Liberated from its shipping crates, the ancient statue drew a crowd of employees when it arrived in December 1987 at the J. Paul Getty Museum's antiquities conservation lab.

The 7 1/2 -foot figure had a placid marble face and delicately carved limestone gown. It was thought to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Some who came to see it believed that the sculpture would become the greatest piece in the museum's antiquities collection.

One man, however, saw trouble.

Luis Monreal, director of the Getty Conservation Institute, saw signs that the object had been looted. There was dirt in the folds of the gown, and the torso had what appeared to be new fractures, suggesting that the statue had been recently unearthed and broken apart for easy smuggling.

"Any museum professional looking at an archaeological piece in those conditions had to suspect it came from an illicit origin," Monreal recalled in a recent interview.

He said he warned the museum's director not to buy the statue and asked him to test the pollen in the dirt, which might indicate where the work had been found. The test was never done...

A lengthy article that details how the Getty museum came into possession of the Aphrodite statue alleged by Italy to have been illegally looted from Morgantina in Sicily. Worthy of spending some time reading it.

The Getty's troubled goddess, Ralph Frammolino and Jason Felch, Los Angeles Times, California, USA, January 03, 2007.

With "Temples and Tombs," the Cummer Museum of Art has the perfect exhibit to show off its new 4,800-square-foot gallery. Walls in the dimly lighted space soar to 18 feet, more than enough to showcase an installation that evokes an otherworldly, ancient Egyptian atmosphere.

Tall columns suggest the interior of a hypostyle temple at the gallery's entrance, where the magnificent Lion of Amenhotep III sits. Carved in a ruddy, richly textured granite around 1390 B.C., the lion was made for one pharaoh and, later, re-inscribed for another, the so-called "boy king," Tutankhamun.

Larger than life, the lion reclines in a natural pose that's worlds away from the rigid formalism used in typical Egyptian portrayals of kings and gods. Nearby, with his polished nose and chipped chin, the Head of Amenhotep III from his funerary temple in Thebes, is shown much as it originally appeared. Mounted high above the viewer's gaze, the monumental head was carved to look as if it were gazing downward at the tiny human worshipper. The eyes, like the broad lips that stretch in a slight, regal smile, speak volumes about the benevolent attitude of a king whose birthright was to talk with gods. That divine right dictated everything about how royal people could be depicted...

Egypt comes alive in 'Temples and Tombs' exhibit, Laura Stewart, The Daytona Beach News, Florida, USA, December 31, 2006.

Our Red Sea Magic cruise, aboard the Thomson Celebration liner, had begun with a flight from Gatwick to Hurghada in Egypt and a one-hour drive to the port of Safaga.

At dawn the following day we boarded a coach which this time became a time machine. We trundled along the route of an old camel caravan trail through rocky mountains and dried river beds, known as wadis, for four hours.

The green fields of the Nile flood plain then spread before us and led us to the splendour of Luxor, the world's biggest open-air museum where you step back more than 4,000 years into the land of the pharaohs.

In the Valley of the Kings we marvelled at the brightly coloured hieroglyphics covering the tomb walls. And — in an extraordinary clash of ages — I found I had a full signal on my mobile phone just outside the entrance to the incredible tomb of the boy king Tutankhamun. Nearby was the equally awesome temple of female pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut. Carved into the foot of a 300ft cliff, the shrine has a panoramic view over the lush Nile banks where farmers with hoes were bent over cabbages, carrots, sugar cane and potatoes...

Travel: Ooze a Pretty Boy Then!, Geoffrey Lakeman, The Daily Mirror, UK, December 30, 3006.

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs ended its seven-month run in the Field Museum on Monday having drawn 1,044,743 paying customers, according to the museum's preliminary count.

That attendance was a record for a special-ticket show in the Field, easily surpassing the previous high of 362,484 for "Chocolate," which ran there for 10 1/2 months in 2002.

The first King Tut exhibition held in the Field, in 1977, still holds the museum's attendance record, attracting some 1.35 million people over four months. Admission to that show did not require a separate purchase.

The Field estimated its total attendance for 2006 at nearly 2.14 million, the highest level since 2.36 million in 2002, when the T. rex Sue was introduced there. The museum's record attendance for a year remains 3.27 million in 1933, when a World's Fair was held in Chicago.

... and 'Tut' wraps up record, Charles Storch, The Chicago Tribune, Illinois, USA, January 03, 3007.

Explorer Howard Carter finds the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun, near Luxor, Egypt, in 1924.

DAY OF THE DAY, The Daily Mirror, UK, January 03, 2007.

cf. HISTORY, Tehran Times, Iran, January 03, 2007.