So many Jewish cultic practices come from ancient Egypt that it's not surprising to see Egyptian monuments showing the Pharaoh wearing a headdress that looks like the tefillin — phylacteries — worn during prayer by observant Jews.

In many depictions, Pharaoh is shown wearing a snake crown from which there projects above his brow a sacred asp or viper and a cobra in aggressive attitudes. They represent the Pharaoh's power of protecting his land by means of serpents that can both defend the land and attack the enemy when necessary.

Such powers were essential to the rulers of Egypt, whose rich but extended land was always in danger of invasion from the less fortunate peoples of the surrounding deserts.

The deities that supported the Pharaoh also wore appropriate headgear, but in their case not on the brow but further up on the head, above the hairline. In many cases this headgear was in the form of an animal's head, such as the jackal or the ibis-bird; but in some cases it was just a small black box on a black plate.

Was this a form of tefillin..?

Essay: Tefillin - made in Egypt?, Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg, Jerusalem Post, Israel, August 31, 2006.

From September 22 until January 21 [2007], a spectacular exhibition at Basel's Antiquities Museum looks at burial rituals in old Egypt. The highlight of the exhibition is the burial chamber of Tuthmosis III, one of the most important pharaohs of the 18th dynasty. A facsimile of the burial chamber has been built in the museum and supplemented with original objects, giving visitors the chance to take a breathtaking trip back in time.

A pharaoh's grave in Basel, SwissInfo, Switzerland, September 21, 2006.

An electronic scan of a 2,000-year-old mummy has allowed researchers to examine its insides while leaving the body intact.

The mummy, in the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San José, California, is that of a four or five-year-old girl who has been nicknamed Sherit, meaning Little One in Ancient Egyptian. The project, led by a team from Stanford University, was named a winner in the Science and Engineering Visualisation Challenge awards this week.

That's the entire article but there is a picture on The Times website.

Scan reveals mummy's tummy, The Times, UK, September 22, 2006.

Spanish Egyptologists were in La Laguna last week to attend a congress hosted by the university, one of the few in Spain which boasts a department of Egyptology.

And it was the university’s plain-speaking professor of archaeology, Antonio Tejera Gaspar who grabbed the headlines when he took the opportunity to once again call into question the origins of the pyramids at Güímar.

And though he discounted any direct linkage between the aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands and the ancient Egyptians, a theory based on their love of mummifying their dead and which has gained ground in recent years, the professor admitted that an indirect relationship was possible.

“There is no doubt about the north African origins of the inhabitants of these islands,” he said...

Egyptologists meet in La Laguna, Tenerife News, Tenerife, Spain, September 22, 2006.

Egypt has lured tourists via the Pharaoh’s route. Holding on to three thousand years of ancient civilization, Egyptian tourism leaders promote campaigns to heighten popularity of ancient history to bolster culture tourism. The ministries of tourism and culture have put antiquities high on the agenda. Together today, they speed up projects for expanding museums to preserve heritage, at the same time, raise archaeological awareness among locals and tourists.

More visitors are thrust upon Pharaonic ruins, medieval architecture, Islamic and Holy Family landmarks, even millennia-old Coptic monasteries on both sides of the Red Sea. Classic tours continue to lure guests despite Upper Egypt’s sweltering heat in the summer months.

In Luxor, meaningful discoveries have been made of late much to the industry’s delight. Latest finds have done well in tantalizing huge audiences and captivating media attention. 2006 has been an incredible year for a nation whose ancient treasures are still buried in the sand — some 75 percent remains unearthed until today. Although while some are still off-limits to tourists, they nevertheless create enough sensation as they line previously-excavated sites long open to the public.

For instance, just across famous Boy King Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Qena in Luxor is KV63. It revealed itself early this year...

Deep in the Valleys of Pharaonic Egypt, Hazel Heyer, TravelVideo.TV, Ontario, Canada, September 21, 2006.

There are many foreigners who live among us for years and never have an effect on our lives. Others, however, have made important contributions and have left their mark on this country. In the field of diplomacy, I have been a good friend to many ambassadors who have fallen in love with Egypt. When their terms are up and they must leave, I can see the tears in their eyes, as if they were saying good-bye to a lover.

One of these ambassadors is a unique man. He is a kind man with a soft heart, who is fair not only to his own country, but to everyone. His name is Martin Kobler, and he has been the ambassador from the Federal Republic of Germany to Egypt for the past four years. He was so enamoured of the Pyramids that I gave him special permission to run every day in the desert south of the Giza Plateau. Ambassador Kobler left us only a few weeks ago. When he came to my office to say good-bye, I was the one with tears in my eyes.

Kobler came to Egypt as ambassador at about the same time as I became the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), and we met on many occasions. The first time was in the apartment in Zamalek where he stayed before he moved to the residence attached to the German Embassy. At that time, I was fighting for the return of the famous bust of Nefertiti, which was smuggled illegally out of Egypt in 1912 and is now in the Berlin Museum. Ambassador Kobler never criticised or disagreed with me; on the contrary, he made it clear that he understood my position and sympathised with my desire to have the bust returned. At the same time, he did state that the bust was the centrepiece of the collection at the Berlin Museum, and that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the museum to agree to let it leave Germany.

When at the recent opening of an underwater archaeology exhibition at the Berlin Museum I delivered my remarks in front of President Hosni Mubarak and President Köhler of Germany, I mentioned that the centennial of archaeological cooperation between Germany and Egypt would be in November of 2007. We at the SCA are working with Günter Dreyer, director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo (DAIK), to mark this event with a very special celebration...

Dig Days: A generous spirit, Zahi Hawass, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 813, September 21 - 27, 2006.

cf. Martin Kobler: We are all ears, Gamal Nkrumah, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 779, 26 January 26 - February 01, 2006.

Among the most important objects on show in Turin is the Turin King List, also known as the Turin Royal Canon. This unique papyrus is written in heretic, and owes its modern name to its being exhibited in the Egyptian Museum at Turin.

The papyrus has broken into more than 160 very small fragments, many of which have been lost. When it was discovered in the Theban necropolis by the Italian traveller Bernardino Drovetti in 1822 it was largely intact, but by the time it had been added to the collection in the Turin museum, its condition had severely deteriorated.

The importance of this papyrus was first recognised by the French Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion. The papyrus, now estimated at 1.7m long and 0.41m high, was written during the long reign of Ramses II and comprises on the recto an unknown number of pages that carry a list of names of persons and institutions, along with what appears to be the tax-assessment of each.

It is, however, the verso of the papyrus that has attracted the most attention, as it contains a list of gods, demi-gods, spirits, mythical and human kings who ruled Egypt from the beginning of time presumably until the composition of this valuable document...

Turin's king list, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 813, September 21 - 27, 2006.

cf. Discussion and translation Turin's king list, Jacques Kinnaer, The Ancient Egypt Site.

, Alan H. Gardiner, Griffith Institute, UK, pp. 40, 1959 reprinted 1988.

The splendour of the ancient Egyptian civilisation is legendary. For centuries it has been a source of inspiration for travellers, archaeologists, historians, scientists and even looters. At the turn of the 18th century several foreign excavators, marvelling at the beauty of the ancient Egyptians' art and architecture, explored the country in search of the archaeological heritage long buried under the sand. Some of the glowing artefacts they found, which reflect the long saga of Egypt's past, were taken abroad as the law at that time permitted their sale in bazaars and even at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The law also enabled foreign expeditions to share in Egypt's heritage through the implementation of the division policy, which permitted the division of newly-discovered artefacts between the foreign excavating team and the Egyptian government.

Such collections led to the treasures of Egypt being exhibited in museums all over the world, such as the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the British Museum in London and the Egyptian Museum in Turin. Egyptians, however, had to travel abroad in order to see these distinguished objects from their past.

Some of these important pieces will now be available for a virtual viewing to all and sundry on the "Eternal Egypt" website. Early this week, following a protocol signed between the Egyptian Museum of Turin and the Centre for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT) — affiliated to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and supported by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology — masterpieces in the ancient Egyptian Museum of Turin will be posted on Eternal Egypt. It is the first time a collection from abroad has been included on an Egyptian website...

Virtually yours, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 813, September 21 - 27, 2006.

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

• Unravelling the Mysteries of KV63
  by Earl Ertman, Roxanne Wilson & Otto Schaden. Challenging clearance of the newest tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
• Lady in the Large Earrings
  by Dennis Forbes. Nefertiti's rival, Royal Wife Kiya.
• Bubonic Plague in the Reign of Amenhotep III
  by Arielle Kozloff. Evidence of less than an idyllic time.
• Traces of Egypt at Hadrian's Villa
  by Lucy Gordan-Rastelli. A new exhibition at Tivoli in Italy.
• Berlin's Ägyptisches Museum Und Papyrussammlung
  by Aidan Dodson & Diane Hilton. The past, present & future of Germany's premier Egyptian collection.
• Ibsen & Egypt
  Norway's greatest playwright & poet travels in the Nile in 1869 by Donald P. Ryan & Claudia Berguson.

KMT, KMT Communications Inc., Sebastopol, California, USA, Volume 17, Number 3, Fall 2006.

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