The day I visited Bloomsbury's Brunei Gallery, the wind was so strong that eerie howling permeated the basement space.

This gave an authentic edge to the experience of viewing the exhibition there, A Future For The Past, about Sir Flinders Petrie's archaeological digs near Gaza.

The mock-ups include a "dig house" and a Bedouin tent with film showing Palestinian "finders" at work...

The exhibition brings to life, with ancient artefacts and period equipment, what Petrie, his colleagues and workmen achieved in digs from 1890 to 1938...

There are objects from the Petrie Palestinian Collection never before on public display. The handmade antiquities, from tiny jugs for scented oils to clay coffins, communicate over time with the earliest dating from about 4500BC...

A Future for the Past: Petrie's Palestinian Collection, The Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, January 09 - March 24, 2007.

En route to Bloomsbury, the wind began to howl, Hamstead & Highgate Express, UK, March 16, 2007.

Egyptians have arrived at the Art Gallery of South Australia, ready to unearth a new generation of archaeologists.

Egyptian Antiquities from the Louvre — Journey to the Afterlife features more than 200 precious artefacts from Paris's Louvre museum.

The exhibition, which has its official launch tonight and is open to the public from tomorrow [March 21] until July 1 [2007], is the first to visit Australia from the Louvre since 1980...

Free glimpse of the treasures of Egypt, Patrick McDonald, The Adelaide Advertiser, Australia, March 20, 2007.

While history books tell the story of the Nazis' destruction of human life, little is written about their attempt to destroy and steal the culture and art of Europe. Even less is known about those who worked to save the treasures.

Named the Monuments Men, the largely unknown group of several hundred men and women worked during and after World War II to save nearly one-fifth of Europe's artwork and artefacts from destruction and theft.

Vestal resident and Binghamton University Professor Emeritus Kenneth Lindsay, 86, was one of the Monuments Men credited with preserving many of Europe's most valuable works...

Perhaps his most memorable find, he said, was a sculpture stolen by the Germans in 1912. A large box marked "the coloured queen" was delivered, and speculation about what the crate held abounded. He was ordered to open it by superiors fearing the contents had been pilfered.

"You had to be suspicious all the time," Lindsay said. "Everybody had sticky fingers."

Lindsay obeyed orders and opened the wooden crate, and there, buried under black tar paper and white spun glass, was pure beauty.

"There she was," he said, "that face looking up at me."

It was a statue of Queen Nefertiti. "I'll never get over that experience," Lindsay said. "Probably the most beautiful woman the world has ever seen..."

BU prof helped save stolen art, Star-Gazette, New York, USA, March 19, 2007.

Sudan's archaeology is finally stepping out of Egypt's shadow as teams work against the clock to rescue an entire swathe of Nile Valley heritage from the rising waters of a Chinese-built dam.

"The paradox is that, yes, an entire area is being wiped off the map but thanks to the rescue project, Sudanese archaeology is being put on the map," said Sudan's antiquities chief Salah Ahmed.

The Merowe dam is a controversial hydro-electric project — one of the largest in Africa — being erected on the Nile's fourth cataract and due to start flooding the valley over more than 100 miles (160 kilometres) within months.

Archaeologists admit that an incalculable amount of information will be forever lost...

Sudan archaeology flourishes before the flood, Jean-Marc Mojon, AFP via Yahoo! News, USA, March 18, 2007.

cf. Sudan archaeology flourishes before the flood, Jean-Marc Mojon, AFP via Middle East Online, UK, March 18, 2007.

Sudan’s Merowe requests to stop excavating reservoir area

Representatives of the communities that will be flooded by Sudan’s Merowe Dam have requested that archaeologists excavating the reservoir area should leave immediately.

The request follows the failure of the government to honour an undertaking that archaeological treasures salvaged from the reservoir area would not be removed to distant museums.

The treasures will be lost forever to the dam’s reservoir. The local communities are not opposed to the salvage operation — but insist that saved artefacts should be housed in a local museum in line with an agreement reached with the government...

Sudan’s Merowe requests to stop excavating reservoir area, Sudan Tribune, Sudan, February 26, 2007.

Previously:

Italian archaeologists to join international efforts to save Sudan's ancient artefacts, March 02, 2007.

Damming Sudan, October 19, 2006.

Nubians will be displaced from ancient seat by lake built for dam, January 20, 2006.

Race to save first kingdoms in Africa from dam waters, January 17, 2006.

Hungarian Archaeology Expedition in Nubia, September 20, 2005.