The Egypt Centre at Swansea University will say goodbye to one of Ancient Egypt's most mysterious artefacts next week, when the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus is returned to its permanent home at the British Museum.

A section of the famous Rhind has formed the centrepiece of a year-long exhibition at the Egypt Centre, after it was loaned to the museum under the British Museum 's Partnership Scheme.

Visitors to the centre, where entry is free of charge, will have a last chance to see perhaps the most famous of the British Museum's magnificent collection of Egyptian papyri until Tuesday 21 November...

Last chance to see ancient Egyptian maths paper, News Wales, UK, November 14, 2006.

In the first years following Alexander’s death, Ptolemy (like the other so-called Successors) continued to mint the traditional coinage that had been issued by his hero. The main type of coin had shown Alexander’s putative ancestor Herakles (Hercules) wearing on his head the lion scalp that commemorated one of his legendary labours. It was, after all, normal Greek practice to reserve the “heads” side of a coin for the portrait of just such a god or goddess: Athena at Athens, Persephone at Syracuse, Helios at Rhodes and so forth. Then Ptolemy dared take a step that has stirred no end of debate among scholars — one that, in essence, threw a rock into the still waters of Greek art and religion, sending great ripples outward through time and place to Sicily, Syria, Rome and beyond: Ptolemy replaced the portrait of Herakles on Alexander’s posthumous coinage with a stunning image of another god — Alexander himself.

On these new coins, Alexander wears the scalp of an Indian elephant in the same way Herakles wore the lion pelt. Alexander also sports the aegis of Zeus, a scaly bib that could create thunder and ward off enemies. The aegis appears around Alexander’s neck, tied in place by the knotted bodies of two writhing snakes. In addition, these coins show above Alexander’s ear the unmistakable ram’s horn of the Egyptian deity Ammon (identified as Zeus by the Greeks). It was a conspicuous case of identity theft, as Ptolemy appropriated for Alexander the singular characteristics of the Graeco-Egyptian god. Ptolemy’s Alexander is Zeus / Ammon.

According to experts, Ptolemy thus not only exalted his hero but, by doing so, also elevated his own status as the caretaker of that hero’s corpse — now not just the body of a great leader, but of a god...

Ptolemy’s Alexandrian Postscript, Frank L. Holt, Saudi Aramco World, Texas, USA, Volume 57, Number 6, November / December 2006.

Egypt is going to have a new museum. The Arab country is building, in Al-Azhar Park, in Cairo, a museum that will retrieve the history and religion of the capital city of the Arab country. It will be named First Museum of the City, and will convey a notion of the evolution of the city. The museum will be in an area of 4,000 square metres, and will have two floors, on which 1,000 pieces from different historical periods, especially the Islamic one, will be exhibited.

"Most pieces are from the Islamic era, but there will also be pieces from the Pharaonic and Coptic eras," said Seif Al-Rachidi, the Agha Khan Organization for Culture coordinator for the Museum. The project is conducted by the Agha Khan Organization for Culture and by the Supreme Council of Antiques.

The committee in charge of the project is still searching the country for objects to be exhibited in the museum. Some of them will come from other museums. The Pharaonic pieces will come mostly from archaeological excavations in the Matarya region, in the outskirts of Cairo. Objects coming from excavations at the Citadel, a historical area in the Egyptian capital, will be exhibited in the museum as well...

Museum to tell the history of Cairo, Randa Achmawi, ANBA, Brazil, November 15, 2006.