them and how did they do it?" With that she introduces Fox News correspondent David Garcia, who begins his voice-over to video of the pyramids: "The ancient future, a civilization of contradiction." Immediately we hear another voice in an Arabic accent, "a pyramid was a tomb," followed immediately by another similar voice, "the pyramid has never been a tomb."

This is how it begins, and it only gets worse. Besides the ramifications of this news report for the whole field of journalism-the way it was conducted, and the shoddy journalism it represents-there is the then-upcoming special that this "news report" was plugging, which aired the following Tuesday (March 2, 1999). Although that show might be excused as "entertainment," when the same thing is done on a regular news hour, amidst real news, such an excuse is inadequate. And as I eventually discovered, it would even be ethically questionable for Fox to call its live special "entertainment." One scholar who participated in it told me he agreed to take part in the show for no fee, on the basis that it was a "news" program. "They certainly used the word 'news'," he told me, "using that as the reason why 'no one' who was interviewed was getting paid." If that is true, and if Fox does claim the show was entertainment, then it is pulling a fast one...

This is not actually new — as it is from 1999 — but has popped up in Google News searches as having changed or been made available recently. Nevertheless it makes for an interesting read.

Flash! Fox News Reports that Aliens May Have Built the Pyramids of Egypt!, Richard C. Carrier, Skeptical Inquirer, New York, USA, September / October 1999.

Just months after archaeologists gleefully clamoured over the first tomb to be found in Egypt's Valley of the Kings since 1922, there may be another.

Located just meters from the last tomb — KV-63 excavated earlier this year — Nicholas Reeves of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project, working under the Valley of the Kings Foundation, claims the group has detected what he believes will turn out to be another tomb, and possibly a royal one at that.

"This new discovery is important on several levels," he said in an e-mail. "First of all, for what it might turn out to be — perhaps the burial place of Akhenaten's missing women and not impossibly Nefertiti herself, the most beautiful woman of the ancient world...

Another Ancient Tomb Discovered in Egypt?, Jonathan Silverstein, ABC News, USA, August 08, 2006.

Another Tomb in the Valley of the Kings?, ABC News via KLTV 7, Texas, USA, August 08, 2006.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into Egypt's Valley of the Kings, another ancient puzzle has popped up on the radar screen — literally.

The Amarna Royal Tombs Project says radar readings show what could be another 3,500-year-old chamber from the days of Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, not far from the recently explored KV63 chamber.

Is it "a find of the greatest possible significance," as the project hopes?

The newly publicized "anomaly," dubbed KV 64, appears to be a shaft leading deep underground, according to reports published by the Valley of the Kings Foundation and Archaeology magazine. A similar signature was seen in the strange case of KV63 — which turned out to be a storage chamber for mummification supplies, perhaps converted from an intended royal tomb...

Cosmic Log: Another Egyptian Mystery, Alan Boyle, MSNBC, USA, August 03, 2006.

The Egyptian Museum opened a second mummy chamber yesterday where the mummies of 11 royal figures from the 20th dynasty of the New Kingdom were put on display.

A large crowd of tourists and journalists swarmed the chamber as Supreme Antiquities Council Secretary General Zahi Hawass gave information on the history of the discoveries and the mummified royal figures.

The room is designed like a royal tomb with vaulted ceiling and indirect low lighting to exhibit the mummies.

The exhibition includes the mummies of Ramses III and priests of Amun who succeeded in ruling the southern half of Egypt as priest kings and proclaiming Thebes as Egypt’s religious capital...

Egypt museum opens second mummy room, DPA via Gulf Times, Qatar, August 07, 2006.

cf. Second mummy chamber opens at the Egyptian Museum, DPA via Monsters & Critics, UK, August 07, 2006.

The museum, which hoped to sell 350,000 advance and same-day tickets by the end of June, sold 360,000 by midnight June 30 and since has surpassed 400,000. That’s a good indication the museum will fulfil its hope for more than a million visitors to the travelling exhibit by the time it closes Jan. 1 [2006].

Those numbers are impressive, especially because two popular temporary exhibits are running at other museums. An exhibit devoted to the inventive mind and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci and a display of lizards, including a Komodo dragon, the largest in the world, have bumped up summer business at the Museum of Science and Industry and the Shedd Aquarium, respectively, though neither institution has released attendance figures.

If Tut does draw 1 million visitors, attendance would be the highest for any exhibit at a Chicago museum since the 1977 show drew 1.36 million to the Field in just four months. Since then, big museums have sought to organize or bring in shows that could attract the public in similar numbers. A million-seller represents a huge windfall for a museum in terms of admissions, memberships and other income-generating activities such as souvenir sales, restaurant sales and evening-party rentals...

Tut again casts a golden spell but probably won’t set a record, William Mullen, The State, South Carolina, USA, August 03, 2006.

The whole of Sayeda Zeinab is built up on hallmarks and blessings. Spreading out from the district's heart — the Mosque of Sayeda Zeinab, the granddaughter of Prophet Mohamed — holy domes mark the horizon. As one treads further and further into the district's avenues and hamlets, an extraordinary tranquillity builds up. Ancient mansions, mosques and sabils (fresh water outlets) are stitched to legends and sketches of people that once seemed larger than life. Despite their mortality, they remain the eternal heroes of the district's social history. All in all, the area provides a panorama of architectural magnificence with value placed on the notion of space, of relics from eras that time has washed away.

We start our walk at Sayeda Zeinab Mosque, the district's centre and the place it was named after. According to Soad Maher Mohamed of the High Council of Islamic Affairs, Mosques and Saints of Egypt, the mosque constitutes the centre of the square of what was once called Qantaret Al-Sebaa, or the Lion's Barrages. The name is derived from the lion prints that were Al-Zaher Beibaras's motif, marking his barrages topping the little Nile branch, dispensed for expansion purposes of the square. However, in 1898, during renovations and expansions, the front side of the mosque was first discovered...

On the holy trail, Amira El-Noshokaty, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 806, August 03 - 09, 2006.

It took eight hours for a replica of the 125-tonne red granite statue of Ramses II to make its overnight journey from Tahrir Square to the planned Grand Egyptian Museum overlooking the Giza plateau. The move was a rehearsal run for the move later this month of the real statue, which is still at Cairo's main train station. Nevine El-Aref joined the accompanying motorcade.

In the central plaza of Tahrir Square two gigantic red vehicles decorated with four Egyptian flags and carrying the replica of Ramses II's statue were ready to leave. At 2:15 sharp, the 64-year old driver Am Ahmed El-Gharabawi took the fake Ramses on a 30-km ride to what will be its new home at the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) overlooking Giza plateau.

Police officers cleared the way for the 'royal' cavalcade to pass as hundreds of thousands of people crowded the square to watch and photograph the rehearsal. Heavy security was in force and police stood on both sides of the truck, leading some of the onlookers to think it was the actual colossus that was being moved. Buses transporting engineers and archaeologists accompanied the truck to study the possible risks that might be encountered when the authentic statue is transported. There were other buses for journalists and photographers...

Dry run for the big day, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 806, August 03 - 09, 2006.

New figures released by the Egyptian Tourism Authority have revealed that more Americans are picking Egypt as their travel destination. As a result, American visits are now on pace to eclipse the record-setting year of 2000.

According to the ETA’s newly released figures, there were 118,044 American visits during the first six months of 2006, surpassing last year's total by 20.1 percent and the record-setting 2000 number of 114,468 by 3 percent.

The record-setting performance was bolstered in June 2006 when there were 19,656 American visits, a 16.6 percent increase over the same period in 2005, ETA added...

Americans travelling to Egypt more than ever, Nelson Alcantara, TravelVideo.TC, Ontario, Canada, August 03, 2006.

Oxford University researchers have used full-body scanning, usually used for medical reasons, to look at a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy from the University’s Ashmolean Museum.

On the 29 July [2006], the researchers put the mummy through a CT scanner at the MRI unit of the John Radcliffe hospital to find out what was under the bandages. The scanner is usually used to produce medical images of patients. They then created a 3D image of what the mummy looks like from the scans.

The Egyptian mummy is around three feet long and is a child. Little was known about it before the scans, but afterwards the radiographers could see that it was male (the penis is still preserved), aged between four and seven. Further analysis will enable them to find out more about its state of health and the cause of death...

I posted these yesterday but they went down a back-hole! Anyway, I'm not sure there is anything new in these two. The one from the Oxford Mail is the longer story of the two.

2,000-year-old mummy goes through 21st-century scanner, PhysOrg, USA, August 01, 2006.

cf. Secrets of the mummy revealed, Ellie Simmonds, Oxford Mail, UK, July 31, 2006.

On July 1, 1798, Bonaparte, just 29 years old, arrived off the coast of Egypt. With the young general were some 55,000 troops and another, much smaller group of scholars, engineers, and scientists, collectively known as the savants. As a military expedition, it was a disaster, and Napoleon himself secretly sailed back to France little more than a year later, abandoning his army, which was stranded when Nelson annihilated the French fleet. The expedition's saving grace and enduring legacy was the contribution of the 160 or so savants, whose research and investigations were published in the monumental Description de l'Égypte. This 23-volume compendium is the focus of Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists, and the Rediscovery of Egypt, a new exhibition at the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York.

There were ten volumes of illustrations in the Description de l'Égypte, with five devoted to ancient Egypt, three to Egyptian flora and fauna, and two to the "Modern State" (the country and culture as it was in 1798-1799). In all there were 837 copperplate engravings and more than 3,000 individual images. A selection of 80 of the plates, on loan from a private collection, forms the core of Napoleon on the Nile Rediscovery of Egypt. Complementing these are paintings and sculptures from the Dahesh Museum of Art's collections and a range of works and objects from a private collection. This includes decorative pieces (from commemorative medallions to Egyptian-inspired Wedgwood pottery), prints and other illustrations (notably anti-Napoleonic cartoons by James Gillray), and a number of letters and official documents signed by Napoleon and some of his most important generals. Lisa Small, associate curator at the Dahesh, has arranged this varied material in five sections: Napoleon and the Egyptian Campaign, The Savants and the Institut de l'Égypte, Ancient Egypt, Natural History, and Modern Egypt...

Napoleon on Madison, Mark Rose, Archaeology Magazine, Archaeological Institute of America, New York, USA, June 09 2006.

From 1998 to 2002, the Amarna Royal Tombs Project (ARTP), led by Nicholas Reeves, undertook controlled stratigraphic excavation and geophysical surveying in the central area of the supposedly worked-out Valley of the Kings. Its impetus was both theoretical and practical, according to the project's website (www.valleyofthekings.org). It was influenced by a study of the immediate post-Amarna burials Tomb KV55 and Tomb KV62 (Tutankhamun) and what these two tombs seemed to reveal about other possible burials of the period in the immediate vicinity. And it was driven by a physical threat that the rubble fill of the Valley, and along with it most of the archaeology, might be removed wholesale to combat the seriously damaging effects of flash-flooding on the open tombs. "My particular quarry was the burial place of Nefertiti, Akhenaten's wife and coregent (who, I concluded, had been buried in the Valley as and when she died)," says Reeves. Also of interest were the "whereabouts of Akhenaten's secondary consort Kiya, his second daughter Meketaten and other lesser members of the royal family who had originally been interred at El-Amarna." As the work progressed, however, Reeves discovered that extensive key areas in the Valley were archaeologically intact, and priorities necessarily changed.

But the project was brought to a halt in 2002. Reeves was falsely accused of involvement in antiquities smuggling and his permit was revoked. In August 2005, he was officially cleared of any wrongdoing by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), though not allowed to return to his work in the Valley. In the interim, the area under investigation by ARTP had begun to be excavated by Otto Schaden and a team from the University of Memphis, which had been at work on KV10, the nearby tomb of Amenmesse. In 2005, Schaden found the top of the shaft leading to KV63, not knowing that it had been detected during geophysical prospecting by ARTP in 2000...

Another New Tomb in the Valley of the Kings?, Archaeology Magazine, Archaeological Institute of America, New York, USA, August 03 2006.

The latest issue of Archaeology magazine is out now and contains the following articles of interest.

• Pyramid Scheme
  by Beth Kampschror.
  Has a Houston contractor discovered the world's oldest pyramid in Bosnia?
• Raiding the Tomb Raiders
  by Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini.
  How Italy cracked the network of looters, smugglers, and dealers supplying American Museums.
• Untold Stories
  by Jane C. Waldbaum president of the Archaeological Institute of America.
  Looted objects are robbed of meaning.
• Conversations: Redeeming Archaeology
  by Dorothy Lippert of the Smithsonian Institute.
  Dorothy Lippert on why repatriation is a good thing.

Archaeology Magazine, Archaeological Institute of America, New York, USA, Volume 59, Number 4, July / August 2006.

Subscribe to Archaeology Magazine via Amazon.com.

The latest issue of the French language magazine “Toutankhamon” is out now.

Actualités :
Le Musée Imhotep de Saqqarah

Les dernières fouilles de Karnak, avec l'interview du directeur de la mission franco-ègyptienne de Karnak, Emmanuel Laroze

Dossier spécial pharaons
Narmer, Djoser, Khéops, Pépi II, Montouhotep II, les Sésostris, le roi Hor, Kamosis, Amosis, Thoutmosis I, Hatshepsout, Thoutmosis III, Aménophis III, Akhenaton, Toutankhamon, Horemheb, Séthy I, Ramsès II, Ramsès III, les Psousennés, les Psammétique, les Nectanébo, Ptolémée I, Cléopâtre VII!

Voyager
Gizeh : les pyramides servies sur un plateau !

Which approximately says...

Current events:
The Imhotep Museum at Saqqara

Last excavations at Karnak, an interview with the director of the French-Egyptian mission at Karnak, Emmanuel Laroze

Special on the Pharaohs
Narmer, Djoser, Khufu, Pepi II, Mentuhotep II, Senusret, king Hor, Kamose, Ahmose, Thutmose I, Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, Horemheb, Seti I, Ramses II, Ramses III, Psusennes, Psamtik, Nectanebo, Ptolemy I, Cleopatra VII!

Travel
Giza: The Pyramids on the plateau!

Toutankhamon Magazine, Editions Neptune Diffusion, France, Issue 28, August / September 2006.

Egypt has always been known for its famous historical sites: The Pyramids, the Sphinx and Luxor temple are the most well known icons of tourism in Egypt. However, Egypt developed during the last two decades various types of tourism services in the fields of culture, entertainment, golf, diving, aqua sport, desert safari, convention, eco and therapeutic tourism.

Egypt is becoming now a golfing destination that competes with the world's best. Its courses meet international standards. It enjoys good weather. And it offers a variety of tourist attractions.

Hurghada, Sharm Al Sheikh and the surrounding areas on the red sea, contain just about everything a tourist would like to have. They make up for that with every variety of water sports, several golf courses, casinos and luxurious hotels and resorts.

As for the cultural tourism, Luxor is a living museum with vast numbers of ancient Egyptian monuments that represents one third of the whole world monuments. It is also highly targeted to tourists, and might be thought of in the same regard as a theme park, where the attractions just happen to be real monuments...

Tourism In Egypt: Lasting Memories, Biz Opportunities, Seoul Times, Korea, August 01, 2006.

With the popularity of The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, can a surge in popularity for Egyptian-themed decor be far behind? While it may be a stretch to envision a large-scale pyramid or sarcophagus in our home design, adding an element of ancient Egypt may be the fix for a room lacking personality.

"Whenever you are exposed to other cultures, it opens up your view for design. That's why we go to art galleries, travel or museum exhibits like the Frist," says Shirley Horowitz, owner of Davishire Interiors in Nashville. "To expand our horizons and encourage us to explore new things. In life and design, other cultures really can inspire us."

Horowitz should know. After touring the home of famed architect and archaeologist Sir John Soane in England, she was inspired to add Egyptian elements to her own home. The Soane's house, which is now a museum, has Egyptian elements mixed with traditional English antiques...

Bring Egypt home with one special piece, Cathi Cook Aycock, The Tennessean, Tennessee, USA, July 30, 2006.

Sir John Soane's Museum

Though it has not had the same gee-whiz, almost non-stop media attention that the 1977 "Treasures of Tutankhamun" exhibit enjoyed, this year's King Tut show at Chicago's Field Museum has all the signs of being a blockbuster in its own right.

Visitors — including those who also saw the 1977 show — seem pleased with the new extravaganza that features selected riches buried with the boy king 3,400 years ago. Lines to get in have been long and constant, forming before the museum opens at 8 a.m.; tickets usually sell out by early afternoon every day, often by 9 a.m. on weekends.

"Your best bet is to get here early in the morning to buy a ticket for the same day," spokeswoman Pat Kremer said recently as she walked through the Field Museum's air-conditioned east entrance hall, where people waited to enter the exhibit. "We have lines waiting outside every morning before we unlock the doors."

To accommodate weekend crowds, the museum has begun opening its doors at 7:30 a.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, a half-hour earlier than on other days of the week...

Visitors queue up to see latest Tut exhibition, William Mullen, The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, Indiana, August 01, 2006.

A replica of the statue of Ramses II, weighing 83 tons, went through its last “rehearsal” to substitute the original before it is moved to the new Egyptian museum. The gigantic replica, 11.5 meters high, was transported from the centric plaza of Tahir to the new Great Egyptian Museum, near the pyramids, in a nightly voyage that took eight hours.

With this rehearsal, the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt wants to be sure that no unexpected risks are taken when they move the original piece next August 25 [2006].

Archaeologists expect that the transportation of the statue of Ramses II will preserve it since it has been severely deteriorated by acoustic and environmental contamination that it has suffered since it was installed in 1954 in front of the main railway station in El Cairo.

At 02:00 local time (00:00 GMT) the replica of the statue started its journey of 30 kilometres, the same that the original Hill cover, sculpted 3,000 years ago with granite blocks from Aswan situated 950 kilometres to the south of El Cairo...

Ramses II Went through a Rehearsal for its Move, Art Daily, Mexico, July 31, 2006.

Hygiene standards on board a so-called "luxury" cruise ship popular with British tourists are seriously endangering passengers' health.

An investigation into conditions aboard one Nile cruise liner, which continues to sail, has disclosed "hazardous" levels of harmful bacteria in living areas and in the food served to passengers.

The findings will raise questions over the industry's attempts to blame passengers for a spate of recent virus outbreaks on ships. The investigation — part of ITV1s Holidays Undercover series — looked into standards on board The Karim Palace, a cruise liner based in Luxor, Egypt, following reports of passengers falling ill once on board.

James Francis, a microbiologist, posed as a tourist in June while carrying out a series of tests...

Nile cruise hygiene hazards exposed by TV scientist, The Telegraph, UK, July 24, 2006.