Egypt will participate in the 49th round of The Holiday, Tourism and Leisure Fair to open in Brussels Exhibition Centre Thursday.

In statements to MENA Wednesday, Riham Waheed, the Egyptian Tourist Attaché here, said Egypt takes part every year in the Brussels holiday fair, with a view to enhancing contact with tourist agents and encouraging tourism inflow to the country.

A number of Arab states will participate in the five-day gathering, including Tunisia, Algeria, Syria and Morocco, Waheed added.

Some 700 exhibitors from 65 states will take part, she added.

Egypt to participate in tourist expo in Brussels, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, February 08, 2008.

The passages, inscribed on the subterranean walls of the pyramid of King Unas at Saqqara, reveal that the Egyptians enlisted the magical assistance of Semitic Canaanites from the ancient city of Byblos, located in what is now Lebanon.

The Canaanite spells were invoked to help protect mummified kings against poisonous snakes, one of ancient Egypt's most dreaded nemeses.

According to the incantations, female snakes — acting as mediators for Canaanite magicians — used their multiple mouths and sexual organs to prevent other snakes from entering the mummified rulers' remains...

Ancient Semitic Snake Spells Deciphered in Egyptian Pyramid, Mati Milstein, National Geographic News, USA, February 05, 2007.

Previously:

Spell May Comprise Oldest Semitic Text, February 02, 2007.

Earliest Semitic text revealed in Egyptian pyramid inscription, January 31, 2007.

Deciphering of earliest Semitic text reveals talk of snakes and spells, January 23, 2007.

If you can't get enough of Tutankhamun and the stories of the pharaohs of Egypt, there are two notable exhibitions you might want to visit.

Winterthur looks at rare books about ancient Egypt where visitors can present their Franklin Institute ticket stubs from the Tut exhibit and get $3 off the admission.

The exhibition at the Delaware museum, "Ancient Egypt and the Egyptian Revival, 1725-1825," highlights books rarely seen by the public. It will run Saturday to May 13 [2007].

An ongoing exhibition, "Amarna, Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun" is showing at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

The Penn exhibit runs to November and offers a rare look at the boyhood home of Tut, the royal city of Amarna...

Tut too: Some things to do to ease the fever, The Delco Times, Pennsylvania, USA, February 02, 2007.

Excitement is building for the highly-anticipated exhibit, "Tutankhamun and The Golden Age of Pharaohs," that opens Saturday at the Franklin Institute. Already more than 380,000 tickets have been sold making it the largest pre-sale in the Institute's history. CBS 3's Mary Stoker Smith went behind the scenes...

Behind The Scenes Of Tutankhamun, Mary Stoker Smith, CBS 3 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, January 31, 2007.

All hail King Tut

When the treasures of Tutankhamun's tomb were last in the United States 30 years ago, Philadelphia got passed over in favour of New York and Washington.

However, it will have been worth the wait because "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" reportedly is more than double the size of the 1970s exhibition...

All hail King Tut, Brian Bingham, The Philadelphia Reporter, Pennsylvania, USA, February 01, 2007.

Franklin Institute exhibit brings King Tut fever to Philadelphia

A display of his treasures set travelling show attendance records when it went on nationwide tour in the '70s. Starting Saturday, The Franklin Institute will try to rival that fanfare when it hosts an updated and upgraded Tut exhibit that more than doubles the size of the previous blockbuster...

Franklin Institute exhibit brings King Tut fever to Philadelphia, Alison Lapp, AP via NEPA News, Pennsylvania, USA, February 01, 2007.

Walking through the life of King Tutankhamun

Allow the sinuous music to envelop you and don't be ashamed of goose bumps. Let yourself be wowed. These are perfectly appropriate reactions to The Franklin Institute's exhibit, "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs..."

Walking through the life of King Tutankhamun, Elizabeth Fisher, Bucks County Courier Times, Pennsylvania, USA, February 02, 2007.

Spanish police have arrested 52 people in one of the world's biggest swoops against archaeological pillaging, seizing 300,000 objects, police said on Wednesday.

The objects included bronze statues, shafts of columns, coins and amphorae measuring up to one metre, among others. They ranged from prehistoric to medieval ones.

The objects had been pilfered from 31 sites. Some were museum standard and would have fetched tens of thousands of euros on the market...

Archaeological object seized in biggest swoop, Sapa-dpa via Independent Online, South Africa, February 07, 2007.

Howard Carter was a man who had a talent for being in the right place at the right time.

The name may not ring a bell, but Carter was the man who discovered, uncovered, recorded and preserved the tomb of King Tutankhamun, says Jennifer Wegner, a research scientist in the Egypt section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

In his late teens, the London-born Carter was a talented artist who came to the attention of Flinders Petrie, a noted turn-of-the-century anthropologist. He was still a teen when he began to accompany Petrie on Egyptian digs, recording the discoveries in sketches and watercolours.

"Even though we have cameras and digital technology, we still take an artist on a dig with us today to record inscriptions and to get detail that is otherwise undetected," says Wegner, who is also a co-curator of "Amarna, Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun," at Penn, an exhibit about the city of Tut's childhood running simultaneously with "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaoh" at the Franklin Institute...

Tomb-finder Howard Carter was the right archaeologist at the right time, Mariella Savidge, The Morning Call, Pennsylvania, USA, February 04, 2007.

... St. Catherine's is entering the Age of Technology — with the help of Father Justin Sinaites, a 57-year-old American monk from El Paso, and Hemeid, the 23-year-old son of a Bedouin camel driver. They are implementing a digital photography project that will make high-resolution images of the library's closely guarded manuscripts available to scholars all over the world.

Consisting of 3,300 manuscripts in 11 languages — many of them richly illuminated in gold leaf and bright, jewel-like colours — the library's collection is second in number and importance only to the trove at the Vatican. With manuscripts made as early as the 6th century, the Sinai cache consists mainly of scriptures, sermons and texts for religious services, but it includes classical Greek literature and a few medical texts with herbal remedies for various afflictions.

Today the object awaiting its close-up is a rare Arabic manuscript of Christian gospels, written on parchment in 897. A vacuum hose attached to the cradle gently pulls back the open page. A narrow piece of bone placed on the front of the page, near the binding, helps to flatten the rumpled parchment...

Saving a treasured trove, ever so slowly, Suzanne Muchnic, Los Angeles Times, California, USA, February 05, 2007.