With their sumptuous lighting, exquisite detail, and adroit compositions, Harry Burton's gelatin-silver prints of Tutankhamun's tomb easily surpass the gothic melodrama of Hollywood's various mummy franchises. Howard Carter made the sensational discovery of Tut's burial chambers in 1922; shortly afterward, Burton, a veteran archaeological photographer, began documenting the opulent clutter in situ, arranging mirrors and reflectors to bring light into the tomb for the first time in millennia. He eventually used 1,400 extremely fine-grained glass negatives to catalog the entire site and its individual objects. In one gorgeous shot, Anubis lies atop a shrine surrounded by walls roughly hewn from living rock; the regal god of the dead's enormous canine ears flare like a vengeful bat as it guards a heap of model boats designed to speed the boy-pharaoh on his journey to the afterlife. A close-up of the decayed mummy's chest and arms records elaborate jewels: These same 13 bracelets, seen in a shot after they have been cleaned, reveal magnificent workmanship. Look closely at Burton's keenly lit detail of Tut's face carved into a coffin. The dark eyes gaze directly into ours, and this uncanny naturalism represents, if not a true afterlife, a communion that has survived 3,300 years. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Through April 29 [2007].

Mummies Dearest, R.C. Baker, The Village Voice, New York, USA, January 04, 2007.

Discovering Tutankhamun: The Photographs of Harry Burton, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, December 19, 2006 - April 29, 2007.

The Franklin Institute ... said Wednesday its attendance topped 1 million last year...

From Feb. 3 [2007] to Sept. 30, it will host "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," which is expected to draw at least 1 million visitors during its eight-month stay.

The Franklin Institute, founded to honour Benjamin Franklin, is devoted to the study of science, industry and technology.

Franklin Institute attendance tops 1 million, Philadelphia Business Journal, Pennsylvania, USA, January 01, 2007.

Visitors to the Segedunum Roman fort, baths and museum in Wallsend will be among the first people to see the face of Egyptian mummy Bakt Hor Nekht in more than 3,000 years.

The three-dimensional model was created by the Gateshead visualisation and animation company, Visual Impact. Using the results of a CT scan of the mummy at Newcastle's General Hospital in the summer, the firm's team were able to create an accurate, detailed model of her head.

Bakt Hor Nekht, on loan from the city's Hancock Museum while the museum is closed for redevelopment, is encased in an intricately-decorated coffin which can be seen in the Land of the Pharaohs exhibition at Segedunum. The coffin has never been opened, so as to preserve the mummy and also as a mark of respect.

Gill Scott, Egyptologist for the Hancock Museum, says: "We're extremely excited about seeing Bakt Hor Nekht's face for the first time as a three-dimensional reconstruction. Although we already have a forensic-style model of Bakt Hor Nekht as she would have appeared in life, it's interesting to see how the mummification process has affected her. Although the CT footage provides us with fantastic computerised images, seeing the physical reconstruction of the head is quite an eerie experience! ...

Secrets of Egyptian mummy revealed at last, The Newcastle Evening Chronicle, UK, January 04, 2007.

Zahi Hawass is one part celebrity, one part investigator. Egypt's lead sleuth in the country's hunt to reclaim ancient antiquities has gained a reputation for often strong-arming curators and bullying museum directors. But while he's attracted critics in his hunt for Egypt's mummies and pharaonic masks, his hard-nosed techniques are indeed paying off.

Mr. Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, has recovered some 3,500 objects, including the Rameses I mummy from Atlanta's Michael C. Carlos Museum and an ancient sarcophagus from the chairperson of Chicago's electric utility, Exelon.

At home, his quest has broken up smuggling rings and will possibly increase punishments for illegal trading. Abroad, he's demanding that Boston's Museum of Fine Arts return the bust of Ankhaf, the Khafre pyramid builder, and the St. Louis Art Museum hand over a pharaonic mask.

In November, he warned France that if it didn't cooperate in the investigation of a Frenchman allegedly trying to sell hair from the Rameses II mummy, it would threaten bilateral relations with Egypt.

"If people are coming to Egypt, cutting inscriptions, and damaging our monuments, I have to fight them," Hawass says.

While there's certainly applause for Hawass's efforts, his campaign has sparked debate since many of the objects he seeks have been in museums long before a 1970 international convention tightened the ancient antiquities trade...

In hot pursuit of Egypt's lost mummies, Sarah Gauch, The Christian Science Monitor, Massachusetts, USA, January 04, 2007.

I CLIMBED on to my camel, Alaska, apprehensively. The last animal I rode was a pony that bolted from the riding school and miraculously jumped a few fences before eventually throwing me in the woodland, when I was just five. But the notoriously lazy and stubborn Alaska looked in no danger of doing that.

As the rest of our group rode off into the sand dunes, Alaska stood fast despite my guide throwing all his weight into pulling her reins forward.

When she gave in and set off, the pace was tediously slow and I realised the journey was going to be a battle of wills. Alaska wasn't going to let the guide win and keep moving to avoid his stick on the back of her legs, she had a better plan - to bolt and lose him. Why do I have this effect on animals? ...

Holidays to Egypt are full of such memorable moments - seeing the ancient pyramids alongside the vast hubbub of Cairo, exploring the magnificent sea life in the Red Sea and experiencing the serenity of sunrise at the summit of mount Sinai. I'd done the above on previous trips and this time was trying out a Nile cruise...

Nile cruising, icNorthLondon, UK, January 03, 2007.