Dr. Frank McClanahan wasn't exactly the superstitious type.

As a medical missionary in Egypt, he was one of the first men inside King Tutankhamen's tomb following its discovery in 1922. Over several months, he returned five more times to gaze in awe at its golden treasures.

McClanahan served as personal physician of Lord Carnarvon, the British earl who backed the archaeological expedition. The nobleman's untimely demise — four months after the tomb's discovery — spawned rumours of a 3,000-year-old curse on those who disturbed the pharaoh's resting place.

Accidents, illnesses and mysterious deaths seemed to befall the archaeological party. A legend spread as newspapers reported the strange tales.

McClanahan didn't set out to disprove the curse of King Tut, but he did it anyway. All he had to do was enjoy a good, long life...

Curse of the mummy, Mark J. Price, Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio, USA, February 05, 2007.

"Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," an exhibition of 130 objects from the final resting places of King Tut and other royal relatives in the 18th Dynasty (1555 B.C. to 1305 B.C.), opened Saturday at the Franklin Institute Science Museum, the fourth and final stop of a show that has drawn 2.8 million viewers across the nation.

Nearly 400,000 advance tickets have been ordered for the exhibit.

The show is softly lit and fairly low-key, entertaining and scholarly, plain and fancy. A shiny dog collar made of leather and gilded copper is given the same weight as a lotus-blossom cup made of glowing calcite. One room resembles a burial corridor; another simulates a temple entrance.

The exhibit is also a Tut tease. It begins with six galleries of domestic and ceremonial artefacts interred with Tut's reputed relations, rather than the boy king himself...

Tutankhamun artefacts make final U.S. stop in Philadelphia, Geoff Gehman, The Mercury News, Pennsylvania, USA, February 05, 2007.

Ron and Susan Willis recently completed a trip of a lifetime. They visited Egypt and Jordan.

In Cairo, Ron and Susan visited the great Cairo Museum and saw the relics of King Tut's tomb. They visited a Coptic church where Joseph, Mary and Jesus supposedly slept.

A highlight for the Willis' was the great pyramids at Giza and the Sphinx. They were built between 4000 and 2000 B.C.E. during the fourth dynasty.

They also visited the city of Luxor, formerly the great city of Thebes and the Aswan Dam. Of course, they cruised the Nile. Everything they saw from the Karnak and Luxor Temples at Luxor to Hymonos at Aswan were "awesome..."

Highland couple makes an A+ visit to Egypt and Jordan, G.W. Abersold, Highland Community News, California, USA, February 08, 2007.

Excavators from the Brooklyn Museum stumbled upon the unique lintel painted with five gilded deities during routine cleaning of the precinct enclosure wall of the temple. Topped with a cavetto cornice embellished with painted stripes, the lintel is well preserved. It is framed by rounded moulding and the decoration includes raised relief figures. The five gilded solar deities appear sitting on lotus blossoms against a blue backdrop, representing the sky, each with a finger in its mouth...

Oldest maritime artefacts found.

A cave cut in the rock has been discovered in the Pharaonic Port of Marsa Gawasis in Safaga. In December-January, archaeologists found the timbers of sea-going vessels that were over 3,500 years old at Marsa Gawasis, which was a port on Egypt's Red Sea coast in Pharaonic times. Marsa Gawasis is located on a coral reef at the northern end of the Wadi Gawasis, 23 kilometres south of the port of Safaga...

Antiquity News from Egypt Magazine - February/March 2007, TravelVideo.TV, Ontario, Canada, February 06, 2007.

David P. Silverman was a young Egyptologist labouring at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute when he was approached one day in 1976 by the director, Gustavus F. Swift 3d.

"He said, 'You know, we're thinking about joining with the Field Museum and doing the Tut exhibit' " then being organized under the auspices of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, Silverman recalled the other day. " 'Do you want to do it?'

"I said: 'What do you mean, do it? Never mind! Yes!'

"And that's basically how it happened."

From such matter-of-fact beginnings sprang his association with the legendary Tut exhibit of the 1970s - "Treasures of Tutankhamun" - that drew eight million visitors to seven cities, launched the era of the blockbuster, tied exhibitions to museum-shop sales and revenue generation, and brought marketing razzle-dazzle front and centre to the museum world...

Tut strikes twice for Pa. curator, Stephan Salisbury, Philadelphia Inquirer, Pennsylvania, USA, February 01, 2007.

Police officers hear every excuse imaginable when they pull drivers over. Still, "I'm rushing to see the Tut exhibit" would have had to be a first for the policeman who stopped Colleen Murphy on Saturday.

Murphy, a Langhorne psychologist who put her name on a waiting list more than two years ago to see "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute on opening day, was pulled over for making an illegal U-turn while rushing to make her time-stamped appointment.

Not even a traffic violation could keep her from her objective, and a ticket certainly didn't ruin the day.

"I just had to be there on opening day. I see it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," she said...

King Tut exhibit opens to rush of admirers, Gabrielle Salerno, The Allentown Morning Call, Pennsylvania, USA, February 04, 2007.

Tourism to Egypt witnessed a boost in 2006, recording 9.082 million tourists who spent 89.3 million nights resulting in revenues of $7.6 billion. Meanwhile, new potential markets emerged, such as China and India, while traditional markets such as France and Italy retreated. But others, such as Russia, maintained their position. Arab markets also advanced last year with new promotional plans to attract more Arab travellers. Marketing campaigns, according to tourist officials, depend on the position of each market, its strength and Egypt's share in it.

"Our business plan is very basic," according to Ahmed El-Khadem, head of the Egyptian Tourist Authority (ETA). "It doesn't change very much from year to year, but essentially builds on whatever result we have attained in each market and we look for some degree of growth in the following year." The plan in 2007 is to increase Egypt's share of each market by an average of about 10 to 12 per cent. "This would be a very acceptable rate for us," asserted El-Khadem.

The budget for tourism promotion in 2007 is $30 million for international promotional campaigns, $10 million for Egypt's joint advertiser tour operator and $8 for tourism fairs all over the world. The Slogan of Egypt's new campaign abroad is "Nothing Compares to Egypt" and the name of the campaign is "The Gift of the Sun"...

'The gift of the sun', Rehab Saad, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 830, February 01 - 07, 2007.

The desert of Egypt, or Sahara, plays a big role in promoting peace education and cross-cultural friendship. Mohamed El-Hebeishy joined the Children's International Summer Village during their winter activity at Farafra.

Among Siwa, Bahariya, Dakhla and Kharga, Farafra is the smallest and oldest of the big five oases occupying the vast Western Desert between the Nile Valley and Libyan border. Ta-iht, or The Land of the Cow, is the name by which the Pharaohs called it. The ancient scripts of the Fifth Dynasty represent the very first historical appearance of Farafra; in addition to being mentioned in the Pharaonic classic The Eloquent Peasant, it is named the third oasis in the primordial text of The Seven Oases in the Temple of Edfu. Stranded in the middle of the Western Desert, accessibility is indeed a barrier.

Farafra suffered periods when it sank into complete oblivion. One such period commenced after the Byzantine Period when Farafra — along with the oases of Siwa and Kharga — was a place of banishment for faithful Christians. Once again it emerged in the ninth century, this time in the pages of Al-Yaqubi's Kitab Al-Buldan (Book of Countries)...

Teaming for success, Mohamed El-Hebeishy, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 830, February 01 - 07, 2007.

Luxor may be home to some of the world's most amazing archaeological sites, and yet it is an undervalued city. Hordes of tourists are run in and out of Luxor International Airport, their itineraries barely giving them enough time to visit the most important tombs and temples, let alone the nooks and crannies of the archaeological treasure trove that was ancient Thebes, and the many people that also make this city worth visiting. "One day on the East Bank and one day on the West Bank, a traditional Egyptian food buffet at their five-star hotel and perhaps a galabiya party or a belly-dancer and their off," explains a tour operator early in the morning, as he pulls his party together and I wait for our luggage. Other than the Japanese, it seems that most visitors prefer to spend more time enjoying the Red Sea beaches and considering perceived security concerns, the arrangement seems to suit all involved.

This would be fine if it did not so horribly misrepresent the city. Our taxi ferries take us down the road towards our hotel: lush green palms stand out against the clear blue sky, men in white galabiyas perched on donkeys slow down our progress and we take in the façade of newly painted traditional mud homes — a recent, much-debated decision of the head of the Luxor City Council towards revamping the city. Soon, we arrive at the long, one-car bridge that will take us onto Crocodile Island and the Mövenpick Resort.

Now, I would also be dissatisfied to reduce Luxor to any of the many five-star hotels that string its East Bank, but I will have to start here. My parents brought me almost every year for as long as I can — or would like — to remember. And today, every year I pack up my girls and bring them here too...

Enlightened by its people, Fatemah Farag, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 830, February 01 - 07, 2007.