By day, Chris Dunn runs the human resources department at Danville Metal Stamping.

By night, the British-born Danville man strives to solve mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids.

"His enthusiasm for Egyptian technology is just infectious," said Dunn's boss, Judd Peck, president and CEO at Danville Metal Stamping.

Dunn's theories about how — and why — the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids debunk status-quo beliefs that thousands of labourers used primitive methods to construct the massive manmade structures as tombs for kings.

Applying his more than 30 years of experience in manufacturing and engineering to the pyramids, Dunn asserts that the Egyptians used mechanical means and advanced engineering concepts to build the pyramids not as tombs but for industrial purposes, such as generating energy...

, Christopher Dunn, Bear & Company, 1998, pp. 288.

Danville man has a passion for the pyramids, Tracy Moss, Urbana/Champaign News-Gazette, Illinois, USA, February 11, 2007.

The mysteries of ancient Egypt have tempted John Sarr ever since he was 10 years old, when, as he remembers it, a glossy magazine spread revealed to him the richly carved walls of Nefertari's tomb. As he studied the beautiful — but mute — inscriptions that covered nearly every surface of the tomb, he vowed that one day he would make those walls talk.

And in that moment he joined so many of us who fall headlong into love with something without completely understanding why. Sometimes things just speak to us, even when we can't understand exactly what they're saying.

Today, Sarr is perhaps the city's most enthusiastic scholar of ancient Egyptian culture and language. By his count, he's been to Egypt 10 times. Museums have called on him to help translate the Egyptian antiquities in their collections. And he has done all this without a degree in Egyptology or archaeology. Sarr is, in fact, self-taught, one of those fabulous Portland examples of someone who has figured out how to carve a fully formed second life from his spare time...

So, it should come as no surprise that the arrival of "The Quest for Immortality" at the Portland Art Museum, with its 107 Egyptian artefacts was cause for some excitement in Sarr's household. "To know that these treasures are just downtown . . .," he said, "in some ways it's like seeing old friends..."

Whispers of the past, Inara Verzemnieks, The Oregonian, Oregon, USA, February 02, 2007.

The child gods of ancient Egypt are depicted in a surprisingly real-world way on a stunningly well-preserved, gilded beam recently found at the Temple Precinct of the Goddess Mut in South Karnak, Egypt.

The structure once crowned the doorway of a birthing house inside the temple more than 2,000 years ago. Rituals associated with royal childbirths — perhaps even including "honeymoon nights" — likely took place there.

The beam is significant because of "the quality of its carving and its gilding," said Brooklyn Museum archaeologist Richard Fazzini, who is leading the excavation, in a press release...

Egypt's Child Gods Shown on Artifact, Jennifer Viegas, Discovery Channel News, USA, February 08, 2007.

Previously: Lintel unearthed at the Temple of Mut, February 02, 2007.

The sarcophagi were found in tomb shafts in the vast Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo, Zahi Hawass, the director of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said Saturday.

"It is significant because of the discovery of two sarcophagi from the Middle Kingdom," said Japanese team leader Sakuji Yoshimori...

One of the Middle Kingdom coffins, inlaid with black glass, was found inside a brilliantly painted outer box and dedicated to a man called Sabak Hatab. The other sarcophagus was for a woman named Sint Ayt Ess.

The third, which dated back to the New Kingdom's 18th dynasty of around 1,500 BC and contained a mummy, was coloured black and decorated with images of the four sons of the god Horus...

Japanese team finds ancient Egyptian coffins, AFP via Middle East Times, Cyprus, February 10, 2007.

A village in central Italy is demanding that the Metropolitan Museum of Art return an Etruscan chariot more than a century after it was allegedly smuggled out of the country, according to a new book published in Italy.

In “La Biga Rapita,” or “The Stolen Chariot,” Italian reporter Mario La Ferla writes that financier John Pierpont Morgan had the 2,600-year-old chariot illegally transported from Italy to France, where it was kept in a basement of the Credit Lyonnais bank. The artefact was then shipped to the U.S., where it became the Metropolitan Museum’s property in 1903, the year before Morgan became president of the Met, the book says...

According to La Ferla’s account, in 1902, a local farmer in the town of Monteleone di Spoleto, near Perugia in Umbria, found the chariot buried on his land. He sold it for 950 Italian lire (64 U.S. cents in today’s money), enough to buy tiles for his roof.

The chariot was stored in Rome, where, according to the book, J.P. Morgan acquired it and transported it to the U.S. In 1903 it became the property of the Met...

Italian Village Claims Etruscan Chariot From Met, Book Says, Bloomberg, New York, USA, February 09, 2007.

[Japanese] Archaeologists have uncovered three wooden pharaonic sarcophagi, dating back to the 20th century B.C., the chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Saturday.

"The three sarcophagi were found in a very well preserved condition inside three burial shafts," Zahi Hawass, the council chief, told The Associated Press.

He described the discovery as "very unique and very important."

The find took place early this week at a site south of the Saqqara pyramids, about 16 miles south of Cairo, he said.

The first sarcophagi dates back to Egypt's 1500 B.C.-1000 B.C. New Kingdom and is a black anthropoid. It carries paintings portraying the four sons of the falcon-headed god Horus and its inscription says it to belongs to a person called "Waya-ly..."

Three ancient Egyptian sarcophagi unearthed, AP via USA Today, New York, USA, February 10, 2007.

cf. Three ancient coffins discovered in Saqqara, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, February 11, 2007.

cf. Find may reveal secrets of the dead, 4000 years on, Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, February 11, 2007. Includes picture.

cf. Ancient Egyptian sarcophagi discovered, icWales, UK, February 10, 2007.