Lost Cities Of The Ancients. The main mistake Pharaoh Rameses the Great made was erecting his capital complete with hundreds of statues to himself in the Nile delta. The course of the river in any delta keeps changing, and today's prosperous capital becomes tomorrow's ghost town. The documentary evidence all pointed to this capital, Piramesse, being built on the westernmost branch of the Nile, but Montaigne, an Egyptologist working in the 1920s, found the architectural remains of the city well east of that point.

The mystery of Piramesse being found in the wrong place was restated so often in Lost Cities Of The Ancients that I felt like I was attending a lecture on architecture for thickos. I went all panto' and shouted out: "They moved it!" If a nation can build pyramids for reasons best known to themselves, they can surely shift cities.

More evidence of how stupid the makers thought we were came when the camera would close in on Montaigne writing in his jotter. I half expected "the pay's crap" or "Help!" or "This is going to be such a turkey" to appear. But all we got was "palace" or "garrison" or other archaeology words. It's like saying Tony Blair spends his days writing "Iraq" in his jotter. And Gordon Brown writing "PM".

It was several decades before [Manfred] Bietak came on the scene and reopened discussion. He studied the various courses of the Nile to find which was the westernmost, dating them by the age of the pottery found along the banks and, doing an enormous sub-surface survey of the most likely site, he revealed the detailed foundations of Piramesse. Twenty minutes more of Bietak working out the location of the original site and 20 minutes less of a fat actor playing Montaigne as a stubborn dickhead with an Estuary accent would have been nice...

More digging and less doodling, please, The Scotsman, Scotland, UK, September 05, 2006.

UCO’s “Passport UCO” program will focus on Egypt this year, with movie showings, lectures and at least one play that is being translated and performed in English for the first time...

The university chose Egypt this year for various reasons, including current events and a desire to include various continents in the program.

“As a result of the increasing conflict in the Middle East, there is a growing interest in the wide history and culture of countries such as Egypt,” she said.

“Another motivator for focusing on Egypt this year is to tie in with the major exhibition of ancient Egyptian artefacts that will be on display at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art this fall.”

Spencer said the highlight of the program for many people would be two presentations by Bob Brier, an expert on mummies who hosts The Learning Channel’s television program “Pyramid’s, Mummies and Tombs...”

'Passport to Egypt' to highlight mummy expert, Justin Martino, The Edmond Sun, Oklahoma, USA, September 06, 2006.

It is nearly 10 years since 58 tourists were killed by gunmen in front of the Temple of Hatshepsut near Luxor in Egypt.

Since then, Egypt has worked hard to attract back the tourists and despite suffering a number of other tourist-targeted attacks — including April's explosions in the Red Sea resort of Dahab — it is still luring holidaymakers in their thousands.

According to Anna Paynton, of travel publisher Rough Guides, Egypt's success has been securing our confidence by "honestly defining the problem".

They have tried to put the risk into perspective and let the security measures being put in place be known, she said.

The result?

"People do still travel to Egypt," she said...

Coping with terror threat to tourism, BBC News, UK, September 05, 2006.

Her 3,300 year-old bust has firmly established ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti as one of the most beautiful women who ever existed, but it seems that like every other woman on the planet, even she had to deal with the problem of wrinkles and bags under her eyes, reveals a new investigation on the bust.

Discovered in 1912 at Tel-El-Amarna in what used to be the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose, the bust - depicting a woman with a long neck, elegantly arched brows, high cheekbones, a slender nose and an enigmatic smile played about red lips, has become the international symbol of beauty.

However, a new examination of the famous bust has revealed visible wrinkles running down her slender neck, and puffy bags circling, leading experts to now believe that Nefertiti was an aging beauty.

Dietrich Wildung, director of Berlin's Egyptian museum, who is part of the investigation, revealed that signs of aging had been discovered when he considered using a different kind of lighting to display the bust at Berlin's Altes Museum...

Nefertiti was actually a 'fascinating' aging beauty, New Kerala, India, September 06, 2006.

Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh brings together a vast treasure of royal statuary and relief. These monumental pieces seem situated ideally in the Kimbell — as though architect Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974) had anticipated the antiquarian preferences of Timothy Potts, the museum’s director since 1998...

The exhibition covers sculptures representing members of the royal court and a wide variety of ceremonial objects, finely crafted furniture, royal jewellery and other exquisite personal items. The sources include holdings excavated by the Egyptian expeditions of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, during the 1920s and ’30s.

Born in the 15th century B.C., Hatshepsut, eldest daughter of Thutmose I and Ahmose, assumed the throne after her husband (her half-brother) had died; her nephew-and-stepson Thutmose had not come of age. After six years as regent, Hatshepsut became, in effect, a king for the remaining 15 years of her rule. She dressed in the traditional garb of the pharaohs...

Hatshepsut: Remember the name — you won’t forget the ruler, Michael H. Price, Forth Worth Business Press, Texas, USA, September 04, 2006.