The statue, Apollo the Lizard Slayer, was stunning. The five-foot-tall bronze, created by the Greek artist Praxiteles as many as 2,350 years ago, depicts the nude god poised to ambush a lizard.

And the Cleveland Museum of Art wanted it. During a visit to Geneva in 2003, Michael Bennett, the museum’s curator of Greek and Roman art, noticed a statue beneath a black cloth while browsing at Phoenix Ancient Art, an exclusive antiquities gallery. After Hicham and Ali Aboutaam, the dapper Lebanese brothers who owned the gallery, pulled off the cloth to reveal the Apollo Sauroktonos, as it is also known, it did not take long for the museum to buy it.

It did so despite the Aboutaams’ disclosure that the statue’s ownership history was dubious at best.

Although it is thought to be the very statue described by Pliny the Elder in the first century, other details have been lost to time, along with one arm. The statue was part of a private estate in the former East Germany, the Aboutaams said, before it was discovered in pieces in 1990. The family who reclaimed the estate after German reunification sold the work to an undisclosed Dutchman in 1994. That person sold the statue to another collector, who sold it to the Aboutaams in 2001 with the understanding that he would remain anonymous.

The museum’s own experts spent a year investigating the provenance. Physical evidence proved that the sculpture had been out of the ground for at least a century, so its sale did not violate international laws and treaties aimed at halting illicit trade in art and antiquities.

Nevertheless, last month, the Apollo’s murky past returned to haunt the Cleveland Museum of Art...

Do You Know Where That Art Has Been?, Ron Stodghill, The New York Times, New York, USA, March 18, 2007.

cf. Do You Know Where That Art Has Been?, Ron Stodghill, The New York Times via Times Daily, Alabama, USA, March 18, 2007.

The Uganda government plans to turn Dufile Fort into a tourist attraction following an archaeological survey of Uganda's largest and most important 19th century forts.

The archaeologists found that the fort was built by the Madi people, who interacted much with the Arabs. Their findings will guide experts in developing the area where the fort was constructed, to make it economically beneficial to the Madi people who occupy the border area of southwestern Sudan and northwestern Uganda.

Dufile is on the western bank of the Nile in Moyo District, West Nile region, a 45-minute boat ride from Nimule in Sudan.

The survey, headed by Posnansky Merrick, professor emeritus and director of the Dufile Project at the University of California, was conducted from December 2006 to January 2007. Prof Merrick is the founder chairman of the Uganda Historical Monuments Commission and former head of the Uganda National Museum...

Not Egypt I know, but heh?

Uganda: Lost Fort On the Nile, Baturaki Musinguzi, All Africa, Mauritius, March 20, 2007.

The O2, formerly the Millennium Dome, will attempt to prove its capability as an exhibition venue with a much-trumpeted show on boy king Tutankhamun later this year. The exhibition is to be designed by Mark Lach, senior vice-president of entertainment and exhibitions group Arts and Exhibitions International.

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, the first exhibition to take place at The O2, aims to draw visitors back in time with 'inventive design and innovative technology', featuring National Geographic images and film footage about the golden age of the pharaohs.

It will also feature three-dimensional computerised tomography scan images of Tutankhamun, taken as part of the Egyptian research and conservation project that will CT-scan all the ancient mummies of Egypt...

The O2 goes for gold with Tutankhamun gig, Design Week, UK, March 21, 2007.

Name a world capital where you can stand on the balcony of your hotel room and see below a donkey cart loaded with fresh greens in the midst of heavy urban traffic.

Another hint. If you turn your gaze to the left, in the distance you see the unmistakable forms of the three pyramids of Giza, the sole remaining wonder of the original Seven Wonders of the World.

Yes, you are in Cairo, one of the world's most historic, exotic and engaging cities.

I have stayed in Cairo for about a week on two occasions — in 1995 and 2006. On both visits, I was fascinated with this city. On both visits, I also was frustrated because there wasn't enough time to experience it...

Ancient Cairo replete with fascinating historic, artistic treasures, Arthur Hoffman, The South County Journal, Missouri, USA, March 20, 2007.

Brazilian Egyptologist Cláudio Prado de Mello is building the first National Egyptology Institute in Brazil. It will operate in a building, in Rio de Janeiro, that is inspired on an Egyptian construction of the Mamluk dynasty, which ruled Egypt between 1235 and 1517 AD.

"The institute was born from the need to try to organize Egyptology in Brazil. There is a very expressive number of people interested in learning about Egypt," stated Mello. In 1990 a group of Brazilian historians and archaeologists decided to establish the institute in Rio de Janeiro. According to Mello, the organization was established focussing on the Islamic world, but the visitors are also going to have access to other cultures.

The Egyptian complex, which has three storeys, is going to house around 15 rooms where over 900 items will be exhibited and a library with 25,000 titles. Eleven rooms will house permanent exhibits, covering the formation of the earth; the first civilizations; classic cultures, like the Greek and Roman; the Byzantine culture and the Islamic world; Pre-Columbian cultures, like the Incas, Aztecs and Mayas; South American baroque art; culture of the Far East; Medieval, Renaissance and primitive Art...

Researcher builds Egyptology institute in Rio, Translated by Mark Ament, Brazil-Arab News Agency, Brazil, March 20, 2007.

The editor published in Al-Ahram Weekly on [February 01 - 07, 2007] only parts of my reply to the first question of a reader called Ronald Edge from Chicago asking about how I define directions for determinations of alignment due north of the Great Pyramid, even contrasting it with a famous astronomical site in Paris. But because of precession and the angle of the axis of Earth to the plane of the ecliptic, over time "true north" changes, and is surely now just a few thousand years later, not precisely where it was at the time the Pyramid was built. A reference to the "Spence theory" was also omitted. I here offer the two main theories regarding the alignment techniques of the Great Pyramid, sun shadow and the stellar technique.

The first approach is the simplest; two easy methods are conceivable. One is to use a gnomon (the oldest astronomical device) to record the shortest shadow length at noon when the sun is due south. This will produce a north/ south direction line. In this case the ancients would have intended to orient their pyramids to "Re", the noonday sun, when the sun is at its highest point. Another alternative is to mark the length of the shadow in the morning and draw a circle round the gnomon using the length of the shadow as the radius. In the afternoon, when the shadow reaches the perimeter of the circle, it is again marked. A line through the morning and afternoon marks is an east/west direction line. The sophistication of this method suggests that if the ancients made this alignment they were aligning to the cardinal points and had a good working knowledge of basic geometry. Both methods are a quick and easy way of establishing direction lines on most days of the year. Many scholars support this technique as the most plausible way in which the north pole alignment was calculated; for the ancients had a thorough understanding of the sun — being their chief god. Egyptian priests would have studied it carefully...

Thanks to Professor Deif for forwarding this to me.

A Question of Ancient Mathematics, Professor Assem Deif, Copts United, Egypt, March 01, 2007.

Previously:

Reply: Mathematics in Ancient Egypt, February 07, 2007.

Mathematics in Ancient Egypt, January 26, 2007.