The large national exhibition "Egyptian mummies – immortality in the country of the Pharaoh" is to be shown in the federal state museum Wuerttemberg from the 6th October 2007 to 24th March 2008 in the Alten Schloss Stuttgart . On the basis of a considerable own existence of the museum the exhibition wants to obtain a comprehensive overview of the mummifying technology, the dead cult and the other world conceptions of the ancient Egyptians. It gives answers to questions about the life and faith of this millennia-old advanced culture: Who were these people, why they mummified their dead and what techniques were applied, in order to prepare their bodies for an "eternal life"? ...

Unsterblichkeit im Land der Pharaonen , Damal Geschichte Online, Germany, November 22, 2006.

Washington University owns one of the world's most prized mummies, currently on display at the St. Louis Art Museum. Many in the university community would like to see her moved to campus.

Prominent St. Louis banker and private collector, Charles Parsons, donated two mummies to the University in 1896. Both mummies have been on permanent loan to the St. Louis Art Museum since 2002. They were displayed at the University from August to December of 1999. Prior to this showing, they were in storage at the University.

One of those is Pet-Menekh, a male mummy, from the 4th or 3rd century B.C.E., whose wrapped toes can be seen at the foot of the coffin. The female mummy, Henut-Wedjebu, from roughly 1391-1350 B.C.E., is held in much higher esteem...

Buried treasure: University-owned mummy kept at St. Louis museum, Andrea Winter, Student Life, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, November 15, 2006.

A new list of seven wonders of the world is being created for which you can vote for your favourites. HappyNews.com has created a list of the seven wonders of the internet world starting with e-mail.

Email

U.S. Postal mail, now referred to as snail mail due to the agonizing number of days it takes to be delivered, can be traced back to its origin over 4,000 years ago. Historical references to a postal system can be found in Egypt and Cappadocia, dating from around 2000 BC. One of the oldest letters discovered is a tablet from the mid-14th century BC containing condolences from the king of Mitanni to Amenhotep IV, king of Egypt (and husband to the famous Queen Nefertiti) on the death of his father. Since then, it remained pretty much unchanged until 1860 when the Pony Express, a relatively slow network that ran on hay instead of electricity, lowered the delivery time of a message from weeks to, well, fewer weeks...

Seven Wonders Of The Internet World, Byron Reese, HappyNews.com, USA, November 15, 2006.

Conservation groups today claimed a rare Egyptian-style cinema in Glasgow would be "completely ruined" if a developer is allowed to convert it into flats.

Govanhill Picture House, which opened in 1926, is one of only five cinemas in the world built in the unique Arabian fashion and is the only one of its kind in Scotland.

But Hanison Estates, based in Cathcart, want to create a five-storey development of 43 flats at the site and their revised planning application will shortly be considered by Glasgow City Council...

Call to save old cinema, Graeme Murray, The Glasgow Evening Times, Scotland, UK, November 21, 2006.

Four members of a shipping family were charged yesterday in connection with a large collection of illegal antiquities that was found earlier this year at a villa on a tiny Aegean island.

Prosecutor Eleni Raikou brought criminal charges against Despina Papadimitriou, the alleged owner of the villa on the island of Schinoussa, and her three children, Alexandros, Dimitris and Angeliki.

The four suspects have been charged with illegally possessing, receiving and trading antiquities. Authorities said that 152 artefacts were found at the villa on Schinoussa and at the family's Athenian home in Psychico, northern Athens...

Four charged over artefact stash, Kathimerini, Greece, November 23, 2006.

cf. Previously: Former Getty curator charged with Greek art theft.

Italian Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli said that an offer by the J. Paul Getty Museum to hand over 26 disputed antiquities doesn't go far enough and that the museum needs to return all of the artefacts Italy has requested.

Italy is asking for 21 others, including “Statue of a Victorious Youth,” known as the Getty Bronze. The Los Angeles-based J. Paul Getty Museum, the world’s richest private art institution, said on Nov. 21 [2006] that it would return only some of the contested objects...

Italy Says Getty Needs to Surrender All Disputed Artefacts, Farah Nayeri, Bloomberg, New York, USA, November 23, 2006.

Despite the inset of the rainy season in the American west cost city of Portland, Oregon, hundreds of people were queuing last week at the front gate of the Portland Art Museum to take an incredible journey with the Pharaohs through the afterlife. The street in front of the museum, which looks much like Park Avenue, was also packed with luxurious vehicles as the crème of Portland society flocked into the museum to attend the opening of "The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt", the largest collection of antiquities ever loaned by Egypt for a North American exhibition.

The exhibition displays 107 artefacts illustrating the Pharaohs' dramatic voyage to the afterlife. Items were carefully selected from the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the Luxor Museum and archaeological sites in Deir Al-Bahari on Luxor's west bank and Tanis in the Delta, where the intact royal burial of Psusennes I was discovered in the 1940s.

"The gold masks and jewellery are at least as beautiful as the pieces from Tutankhamun's tomb, but they were discovered on the eve of World War II, when there just wasn't time to deal with that sort of thing," Bill Mercer, curator of native American and ethnographic art at the museum, told reporters during a press conference held in the museum a day before the exhibition's official opening. Mercer went on to say that not only were the objects beautiful, splendid, magnificent and significant, but the scope of the exhibition was huge and included 45 pieces from Tutankhamun's collection...

Pharaohs in the city of roses, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 821, November 23 - 29, 2006.