Jane Akshar has posted some photographs of the new visitor centre in the Valley of the Kings on her blog.

photos from the new Valley of Kings visitors centre, Jane Akshar, Luxor News, Luxor, Egypt, December 24, 2006.

Strange specimens of natural glass found in the Egyptian desert are products of a meteorite slamming into Earth between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, scientists have concluded.

The glass — known locally as Dakhla glass — represents the first clear evidence of a meteorite striking an area populated by humans.

At the time of the impact, the Dakhla Oasis, located in the western part of modern-day Egypt, resembled the African savanna and was inhabited by early humans, according to archaeological evidence...

"This meteorite event would have been catastrophic for all living things," said Maxine Kleindienst, an anthropologist at the University of Toronto in Canada.

"Even a relatively small impact would have exterminated all life for [several] miles..."

Mysterious Egyptian Glass Formed by Meteorite Strike, Study Says, Stefan Lovgren, National Geographic News, District of Columbia, USA, December 21, 2006.

Previously:

More on Meteorite Crash Helped Form King Tut Necklace, June 30, 2006.

King Tut’s glass beetle came from outer space, June 27, 2006.

“I’m no Indiana Jones,” says Franck Goddio, the French economist-turned-archaeologist who curated “Egypt’s Sunken Treasures” at the Grand Palais in Paris.

The slow-talking 59-year-old heads the team that has spent 14 years recovering the artefacts on show. Goddio graduated in statistics and learned archaeology on the job, prompting some scepticism in the small world of archaeologists and Egyptologists.

“My job is to avoid adventure, it’s the last thing I want,” he said in an interview at the Grand Palais, where almost 500 of his underwater discoveries are on show through Jan. 7 [2007]. “Things must happen as planned. I don't let chance drive my work...”

Finder of 'Egypt's Sunken Treasures' Says He's No Swashbuckler, Helene Fouquet, Bloomberg, New York, USA, December 28, 2006.

In a few weeks, beginning in February, King Tut will debut at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. ARCHAEOLOGY's Tracy Spurrier spoke to Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, and curator David Silverman of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology about how the exhibition was brought together.

How and why did you choose these particular artefacts out of the hundreds collected from the tomb? Why did you decide to include pieces from the 18th Dynasty before Tutankhamun?

We thought from the beginning that it's not good to send just Tutankhamun, because we want people to known about 18th Dynasty before his reign, so that they can understand the history. It is important to see him in his proper context, not just as a treasure. These pieces belonged to the ancestors of Tut. Some artefacts from Tut's tomb cannot travel, like the mask and the coffin, but these other pieces fit with the scenario of this exhibition and people can appreciate them...

Tut Talk , Archaeology Magazine, Archaeological Institute of America, USA, December 11, 2006.

How do you know it's been an extraordinary year in archaeology? When the discovery of the earliest Maya writing and a 2,500-year-old sarcophagus decorated with scenes from the Iliad don't crack ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 list:

• 1. Valley of the Kings Tomb
  KV63 was the first tomb to be excavated in the Valley of the Kings since Tutankhamun's in 1922. The chamber held seven 18th Dynasty coffins.
• ...

Top 10 Discoveries of 2006, Archaeology Magazine, Archaeological Institute of America, USA, Volume 60, Number 1, January / February 2007.

Money in Egypt is confusing! It shouldn't be but it is. Because I ended up dealing in four currencies and having to know roughly the translation from each to Egyptian and Sterling. English Sterling (GBP), US Dollars (USD), Euros (EUR) and Egyptian Pounds (EGP - locally written as LE).

The rates at the moment are approximately 1 GBP = 11 EGP, 1 EUR = 7.5 EGP, and 1 USD = 5.7 EGP. So to make it easy on the mental arithmetic use 10, 7.5, and 5 for reasonable approximations.

One problem I faced was that my hotel, the Holiday Inn Safaga Palace, was mainly a German resort so the bureau de change in the hotel refused to accept my sterling travellers cheques! The guy sat there for ten minutes leafing back-and-forth through huge volumes on spotting forged travellers cheques before asking if I had a euro or dollar cheques. Luckily there was a cash machine in the hotel as well.

Previously:

Back from Egypt - I, December 27, 2006.

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

• The Writing is on the Wall ...
  ... but should it be? AE reveals the growing problem of modern graffiti at some of the most important archaeological sites in Egypt.
• From our Egypt Correspondent
  Ayman Wahby Taher with the latest news from Egypt, including the moving of the Rameses II statue.
• Photo Feature: more on the Imhotep Museum at Saqqara
  AE presents unique photographs of some of the stunning exhibits at the new museum at Saqqara.
• Dying to be Egyptian
  Elisabeth Kerner looks at some of the lesser-known cemeteries in London, with their “Egyptianising” architecture.
• The Tomb of Harwa at Thebes
  Chris Naunton writes about the excavations and finds in one of the largest private tombs (dating to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty) in the Theban Necropolis.
• Mary Chubb: Writer and Archaeologist
  A brief biography by Elizabeth Griesman.
• Ancient Egyptian Technology
  Denys Stocks, in the first of three articles, reveals how the ancient Egyptians cut and carved the hardest of stones for their monuments and statues.
• Friends of Nekhen News
  Renée Friedman looks at the many and varied finds from the ancient city of Hierakonpolis and what they reveal about the inhabitants.
• Per Mesut: for younger readers
  In this edition, Hilary Wilson looks at baskets.

Ancient Egypt Magazine, Empire Publications, Manchester, UK, Volume 7, No. 3, Issue 39, December / January 2007.

Subscribe to Ancient Egypt Magazine via Amazon.com.

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

• Amarna, Egypt's Place in the Sun
  The University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology Showcase the Amarna Period.
• Examining the Mystery of the Niagara Falls Mummy
  by Dylan Bickerstaff. The Case Against Rameses I.
• Egypt on Merseyside
  by Lucy Gordan-Rastelli. A Visit to the Egyptian Collection in Liverpool.
• The Obelisks of Rome
  by Aidan Dodson. A Guide to the Eternal City's Many Needles of the Sun.
• New York's Obelisk
  Cleopatra's Needle: How It Got There A Pictorial Essay.
• Smiting: A Family Affair
  by Earl L. Ertman. Like Everything Else in His Reign, Akhenaten Changed an Ancient Ritual.
• Djehuty, Moon-God & Divine Scribe
  Ninth in the Series: The Egyptian Pantheon.
• Vladimir S. Golenischev
  by Victor M. Solkin. 150th Anniversary of the Egyptologist You Probably Have Never heard Of.

KMT, KMT Communications Inc., Sebastopol, California, USA, Volume 17, Number 4, Winter 2006 - 07.

Subscribe to KMT Magazine via Amazon.com.

With its temples and the nearby Valley of the Queens and Valley of the Kings, Egypt’s Luxor is one of the richest archaeological zones in the world.

But, says Burnham: “Luxor is one of the great catastrophe areas in the world with the convergence of environmental factors, man-made factors and unmanaged tourism.”

The most disastrous problems are rising water tables and the farming of sugar cane, a crop that introduces fertilisers and other chemicals into the ground water.

Burnham said archaeologists are trying to pull antiquities out of the ground before they’re destroyed by the ground water and pollutants.

Adding to the problem are thousands of tourists who arrive by bus from Sinai resorts all at the same time.

“Egypt,” she said, “has a very specific tourism goal for Luxor — to reach 10 million visitors a year by 2010.”

World treasures under attack, The Age, Australia, December 26, 2006.

British police are investigating the role of one of the country’s biggest construction firms in what was originally a £71m contract to rebuild the Great Library of Alexandria, one of the wonders of the ancient world.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has interviewed several employees of Balfour Beatty over their role in the contract in Egypt to build one of the architectural jewels of the Middle East.

A Unesco world heritage site, the modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina, on the shores of the Mediterranean, was completed in 2001. The library and cultural centre was designed to commemorate the original library, whose loss in antiquity was said to have changed the course of western civilisation.

Sources close to the inquiry said detectives were focusing on why the fixed-price contract issued by the Egyptian education ministry apparently rose by more than £50m after the work was commissioned...

Fraud probe over a wonder of the world, David Leppard, The Times, UK, December 10, 2006.

“The Step Pyramid is collapsing,” Zahi Hawass, Head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) says. “The substructure of the Pyramid of Djoser (another name for the Step Pyramid) is a series of tunnels about seven kilometres long. These have been collapsing for the last 50 years and unfortunately no one has done anything about it until now.”

Tour buses are the main culprits, according to SCA studies. In peak season large groups of buses sit just outside the site idling their engines and creating vibrations that reach all the way to the Step Pyramid. In October, Hawass announced that doing so now constitutes a crime.

“There is a new criminal charge called damaging antiquities. It will fall under the same law as stealing them, and we are going to have much harsher penalties,” he states. Because it is still new, no one is sure what kinds of difficulties will be encountered with pressing charges. For emphasis he adds, “If you run your motor on the site, you will go to jail.”

Even while acknowledging potential problems, Hawass is pleased with the new law. “I’m sure that the prospect of jail, for however long it is, will make people think twice about these things...”

Bad Vibrations, Cache Seel, Egypt Today, Volume 27, Issue 12, December 2006.

The ninth Conference of Arab Archaeologists took place in Egypt last month, under the auspices of Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League. The conference looked at over 100 research papers focusing mainly on ways to protect and restore Lebanese and Palestinian antiquities from Israeli aggression. The conference also looked at the havoc the American occupation has wreaked on Iraqi antiquities. The conference honoured Sheikha Hussa Al-Sabah, the curator of the House of Islamic Antiquities in Kuwait. The participants’ recommendations highlighted the need for a database to connect Arab antiquarians and make their work accessible to each other.

Culture 101: Preserving Arab Antiquities, MJ, Egypt Today, Volume 27, Issue 12, December 2006.

Since the 1960s and ’70s, libraries in the West have been digitizing their catalogues and even the contents of their shelves, but a lack of resources has kept all but the most well funded Middle Eastern libraries from doing the same. The Yale University Library hopes to correct this situation, bringing the fruits of Middle Eastern scholars’ labours into the digital age.

Although the ivy-league university based in Connecticut has received $1.3 million in funding from the US’ Department of Education (DOE) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) since the digitizing efforts began five years ago, the continuing success of their two projects depends as much on the enthusiasm of the participants as on their continued funding.

The first project, Online Access for Consolidated Information about Serials (OACIS), is a searchable list of catalogue information compiled from the 20 participating libraries around the world, including the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) and that of the American University in Cairo. The OACIS list is composed entirely of catalogue data of scholarly journals from and about the Middle East.

“The catalogue records are information about the journals, they are not the stuff itself,” explains Ann Okerson, Yale’s associate university librarian for collections and international programs. “The ‘sexy’ word is ‘metadata’...”

Go Digital, Dan Reese, Egypt Today, Volume 27, Issue 12, December 2006.

Egypt announced the discovery of a carving dating back to the 12th century BC which could hold the key to valuable information on Karnak temple, the largest ancient religious site in the world.

The large quartzite stone, carved with 17 lines of hieroglyphics, highlights the achievements of high priest Bak En Khonsu and his contributions to the grand hall at Karnak.

The 170 cm by 80 cm carving (5.5 by 2.5 feet), unearthed by a team of archaeologists in the southern Nile city of Luxor, also depicts the high priest's family tree.

"This is very important because we never knew anything about Bak En Khonsu," the second most important man after the king, said Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

"This is going to reconstruct history and will enrich our understanding of Karnak," he told AFP. The stone was found by a team of Egyptian archaeologists...

Ancient Egyptian carving sheds light on Karnak temple, AFP via PhysOrg, USA, December 18, 2006.

cf. Ancient Egyptian carving sheds light on Karnak temple, AFP via Yahoo! News, USA, December 17, 2006.

cf. Ancient Egyptian carving sheds light on Karnak temple, AFP via Middle East Times, Cyprus, December 18, 2006.

Egyptian archaeologists discover significant carving

The Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) announced the find to the press and said that the carving dates back to the 12th century BC and the reign of King Setnakht, founder of the [20th] dynasty and father of Ramses III...

cf. Egyptian archaeologists discover significant carving, UKTV History, UK, December, 2006.

20th dynasty tablet unearthed

“The hieroglyphic text on the tablet says that the [high] priest [of Amun, Bak En Khonsu,] supervised the construction of the main hall of the Karnak Temple,” Hawass added...

cf. 20th dynasty tablet unearthed, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, December 18, 2006.

12th century BC carving may hold the secret of Karnak Temple

Dr Zahi Hawass ... explained that the large quartzite stone, carved with 17 lines of hieroglyphics, highlights the achievements of high priest Bak En Khonsu and his contributions to the grand hall at Karnak.

Hawass told reporters that the stone consists of two parts: the upper part depicts King Setnakht lying prostrate with the blue crown on his head. He offers the symbol of justice to the supreme deity Amun Ra, that appears sitting on his throne while holding with his left hand Alwast — emblem of the city of Thebes — and in his right, the key of life.

Behind Amun Ra Goddess Mut — one of Thebes’ Trinity that consists of Amun, Mut and son Khonsu — is depicted raising her left hand, a gesture meant to bestow protection on the king, Hawass added.

Seventeen lines of hieroglyphic text are carved on the lower part of the stone, followed by an illustration of chief Amun priest Bak En Khonsu, seen in a worshipping posture and in full official priest attire...

cf. 12th century BC carving may hold the secret of Karnak Temple, Ahmed Maged, Daily Star Egypt, Egypt, December 19, 2006.

The National Democratic Party's announcement a month ago that Egypt is seeking to revive its nuclear programme and means to build a large power station neighbouring the Graeco-Roman site of Tel Al-Dabaa on the Alexandria-Marsa-Matrouh road caught the headlines of newspapers and sparked uproar among archaeologists who feared the construction would destroy a major archaeological site.

Conflict also arose between the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the Ministry of Electricity which will lead the construction process. The press has weighed in daily to offer a plethora of contradictory opinions, leaving the public confused as to the genuine issues. Rumours have spread that the conflict has been deliberately created by the SCA and the ministries of tourism and construction in an attempt to ensure another location is found for the nuclear station and Tel Al-Dabaa is left free for abuse by a mega tourist project like the huge complex at Marina Al-Alamein.

Last Monday, however, a committee of SCA experts and Ministry of Electricity officials embarked on an inspection tour of the 70 sq km site of Tel Al-Dabaa and finally came up with concrete ideas to suit all parties...

I believe Tel Al-Dabaa = Tell el-Dab'a = Tel Ed-Daba = Tel el-Daba = Tell el-Daba'a etc. Which is ancient Avaris excavated by Manfred Bietak from the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Cairo. Many thanks to Aayko Eyma for clarifying that I was mistaken in my belief that this article referred to Avaris, as the site in question is on the Western side of the Nile..

Ancient site to go nuclear, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 825, December 21 - 27, 2006.

Don't judge this book by its faded cover. It is rich in content and casts fascinating revelations on the reign of Abbas Hilmi II the last khedive of Egypt before the 1919 Revolution. It is an era which has been largely neglected, merely alluded to by Western historians from the imperialist point of view, and by Egyptians from a nationalist, Nasserist perspective.

Here, at last, is a fascinating insight into a period of renewal during his reign (1892-1914). Egypt's economic debt had been paid off. The price of cotton was good. Industrialisation had begun. The stock exchange was being created, and there was a revival of political awareness with some 30 magazine and newspaper titles running off the press. This was a lively time in the nation's history both economically and culturally for Egyptians and the large foreign community, with first class singers and entertainers, fine arts and architecture, and an interest in Egyptology.

It was Abbas Hilmi II who unveiled the statue of the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, the celebrated founder and preserver of Egypt's monuments, in the garden of the newly constructed Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square in 1904, where newly discovered objects on display included the ceremonial palette of Narmer, discovered by Quibell in 1894, and a horde of royal mummies excavated by Loret from the tomb of Amenhotep II in the Valley of the Kings between 1897 and 1899...

, Abbas Hilmi II translated by Amira Sonbol, Ithaca Press, 1998, pp. 352, hardback.

The Last Khedive of Egypt: Memoirs of Abbas Hilmi II, Abbas Hilmi II translated by Amira Sonbol, American University in Cairo Press, 2006, pp. 404, paperback, ISBN-13: 9789774249945.

A royal perspective, Jill Kamil, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 824, December 14 - 20, 2006.

The Coptic monastery known as Deir Al-Surian, or the Monastery of the Syrians, contains more than 3,000 books as well as a vast number of texts in Syriac, Aramaic (the language of Christ), Coptic, Arabic and Ethiopic. They date upwards from the fifth century and today, as a result of the revival in Coptic monasticism in recent years, a new generation of educated monks are anxious to safeguard this heritage. Both Syrian and Coptic monks are engaged in their conservation, as well as restoration of the monastery itself.

Collaborating with them on what is known as the Deir Al-Surian Library Project is the Levantine Foundation. The aim is twofold: to salvage old manuscripts which, after surviving a century and a half in a living community, are in danger of being lost, and to conserve the remaining literary inheritance of more than 1,000 Syriac manuscripts for future generations.

The project is moving ahead and members of the conservation team, with the help of volunteers and on a shoe-string budget, are surveying, restoring, cataloguing and storing the Syriac texts in a suitable environment. A digital photographic record of each manuscript will eventually be made to facilitate access for scholars, and appropriate storage for the manuscripts and facilities for visiting scholars is also planned...

Troves of scholarship, Jill Kamil, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 824, December 14 - 20, 2006.

Plans for a grand exhibition of the teenage pharaoh’s treasures at the venue have been thrown into doubt because Egyptian officials will not allow the artefacts to be displayed next to a proposed casino.

The dome’s owner is hoping to be granted a licence for Britain’s first Las Vegas-style gambling venue next month.

However, Cairo’s most senior antiquities official has described such a move as a “disaster”, claiming this weekend that it would “insult the dignity” of Tutankhamun.

“If there is a casino in the dome, I will not send the exhibits to London,” declared Zahi Hawass, the secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities...

King Tut hit by the curse of the dome, Dipesh Gadher, The Times, UK, December 24, 2006.

I have just come back from spending Christmas in Egypt. Flew out on Tuesday 19th and returned Yesterday Tuesday 26th. Actually we arrived after midnight at Gatwick (London) airport in the UK and then faced a two-and-a-half hour drive home, finally getting in at 3AM GMT (this morning) which I'm sure you know is 5AM Egyptian time! Not much sleep on the aeroplane either!

My wife wanted a holiday somewhere hot for Christmas and we 'killed two birds with one stone' by going to the Red Sea resort of Safaga and stayed at the Holiday Inn Safaga Palace.

I managed to arrange a day trip to Luxor to see some of the sights and sites. This was my wife and children's first trip to Egypt and the second one for me as I had been to Cairo and Luxor in '97.

Anyway, more of this later. I shall attempt to catch up with the posts from last week over the coming days.

Merry Christmas!

Mark.

Comprising four interconnected nogou' (hamlets) — Al-Hurubat, Atiyat, Al-Ghabat, Al-Hasasna — the village conglomerate of Gurna is the most densely populated part of the west bank of the Nile in Luxor — the site of the Theban necropolis. And evacuating it has proved to be a major undertaking, second only to evacuating Nubia prior to its submersion in Lake Nasser in the course of building the Aswan High Dam. Two weeks after the "celebrations" broadcast on satellite television — pretty girls in ancient Egyptian outfits dancing around while the mud brick houses were being bulldozed into oblivion — villagers like Mohamed El-Tayib, a tour guide, are voicing discontent: "you think these girls are from Gurna? Well, they're from Luxor. The celebration a show put on by others — nothing to do with Gurna or its people..."

While the move was being planned, indeed, incipient meetings had excluded all but the most affluent villagers, as El-Tayib explained, who could afford houses bigger than the 150 sq m units provided to each family in Al-Taref (or New Gurna, five kilometres away). This was the main complaint: in Upper Egypt large, often extended, families will normally occupy a single space, and Gurna villagers are concerned that, with up to seven children (not to mention grandchildren) in each family, a 150 sq m space would not be enough for comfortable living. Nabawiya El-Garani, a member of one of the first four families to be moved on the occasion of the "celebration", has been told by City Council officials that she should expect to be moved again. "Why make me leave my home if they are going to move me again," she asked rhetorically. "I like it here. But without a contract I live in fear of what will come next." Unreliable as it remains, running water has spared her the uphill journey, undertaken every other day, to fill troughs carried on a donkey-pulled cart; and with furniture (donated), her new home is an improvement on the last. Yet she cannot fully enjoy any of it knowing she must move again...

A place to stay, Pierre Loza, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 824, December 14 - 20, 2006.

"Egypt's Sunken Treasure" will be Paris's blockbuster exhibition this winter following its successful première last summer in Berlin, where it attracted a total of 450,000 visitors. For the next three months, Parisians can take a virtual dive to the bottom of the Mediterranean sea and explore the lost treasures of Ancient Egypt.

"Egypt's Sunken Treasures" at the Grand Palais was opened early this week by President Hosni Mubarak and President Jacques Chirac of France. The exhibition features some 500 spectacular objects that sank when geomorphic changes caused Egypt's North Coast to submerge between 600 and 800 AD. They have been rediscovered over the past decade by an underwater team led by French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio.

The Grand Palais, which was built early in the last century and houses art exhibitions from all over the world, combines an imposing classical limestone façade with a riot of Art Nouveau glass and ironwork. In 1993 one of the glass ceiling panels fell and the building was closed for 12 years so extensive restoration could be carried out...

Paris plunges into Egyptology, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 824, December 14 - 20, 2006.

Coffee table books — solid, extravagant, oddly comforting — make fine gifts but can be difficult to choose. Serious or funny? Sober journalism or up-close views of nightmarish insects? And is bigger better?

Sometimes, as noted here, bigger is quite, quite good...

, Zahi Hawass, Photographs by Sandro Vannini, Thames & Hudson, 2006, pp. 316, $65 / £40.

Hawass, co-organizer of the touring King Tut exhibit and director of excavations at the Giza pyramids, provides armchair Egyptologists — and, frankly, anyone with a passing interest in history — with an absorbing, comprehensive guide to the wall paintings and murals discovered in the Valley of the Kings. With more than 300 illustrations and intriguing, in-depth explanations of ancient Egyptian society and customs, The Royal Tombs resurrects history with skill and flair...

Coffee table books look at rockers, rainforests and royal tombs, Connie Ogle, The Miami Herald, Florida, USA, December 05, 2006.

With its 300 colour illustrations — including 30 huge foldouts — The Royal Tombs of Egypt: The Art of Thebes Revealed (Thames & Hudson, 315 pages, $65) is a kingly achievement itself. According to the publisher, the book is the first to reproduce in full the murals lining the walls of the royal resting places in the Valley of the Kings. With text by Egyptologist Zahi Hawass.

cf. Give a page-turner, Fritz Lanham, The Orlando Sentinel, Florida, USA, December 10, 2006.

cf. What's in that big box? Maybe a big book!, AP via The Brandon Sun, Manitoba, Canada, December 09, 2006.

Join Pacific University [on Feb. 11, 2007] for a self-guided tour of the Portland Art Museum's exhibit The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt. Afterward, come to a lecture featuring the museum's collection of scarabs.

The Portland Art Museum features the largest selection of antiquities ever loaned by Egypt for exhibition in North America. It includes objects that have never been on public display and many that have never been seen outside of Egypt. Ancient Egyptian beliefs and practices based on the afterlife journey of pharaohs will be dramatically illustrated through 115 magnificent objects from Egypt and a life-sized reconstruction of the burial chamber of the New Kingdom pharaoh Thutmose III (1479-1425 BC). The exhibition is organized by United Exhibits Group, Copenhagen, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in association with the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Cairo...

View Egyptian Exhibit at Portland Art Museum, Brian Hess, Pacific University, Oregon, USA, December 08, 2006.

Egyptian Antiquities from the Louvre is a major new international exhibition opening at the Art Gallery of South Australia in March [2007].

More than 200 precious objects will be on show in the first exhibition to come to Australia from the Louvre in almost two decades.

Art Gallery director Christopher Menz is delighted Adelaide is one of just three cities in Australia — Canberra and Perth are the others — to host the exhibition.

“It’s a great coup for us to have it here,” he said.

“I’ve seen it in Canberra and it is strikingly beautiful and great art. We don’t get to see works of this standard very often and as the bedrock for later European art, it is very significant...”

Includes a video: Journey to the Afterlife, Egyptian Antiquities from the Louvre.

Journey to the Afterlife, Adelaide Now, Australia, December 10, 2006.

On Monday the Los Angeles-based J. Paul Getty Museum announced it would return a sixth century B.C. marble statue of a young woman to Greece following claims by the Greek government that the artwork was illegally excavated and taken out of the country without proper authority...

So valuable is the trade in stolen artworks — which includes, but is not limited to ancient pieces — that it is now estimated to be worth almost as much as the drug trafficking industry.

And while the academic association of these objects lends the trade a vague air of greater respectability than many other illegal activities, law enforcement agencies and antiquities experts are unequivocal in labelling it every bit as damaging and criminal as the smuggling of narcotics, weapons or human beings.

"It (the illegal antiquities trade) is tawdry, degrading and immoral," leading British archaeologist Professor Colin Renfrew has declared.

"Antiquities without provenance, lacking an archaeological history or context, have almost certainly been looted, wrenched from their sites by explosives which have destroyed their surrounds. This is a crime against humanity..."

Antiquities smuggling: 'A crime against humanity', Paul Sussman, CNN, USA, December 12, 2006.

An update on Italy's unprecedented stand against museums, collectors, and an international smuggling ring.

In Italy's ongoing pursuit of stolen artefacts — reported here last February with "The Trial in Rome" and followed up in the July / August issue of ARCHAEOLOGY with "Raiding the Tomb Raiders," — American museums are giving back works of art, court cases are plodding along, and at least one private collection has come under scrutiny. As 2006 comes to an end, Italy appears to be on the path to victory, though not without at least one setback, and Greece is following their example...

Italy versus the Illicit Trade, Kirsten Vala, Archaeology Magazine, Archaeological Institute of America, New York, USA, December 8, 2006.

No other woman in history has stimulated the imagination of following generations as much as Cleopatra VII: statesmanlike ruler, mother of royal children and femme fatale. She was the lover of both Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony; Augustus viewed her as a threat to the Roman Empire and drove her to her death. He attempted to erase all recollection of her, but instead the opposite occurred and the myth of Cleopatra was born. Even today, she remains an object of fascination for painters, writers, musicians and directors.

Kleopatra und die Caesaren , Epoch Times International, Germany, December 11, 2006.

Buceris Kunst Forum: Kleopatra und die Caesaren.

Polymath or jack of all trades? Too many talents can be a mixed blessing, as Thomas Young, one of the most intelligent Englishmen who ever lived, found out. His work was overlooked or misunderstood in a vast number of fields from physics and engineering to Egyptology, in all of which he has since been shown to have made a huge contribution. He was the first person to prove that light is a wave. He discovered how the eye focuses and he coined the phrase “Indo-European”. His lectures to the Royal Institution were reprinted as recently as 2002. Yet he is scarcely a household name.

Young’s abilities showed themselves early. Born in 1773 into a strict Quaker family, he learnt to read at the age of two. By five he had got through Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels and decided he didn’t care for English fiction. Although he trained as a doctor, the rest of his life was chiefly devoted to science, or “natural philosophy”, as it was then known. He was born at an auspicious time; a child of the enlightenment growing up in the age of the Romanticism, he lived in a world where the boundaries between disciplines had yet to harden, and where Humphrey Davy, his fellow lecturer at the Royal Institution, could publish in the same magazine as Keats. Whole new areas of knowledge were opening up, and with Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 and the discovery of the Rosetta stone came the possibility of deciphering the language of the pharaohs. Young was keen to have a go and his efforts made him the first person to read demotic script since the fall of the Roman Empire...

, Andrew Robinson, Oneworld Publications, 2006, pp. 304.

Too clever by half, Rosemary Hill, The Sunday Times, UK, December 10, 2006.

Following news that archaeologists in Rome have discovered a sarcophagus containing what they believe to be the mortal remains of St. Paul the Apostle, we offer a few tips on how to get in on the world of excavation.

• Forget the bull whip
• Study hard, get the qualifications
• Volunteer as "trowel fodder"
• Resign yourself to a lifetime of poorly-paid obscurity
• Find Nefertiti

Shortcuts: How to make it as an archaeologist, Paul Sussman, CNN, USA, December 11, 2006.

The J. Paul Getty Museum announced Monday that it would return to Greece an ancient gold wreath and a marble bust that Greece claims were illegally spirited out of the country.

At a news conference with the Greek culture minister, museum director Michael Brand said they had "reached an agreement in principle on the return of two objects."

A statement added that "a formal agreement, which will be signed soon, will include details about the return of the objects to Greece."

Greece claims the works — a gold wreath dating from about 400 B.C. and a sixth century B.C. marble statue of a young woman — were illegally excavated and spirited out of the country.

It was unclear if the return would stop a Greek criminal investigation over the alleged theft of the wreath...

Getty Museum to Return 2 Greek Treasures, Nicholas Paphitis, AP via The Los Angeles Times, California, USA, December 11, 2006.

TravelVideo's regular antiquity news roundup.

• Ceremony marking resettling of Qurna families to explore for pharaonic tombs in Luxor
• Pharaonic cemetery discovered in Luxor
• Tutankhamen exhibition in Europe & Japan after USA

Antiquity News December 2006, TravelVideo.TV, Ontario, Canada, December 07, 2006.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his French counterpart Jacques Chirac Friday unveiled an exhibition of sunken treasures recovered by French underwater explorers and spanning 1,500 years of Egyptian history.

Mubarak, in Paris as part of a five-day European tour, toured the display of 500 rare pieces at the Grand Palais in Paris in company of his wife Suzanne, Chirac and his wife Bernadette.

The artefacts, dating from 700 BC to 800 AD, were recovered by a team of archaeologists led by the Frenchman Franck Goddio, who have been working on the sea floor off Egypt's coast for the past 10 years.

They include the largest known statue of Hapy, the Egyptian god of the Nile, a five-metre (11-foot) colossus dating from 2,000 years ago, which forms the centrepiece of the display along with statuettes of deities, coins and everyday objects.

A total of 8,000 artefacts have been excavated from the Mediterranean depths, from the ancient harbour of Alexandria, the nearby site of Canopus and the lost city of Heraklion some seven kilometres (four miles) offshore.

The show, "Egypt's Sunken Treasures", drew almost half a million visitors when it was put on in Berlin earlier this year. It opens to the Paris public on Saturday and runs until March 16 [2007]...

The exhibition catalogue can be obtained from Amazon here: , Franck Goddio, Prestel, 2006.

Chirac, Mubarak Unveil Egyptian Treasure Trove in Paris, The Tocqueville Connection, France, December 08, 2006.

Previously: UNESCO presents project for National Museum of Egyptian Civilization at exhibition of Egyptian antiquities in Paris.

As the importance of cultural patrimony increases, American museums will probably never again be able to acquire Greek, Roman, and Egyptian works at the rate and with the freedom they did in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, when major collections, like those of the Metropolitan Museum, were assembled.

In different ways, two events in New York this month — a sale on Thursday at Christie's, and an exhibition opening in two weeks at the Met — offer reminders of that time, an exciting one for archaeologists, collectors, and curators, when some of the most important discoveries of Egyptian art were made. On Thursday, the Western Reserve Historical Society is selling a mummy and sarcophagus brought back from Egypt in 1900 by Liberty Holden, the publisher of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, who made his fortune in silver mining. Two weeks from tomorrow, the Met will open an exhibition of photographs by the archaeological photographer Harry Burton, "Tutankhamun's Tomb: The Thrill of Discovery," documenting the excavation of the tomb between 1922 and 1933.

According to the head of Christie's antiquities department, G. Max Bernheimer, Holden was taking the "obligatory trip up the Nile" in the winter of 1900, when he learned that an Egyptian dealer had discovered a cache of four mummies and was offering them for sale. He bought this sarcophagus with its mummy, shipped it to Cairo for export clearance, and, on his return to Cleveland, donated it to the Historical Society, where the sarcophagus was publicly opened and the mummy partially unwrapped.

The Historical Society is selling the mummy, Mr. Bernheimer said, because it doesn't fit their mission, which is to collect objects related to Northeast Ohio...

Mummies in Manhattan, Kate Taylor, The New York Sun, New York, USA, December 04, 2006.

Scholars have long believed that ancient Egypt was a genetic stew of ethnicity, as the fabled kingdom was both a center of international trade and often the victim of foreign invasions.

Now, new evidence suggests that may have been true even in the upper echelons of society, according to researchers who have used a blend of art and science to re-create what the ancients looked like in real life.

They have used CAT scans to model the skulls of seven mummies from various museums, including one unveiled last month at Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences, revealing physical features that range from Mediterranean to African.

All seven were buried with the trappings of a high status in society, including two clearly connected to the priesthood, said project leader Jonathan Elias, director of the Harrisburg, [Pennsylvania]-based Akhmim Mummy Research Consortium...

A new picture of ancient ethnic diversity, Tom Avril, The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Georgia, USA, December 08, 2006.

Previously: I'm sure this is a reprint of this one from last week A new picture of ancient ethnic diversity. There is a link from here to a Q&A forum with the project's leader.

While many New Yorkers were hunting for bargains in the pre-Christmas sales on Thursday, one anonymous buyer opted for a more unusual purchase, picking up a 3 000-year-old mummy at auction.

The unnamed, private collector paid $1.1-million for the ancient Egyptian sarcophagus, believed to date from 990 to 940 BC.

The mummy was brought back from Egypt by Liberty Holden, a publisher from Cleveland, Ohio, and donated to a local museum in 1901, according to Christie's auction house in New York.

Texts on the painted sarcophagus describe the occupant as Neskhons, believed to have worked in a temple performing rituals, although it is not known where he was originally buried.

A recent X-ray examination found that Neskhons was in his early 20s at the time of his death and likely died of an infection. His internal organs were removed, embalmed and replaced inside the body in wrapped bundles.

Christie's did not say what the unidentified buyer intended to do with his new purchase.

Million-dollar-mummy sold in New York, Sapa-AFP via The Independent Online, South Africa, December 08, 2006.

cf. Million-dollar-mummy sold in New York, Sapa-AFP via The Sunday Times, South Africa, December 08, 2006.

Visitors to the Segedunum Roman Fort in Wallsend will come face to face with an ancient Egyptian mummy this week, as a 3-dimensional digital image of her head is put on display at the Museum for the first time.

The mummy, known as Bakt Hor Nekht, has never been seen before; her intricately decorated coffin sealed out of respect and to preserve her remains. However, a CT scan carried out by Newcastle General Hospital this summer has now been used to create an accurate, detailed digital reconstruction of her head.

Gill Scott, Egyptologist for the Hancock Museum, which has loaned Bakt Hor Nekht to Segedunum, explained the significance of the model:

“Although we already have a forensic-style model of her as she would have appeared in real life, this 3 dimensional reconstruction will show how the mummification process has affected her. The CT footage provides us with fantastic computerised images of the mummy, but seeing the physical reconstruction of the head is quite an eerie experience...”

Mummy shows face after 3,000 years at Segedunum, Rachel Johnson, 24-Hour Museum, UK, November 30, 2006.

Since the SCA have found Qar's sarcophagus complete with a mummy this week I thought I'd link a couple of useful sites.

The Tomb of Qar (G 7101) At Giza, Jimmy Dunn, Tour Egypt, Texas, USA.

G7101; Tomb of Qar, Jenny Hill, Ancient Egypt Online, Scotland, UK.

There is also a book: , William Kelly Simpson, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA, 1976. I found one copy on Abebooks for £364.63!

Suzanne Mubarak's dedication to children, women, and peace is recognised all over the world. She has worked hard to improve the situation of women in Egypt, and is trying to educate the world about Muslim women. She is also responsible for raising issues concerning laws that give women more freedom to the attention of the public.

I have witnessed personally her dedication to children. I have had the honour of working with her to build a special museum for children in Cairo. There is already a children's museum in Heliopolis, but Mrs Mubarak has realised that we are now in the 21st century and really need a museum for children that teaches them to love their country even more, and especially to care for their environment and their heritage.

I began working with Mrs Mubarak on the new children's museum more than two years ago. She appointed me to be in charge of the project. All of the plans have been discussed with her in detail, and I am always very impressed by her knowledge of children's education. In fact, I have learnt much from her. She has great passion for children, and feels that every child in Egypt is her own.

As we began our work, the team made a new architectural plan and a new scenario. Everyone was happy with the architectural design, but we were aware that Mrs Mubarak was not at all happy with the interior...

Dig days: A noble dream, Zahi Hawass, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 823, December 07 - 13, 2006.

Archaeologists are sizing up a splendid painted anthropoid wooden sarcophagus found by chance at the Saqqara necropolis last week.

The sarcophagus was found by an Egyptian archaeological mission engaged in cleaning the burial shaft of the sixth- dynasty royal physician Qar, which neighbours King Djoser's pyramid complex at Saqqara almost 35km south of the Giza Plateau...

Early studies of the mummy revealed that it had been wrapped in a large number of linen shreds, and that it could be dated to the 30th Dynasty. However, a fracture found on the right side of the sarcophagus proves that it did not belong to the mummy it contained, since it was too short for the body. This raised the possibility that the priests in antiquity had to act in a hurry to insert the mummy inside the short sarcophagus to protect it. They had also removed it from its original location, but it turned out that they found a safe place to rebury it.

The mummy and the sarcophagus are now at the Saqqara restoration laboratory. More research will be carried out on the paintings and hieroglyphic texts in order to identify the owner and the reason why it was inserted into this sarcophagus and placed in Qar's tomb...

Too big for a coffin, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 823, December 07 - 13, 2006.

Over the ages Denderah Temple, one of the best preserved in Egypt, was isolated in the parched desert. The only tourists who paid a visit were making a stop on a journey between Cairo and Luxor. More recently, it has been a destination from the Red Sea resort of Hurghada or a stop on a Nile cruise itinerary.

However, interest in it was low, and a few years ago the temple was closed to visitors and its cafeteria and gift shops were almost derelict. Now the SCA's site management policy to rescue Egypt's archaeological sites and make them more tourist-friendly has brought new life to Denderah. The temple has been resurrected not only as an ancient temple but a comprehensive tourist complex providing visitors with various cultural and entertainment facilities.

Abdel-Hamid Qutub, head of the Engineering Department at the SCA, told Al-Ahram Weekly that one of the main goals of the development project was to reduce the number of visitors rooming around the temple's different galleries and corridors as well as the time spent inside the temple by constructing a visitors' centre in the empty space before the lofty monument, which will become an obligatory stop on any visitor's itinerary. It has a lecture hall and a cinema where a 15- minute documentary film gives an overview of the history of the temple and its important scenes and reliefs. As at all visitors' centres there is a small bookshop and a counter selling souvenirs. In order to control the movement of tourists and to protect the temple reliefs, plans have been set in motion for tour guides to lecture their groups outside the temple in front of a three-dimensional plan of the corridors, the halls and the sanctuary, and to show photographs of the most noteworthy scenes on the temple walls. All the old wooden kiosks erected for selling souvenirs have been demolished and replaced by a dozen smart new bazaars within the centre complex...

Back on the tourist map, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 823, December 07 - 13, 2006.

Relocating the Gurna villagers to more suitable premises has been debated since 1948. There have been several attempts to persuade them to move. The government commissioned the renowned Egyptian architect Hassan Fathi to build the village of New Gurna, five kilometres away and on the edge of the cultivation, much preferable, it was thought, to the barren desert of the Valley of the Nobles. The villagers, however, had other ideas: they found fault with the houses, considering them to be built to an idealised plan of what a rural house should be but without any real respect for their needs.

Now, with a budget of LE180 million provided by five ministries and governmental bodies, New Gurna, or Al-Taref, has been extended and follows a similar design to the original Gurna but with improved facilities and services. The 600 vaulted houses incorporate those built by Fathi but with some modifications. There is a youth centre, two schools, a hospital, a modern market, a police station and a telephone and post office, a cultural centre with a small cinema, a children's playground and a football field. The streets are wider than in the old village, and the houses are equipped with running water and are connected to Luxor sewage system.

Villagers' reactions to the bulldozers were a mix of trepidation, anxiety, anger and contentment. This time round some were finding it easy to leave their homes to the archaeologists, who will now move into the area, bent on unearthing no less than 100 ancient tombs which they believe lie underneath. Other villagers stood in mournful silence, while a third and more vitriolic group cursed from the rooftops. A significant number of residents strongly oppose the resettlement plan, which will cut them off from contact with the tourists on whom most depend for a living...

Nobles left to the ghosts, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 823, December 07 - 13, 2006.

I have just noticed that tagged on to the announcement of the discovery of a mummy in the tomb of Qar the other day that there is a piece about a new project to restore 950 tombs on the west bank.

Meanwhile, the SCA on Tuesday called for implementing an archaeological project on restoring 950 Pharaonic tombs that were sculptured at the foot of El-Qarna Mountain on the Western Bank of Luxor to immortalise kings and other royalty of Ancient Egypt.

The project will be carried out through foreign grants to be raised by an international fund on overhauling monuments in Luxor within the framework of the Comprehensive Development for the City of Luxor project (CDCL).

Luxor's Supreme Council Chairman Samir Farag said that the project would be carried out in cooperation with the UN Development Programme (UNDP), under the aegis of Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak.

Mummy dating back to 6th dynasty in Sakkara discovered, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, December 06, 2006.

Tucson Children's Museum has scheduled the "Ancient Egyptian Art Festival of Friendship" on Saturday with hieroglyphic art activities, a show-and-tell presentation of Egyptian artefacts, a puppet-led "archaeological adventure" and a performance of Middle Eastern dances by a local group, Veils of Mystery.

The program is from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Egyptologist Mary Ann Marazzi and Tucson puppeteer Dennis Eustace will make the presentations, including Egyptian music and papyrus samples...

Egyptian Art Festival set at Children's Museum, Paul L. Allen, The Tucson Citizen, Arizona, USA, December 07, 2006.

There’s no smell like it — the cloying, nasty, burning-tooth stink created by cutting into the bones of an Egyptian mummy. A few weeks ago, a small group of Royal Ontario Museum and University of Toronto scholars inhaled the smell in the form of weird, brown-black, bitumen-saturated dust when they gathered to extract a sample of shin bone from a mummy lying in the apartment of antiquities dealer Billy Jamieson. After drilling, the scholars carefully prised away an olive-sized bit and dropped it into a plastic bag so it could be taken to the university for carbon dating.

These people could be cursed for their curiosity. Egyptologists have been known to fall ill after poking around mummies; anthrax and cholera last thousands of years. On this occasion, though, the mood was cheerful as the scholars discussed the padding under the mummy’s eyes and linen tampons up his nose, signs of a costly embalming. Probably the man was a priest from the Ptolemaic period, perhaps 300 BC, they agreed. “But if he’s earlier, that’s a whole different story,” Jamieson said.

Then everyone quaffed a beer (mummy prayers specify beer as offerings for the dead) and departed to await the carbon-dating test results.

Yet despite their prices and their popularity, mummies are being deaccessioned. Even in the wildly permissive 21st century, the public exhibition of human remains is controversial, as organizers of a recent Bog People show discovered. Institutions such as the Canadian Museum of Civilization have returned aboriginal remains to first nations for reburial. And there’s new protectiveness on the part of the descendants of ancient cultures. Egypt endured grave-robbing for millennia, but, led by its aggressive director of antiquities, Zahi Hawass, it recently brought in stiff penalties, and has also begun to demand that foreign museums send mummies and artefacts back to their ancient home. In this environment, says Christie’s director of antiquities, Max Bernheimer, few mummies will reach the market in the future: “Certainly, they're not coming out of Egypt any more...”

Tales from the crypt, Val Ross, The Globe and Mail, Ontario, Canada, December 07, 2006.

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered the funerary remains of a doctor who lived and worked in the country more than 4,000 years ago, including his mummy, sarcophagus and bronze surgical instruments.

The upper part of the tomb was discovered six years ago at Saqqara, 12 miles south of Cairo.

However, the sarcophagus only came to light in the burial pit as archaeologists carried out cleaning work.

The doctor, whose name was Qar, lived under the 6th dynasty and built his tomb near Egypt's first pyramid...

Mummy of ancient doctor comes to light, Russell Jackson, The Scotsman, Scotland, UK, December 06, 2006.

cf. Mummy of doctor dates back 4,000 years, Maamoun Youssef, AP via Lexington Herald-Leader, Kentucky, USA, December 07, 2006.

cf. Mummified MD and his tools unearthed, Maamoun Youssef, AP via New Jersey Online, New Jersey, USA, December 07, 2006.

cf. Mummy dating back to 6th dynasty in Saqqara discovered, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, December 06, 2006.

Bruce Trigger was a leading expert in three distinct fields of archaeology: as a historian of the discipline; as an Egyptologist; and as an authority on the aboriginal cultures of ancient North America. He placed archaeology as an academic discipline and a practice within a broader context of social and cultural evolution...

In Egyptology ’s fieldwork was mainly in Nubia, notably at Arminna West. Apart from many papers in professional journals, his books and monographs in this area included History and Settlement in Lower Nubia (1965), The Late Nubian Settlement at Arminna West (1967), The Meroitic Funerary Inscriptions from Arminna West (1970), Nubia under the Pharaohs (1976) and Early Civilizations: Ancient Egypt in Context (1993)...

Obituary: Professor Bruce Trigger, The Times, UK, December 07, 2006.

UNESCO will showcase the project for a National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) in a stand at the exhibition of Egyptian antiquities from underwater excavations, Trésors engloutis d’Égypte, that opens at the Grand Palais in Paris on 9 December [2006]. Due to open in Old Cairo in 2009, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization will cover all of Egyptian civilization from prehistoric times to the present through a multidisciplinary approach that will highlight both tangible and intangible heritage.

Situated in a park featuring archaeological remains and an open air auditorium, the museum, designed by a team led by Egyptian architect El Ghazzali Kosseiba, overlooks the Ain Al Seera Lake.

The museum collections will be displayed in a core exhibition of the principle achievements of Egyptian civilization; six thematic galleries (Dawn of Civilization, The Nile, Writing; State and Society, Material Culture, Beliefs and Thinking) and the Gallery of Royal Mummies. Cultural events and festivals will be organized in galleries for temporary exhibitions, and the museum will also serve as an education and research centre...

This is the exhibition that was, until recently, at the Martin-Gropius-Bau Museum, Berlin. The exhibition catalogue can be obtained from Amazon here: , Franck Goddio, Prestel, 2006.

UNESCO presents project for National Museum of Egyptian Civilization at exhibition of Egyptian antiquities in Paris, Isabelle Le Fournis, UNESCO, France, December 05, 2006.

After 24 years of research, [Necia Desiree] Harkless presents a comprehensive history of the great forgotten civilizations of Africa. This important history is significant to all Americans as it will help readers "understand the contributions of the civilization of Africa and Asia as a continuous historical entity," she says.

The rich history of this culture began in 2500 B.C. with the kingdom of Kerma. Harkless tracks its origins as well as its thriving success through 750 B.C., when the Nubian Pharaohs conquered Egypt. They ruled for 100 years until the Assyrians conquered Egypt and forced them to retreat to their Kingdom of Napatan.

Harkless shares their complete history through the Meroe, the last empire of the Kush. The Meroitic dynasties reigned for 40 generations as a people separate from Egyptian culture, developing their own language and script. Through research of recent archaeological campaigns, including the investigations of more than 200 pyramids and cemeteries, Harkless shares new information about the architecture, art and politics of the civilization. Many of their accomplishments surpassed those of Egypt, she says. "It is an epic that will long be remembered..."

, Necia Desiree Harkless, AuthorHouse, USA, 2006, pp. 232 (paperback).

History of a Lost Civilization: African Kingdoms of Kush Explored in New Book, PRNewswire, USA, December 05, 2006.

cf. The author's website: Necia Desiree Harkless.

The French government said Thursday the judiciary was working to shed light on the attempted sale by a Frenchman of hair believed to belong to the mummy of Ramses II.

Asked whether France would apologise to Egypt if the hair turned out to be genuine — as demanded by Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass — the foreign ministry said it was "up to the judiciary to decide what action to take."

"Like the Egyptian authorities, we want full light to be shed on this case," spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei told reporters.

A 50-year-old Frenchman was questioned by police Wednesday over an Internet ad offering to sell snips of hair, embalming resin and bandages allegedly taken from the mummy of Ramses II.

He claimed the lot belonged to his father who was part of a team of scientists who analysed the royal mummy when it was sent to France in 1976 for electromagnetic treatment to stop it from deteriorating condition...

FRANCE SAYS 'PHARAOH'S HAIR' SCANDAL IN POLICE'S HANDS, The Tocqueville Connection, France, November 30, 2006.

The Walters Art Museum presents the exhibit Daily Magic in Ancient Egypt through November 18, 2007. Magic played an important role in religions of the ancient world. Amulets in particular were believed to possess great power to bring protection, health, luck, and even immortality through their images and symbols. This small exhibition will feature 46 amulets, scarabs, figurines, and ritual objects associated with this belief in the power of magic in ancient Egypt.

The art and history of the ancient world comes alive in one of the Walters Art Museum’s best-loved collections, which comprises amazing treasures from ancient Egypt, Nubia, Greece, Rome, Etruria, and the Near East. The Walters’ collection is one of the largest and finest assemblages of ancient art in the United States.

Statuary, reliefs, stelae, funerary objects, jewellery, and objects from daily life, dating from prehistoric to Roman Egypt (5th millennium BC – 4th century AD), can be found in the museum's collection of ancient Egyptian art. Among the most impressive pieces are two monumental 3,000-pound statues of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, sarcophagi, an intact mummy still in its elaborate wrappings, as well as images of private individuals and kings and impressive jewellery...

Daily Magic in Ancient Egypt at The Walters Art Museum, Art Daily, Mexico, December 04, 2006.

A 50-year-old battle to evict squatters from one of Egypt’s most renowned archaeological sites, the West Bank of Luxor, was finally settled when authorities began demolitions.

The fate of Qurna’s 10,000 residents was sealed when authorities gave the demolition order for the mud-brick houses erected over ancient Egyptian tombs on the Theban Hills that had become a tourist attraction in their own right.

In just 15 minutes and under the deafening roar of bulldozer engines, three long-abandoned houses were the first to go.

The stage-managed affair included a fashion-show of children parading ancient Egyptian costumes to the beats of epic drums, and enthusiastic speeches by officials for the television cameras.

"Three-thousand five-hundred families will leave for a better life. It’s the most important resettlement operation since the rescue of Abu Simbel in Nubia some 40 years ago," Luxor’s governor Samir Farag said...

Squatters evicted from Egyptian tombs, AFP via The Herald, Zimbabwe, December 04, 2006.

cf. Tomb town evictions, 7 Days, United Arab Emirates, December 04, 2006.

Claims that Egypt's ancient pyramids are made of poured concrete have been slammed as an insult.

French magazine Science and Life said tests showed they were built from man-made blocks moulded from cement.

But yesterday Egypt's antiquities minister Zahi Hawass said the theory was "plain stupid".

He added: "Of course they're not. They're made from solid blocks of quarried limestone.

"To suggest otherwise is idiotic and insulting.

"I heard this from a Frenchman before, 20 years ago. It is as ridiculous now as it was then."

The magazine said: "Examination of the stone shows they could have been made from a kind of early concrete and poured into blocks."

But US expert said: "All studies of the stone have shown they are made mostly from limestone but also from basalt and granite mined in the region."

He added: "How did the French take samples for their tests without the Egyptians' permission?"

CONCRETE PYRAMID AN 'INSULT', The Daily Mirror, UK, December 04, 2006.

cf. Egypt dismisses theory concrete used in Pyramids, AFP via Middle East Times, Cyprus, December 04, 2006.

By now any semi-conscious South Floridian knows that the titan-size "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibit is slated to open at Fort Lauderdale's Museum of Art in December. Boasting more than 130 priceless artefacts from Tut's tomb, unearthed in 1922, and from other royal burial sites of the 18th Dynasty, the multimedia show recently drew more than 850,000 viewers at the Federal Art Museum in Bonn, Germany. Its first U.S. sojourn begins today at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and it will eventually grace the Field Museum in Chicago and the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia during its 27-month tour.

But let's say you are a crazed Egyptophile. You yourself and wait six months to housing see Tut's silver trumpets, cloisonné daggers or his heart scarab, a solid gold breastplate inlaid with semi-precious stones and inscribed with the "heart spell" from the Book of the Dead. No worries. National Geographic, one of the tour's co-sponsors, offers you the official companion book to the exhibition titled, what else, ($35).

Written by Zahi Hawass, Egypt's premier archaeologist and secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the 256-page volume offers eight chapters that meticulously chronicle the kingdoms and graves of the ancient pharaohs. More than 170 photographs accompany the text, along with maps of the region and a timeline.

Among a slew of prestigious findings, National Geographic explorer-in-residence Hawass is credited with overseeing the conservation of the Great Sphinx and the discoveries of the tombs of the Giza pyramid builders. He's consulted on a wide array of documentaries, feature films, television specials and articles. He's devoted his entire life to Egyptian archaeology, history and culture. So only a master of the obvious would need to point out that Hawass knows his stuff.

This is probably the reason that much of the text holds the same thrill one would find in a college reference book about Egypt. Yes, the account here is thorough. We learn the ancient Egyptians were beer drinkers and they believed gold to be the "flesh of the gods." We also learn that Tut's association with the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, who many scholars believe to be the boy king's father, ensured the preservation of his tomb. Ticked off at Tut, maybe because of his blood bond with the despised Akhenaten, subsequent kings wiped his name from official records. With Tutankhamun's existence erased, his royal grave remained untouched by thieves and shrouded beneath the sands of the Valley of the Kings.

Tut tome whets the appetite for exhibit, Emma Trelles, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Florida, USA, June 16, 2005.

This is the fictional story of Khonso-Imhep, Head Musician of the Pharaoh's court during the 18th Dynasty, as he passes from life into the afterworld, complete with a trial that determines his fate. Through re-enactments and imagery on wall paintings, this film depicts the ancient Egyptian mummification process and the religious rituals involved in preparing a dead body. This story displays the unique funeral ceremonies surrounding the preparation of a mummy and portrays the religious beliefs involved, as well as the mummy's discovery by archaeologists.

Trial of a Mummy, The Archaeology Channel, USA, November 2006.

Blog posting. Sorry about the lack of updates yesterday. There was a problem with my blog hosting and all of the posts stacked up and didn't get processed until I sorted it out this lunchtime.

A Londonderry man is set to cause a storm of controversy among academics with a new book claiming the Pyramids were built thousands of years later than currently believed.

Major US non-fiction publisher Algora has now committed Emmet Sweeney's groundbreaking book, , to print.

The 51-year-old author, who has spent 20 years studying the mysteries of Egyptology and visiting ancient sites, also claims in his new book that many of the Pharaohs reigned a lot closer to the time of Christ than first thought.

Research conducted by Mr Sweeney, a University of Ulster graduate from Marlborough Street, found a number of similarities between Old Testament Biblical writings and those unearthed in Egypt, which were traditionally thought to have been much older...

Storm in a teacup more like! Check out the lively discussion at the Hall Of Maat.

Derry man to cause storm with book about Pyramids, The Belfast telegraph, Northern Ireland, UK, November 28, 2006.

The number of International tourists arriving in Egypt jumped approx. 20% in the month of October, to reach a record total of 855,000 visitors.

This number confirms the predictions of the Egyptian Minister of Tourism to end 2006 with a new record number, passing ahead of the already record year of 2005.

The Minister continues to deploy enormous means through an international publicity campaign destined to the principal tourist markets as well as an active cooperation with the Tour Operators of each market.

From Canada, 5500 tourists chose Egypt as their vacation destination during the month of October which means an increase of 46% compared with the same month in 2005. The biggest jump in the number of tourists from the principal markets came from Israel (+78%) followed by Poland (+53%).

Based on the total numbers of January through to October , English tourists will be at the head of the number of international visitors since they surpassed the one million tourists.

Number of Tourists to Egypt Jumps, TravelVideo.TV, Ontario, Canada, November 28, 2006.

Italy made good on its agreement to loan one of its treasures to the Museum of Fine Arts on Tuesday, turning over a 9-foot marble statue Eirene — goddess of peace — in exchange for the Boston institution returning 13 disputed antiquities to Rome this fall.

The statue dates to the first half of the first century and, like many Roman sculptures, is an adaptation of a Greek sculpture. The original bronze sculpture of the personification of Peace, holding the baby Ploutos, was made by Kephisodotos and dates to the 370s or 360s B.C.

The statue — which no longer has its arms or the infant — was excavated in 1986 from the garden of a Roman villa in the territory of Palombara Sabina. It will be on view to the public until 2009...

Italy loans piece to MFA in exchange for return of disputed art, AP via The Boston Herald, Massachusetts, USA, November 27, 2006.

Tests have started on a robot archaeologist due to be sent deep inside Egypt's largest pyramid, Cheops, to reveal secrets of the pyramid. A robot had been sent into Cheops in 2002 by Egyptian team in cooperation with a US University.

During the 2002 foray, three doors were discovered by robot archaeologist. When the robot first slipped through the pyramid's south passage, it encountered with a door with copper handlers.

When the robot penetrated through a 1 cm hole at the door, a second door was found about 21 cm from the first door.

As the robot slipped through, it was blocked with a passage that ends with a small door with copper handles.

The new 1 will be carried out by a team from Singapore and a joint group from Britain and Hong Kong. A makeshift milestone-built passage was specific designed to carry out the tests.

Tests begin to send robot archaeologist into Cheops, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, December 01, 2006.

The Ancient Egyptians built their great Pyramids by pouring concrete into blocks high on the site rather than hauling up giant stones, according to a new Franco-American study.

The research, by materials scientists from national institutions, adds fuel to a theory that the pharaohs' craftsmen had enough skill and materials at hand to cast the two-tonne limestone blocks that dress the Cheops and other Pyramids.

Despite mounting support from scientists, Egyptologists have rejected the concrete claim, first made in the late 1970s by Joseph Davidovits, a French chemist.

The stones, say the historians and archaeologists, were all carved from nearby quarries, heaved up huge ramps and set in place by armies of workers. Some dissenters say that levers or pulleys were used, even though the wheel had not been invented at that time.

Until recently it was hard for geologists to distinguish between natural limestone and the kind that would have been made by reconstituting liquefied lime.

But according to Professor Gilles Hug, of the French National Aerospace Research Agency (Onera), and Professor Michel Barsoum, of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the covering of the great Pyramids at Giza consists of two types of stone: one from the quarries and one man-made...

Pyramids were built with concrete rather than rocks, scientists claim, Charles Bremner, The Times, UK, December 01, 2006.

cf. Scientist Says Concrete Was Used in Pyramids, John Noble Wilford, The New York Times, New York, USA, November 30, 2006.

cf. The Riddle of the Great Pyramids of Giza: Drexel Professor Finds Some Building Blocks Were Cast, Brian Rossiter, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, November 30, 2006.

A fifty-six page PDF document detailing the research can be found here: The Great Pyramids of Giza; Evidence for Cast Blocks, Michel W. Barsoum, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

Scholars have long believed that ancient Egypt was a genetic stew of ethnicity, as the fabled kingdom was both a center of international trade and often the victim of foreign invasions.

Now, new evidence suggests that may have been true even in the upper echelons of society, according to researchers who have used a blend of art and science to re-create what the ancients looked like in real life.

They have used CAT scans to model the skulls of seven mummies from various museums, including one unveiled yesterday at Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences, revealing physical features that range from Mediterranean to African.

All seven were buried with the trappings of a high status in society, including two clearly connected to the priesthood, said project leader Jonathan Elias, director of the Harrisburg-based Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium...

A new picture of ancient ethnic diversity, Tom Avril, The Philadelphia Enquirer, Pennsylvania, USA, December 01, 2006.

Q&A with the project leader Jonathan Elias: Ancient Egyptian society Using mummies to decipher social class.

Luxor's west bank necropolis is to be relieved of what is almost a century-old encroachment upon its grounds. On Saturday, 3,200 families from Al-Gourna will be relocated to the Al-Taref city on Luxor's outskirts. They will be leaving their hometown to explorers who are bent upon unearthing not less than 100 ancient Egyptian tombs expected to be found there.

Photo Caption: ANCIENT TERRAIN, FRESH FINDINGS, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 822, 30 November - 06 December 2006.

cf. Blog posting from Jane Akshar in Luxor: All Move, Jane Akshar, Luxor News via TourEgypt.net, Texas, USA, December 01, 2006.