Everything is very cheap in Egypt. I had two rooms, with four beds, and a private bath, with a hot-water shower, for $60 a month. I recall that each day I would go out and get a plate of macaroni with meat, two mini-hamburgers on French-style bread, four small candy bars, a cola and a newspaper, all for $1.14. Seven pounds of Egyptian flat bread, like thick tortillas, or 20 small loaves, cost 45¢. A barbecued chicken was about $1.75. Egyptian teabags were 30¢ a hundred. Grapes and dates were 14¢ a pound. Buses and the surface-level trains charged 3¢ a ride. You could get a flat bicycle tire patched for 15¢.

This was in 1990 and 1991, at a time when the Egyptian pound was fluctuating between 30¢ and 35¢. Today, with the pound (junaih in Arabic) going for about 18¢, the figures would look even better, unless inflation has outrun the depreciation of the pound, which I doubt seriously, given the government controls in Egypt...

I was contemplating cycling the entire 113 miles, which would have taken me 2 days, but I was afraid that I wouldn’t find enough places to get water in the scorching semi-desert of the Nile Delta...

Cabbing To Cairo For 2 Cents A Mile, Thomas Keyes, Useless-Knowledge.com. April 24, 2007.

Previously:

A Quick Tour Of The Pyramids, The Sphinx And The Egyptian Museum, August 30, 2005.

Egypt Is A Safe, Safe Place, July 07, 2005.

[He] enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he and a roommate, who was studying Egyptology, decided to look at how bird representations in Egyptian art had changed through time. For months they spent evenings poring over books at the university's superb Egyptian collection, tracking changes in styles over 2,000 years. On a whim, they sent their finished study to , a famed Egyptologist at Yale University.

He called, immediately bought them tickets to the East Coast and helped them submit their monograph to the world's premiere Egyptology journal, which published it in 1979. "Who are you, anyway?" he asked the pair. Soon, at his urging, they'd found grant money to go to Egypt and study birds and historic records there.

"At that point, my life changed," Goodman remembers. "From then to now I've been on the same trajectory.

That has led him to wander with Bedouins on the remote Egyptian-Sudanese border... Along the way he helped create an transnational park on the Egypt-Sudan border..

Wild man, Laurie Goering, The Chicago Tribune, Illinois, USA, April 22, 2007.

The last North American tour of Tutankhamun-related relics, 29 years ago, was billed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see them outside Egypt. So perhaps their return proves we've all now entered the afterlife in which the ancient Egyptians fervently believed, and which inspired the creation and preservation of many of the glittering objects on display.

But those who remember queuing for hours in their youth and who think they've seen it, done it and bought the catalogue should note that there are twice as many artefacts this time, only 11 of which visited before. And with online booking of timed-entry tickets, a clear view of the objects is guaranteed and long line-ups are now ancient history.

If the earlier exhibition was a portrait of Tutankhamun, who took the throne at age eight or nine and who died less than 10 years later, the new show is a family album also covering preceding generations of ancestors and monarchs, and setting the scene for the youngster's reign.

Containing items ranging from the monumental to the utterly domestic, the exhibition opens with a powerful grey granite statue of Tutankhamun himself, elegant and lithe, and pronounced by an inscription as being favoured by the gods...

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs on display until September 30, 2007 at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute.

The exhibition catalogue is available from Amazon: , Zahi Hawass, National Geographic Books, 2005, pp. 287.

Tut's treasures, Peter Neville-Hadley, The North Shore News, British Columbia, USA, April 24, 2007.

Big Five Tours & Expeditions is pleased to announce that it is among the first tour operators selected to market Oberoi's new luxury ship, the Oberoi Zahra. Set for launch in the fall of 2007, this stylish cruiser will ply Egypt's Nile River. The ship is beautifully appointed in contemporary decor with large windows offering panoramic views of this timeless waterway.

Big Five has created a Nile River tour program to match this outstanding new Oberoi Nile cruise ship. Extraordinary Egypt is a 13-day program that provides guests with an unparalleled experience. They explore the frenetic lanes of old Cairo and the magnificent pyramids of Giza, bargain for treasures in Khan El Khalili Bazaar, discover ancient Alexandria and the temples of Luxor, and spend time in the Valley of Kings. They enjoy a special, private tour and reception at the temple of Hathor at Denderah, and travel to Abu Simbel to discover the remarkable temples of Rameses II and Queen Nefertari...

Big Five First Among Select Tour Operators to Offer Newest Oberoi Luxury Ship in Egypt, PR Web, USA, April 25, 2007.

The latest issue of Ancient Egypt Magazine is out now. Below is a summary of its contents.

• Through a Glass, Clearly
  Alan L. Jeffreys looks at an unusual and impressive display in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
• Egypt in Dubai
  Cathie Bryan looks at some of the many new Egyptian-style buildings that have been built in Wafi City in Dubai.
• The Dakhleh Oasis Project
  In the second in a series of articles, Dr. Peter Sheldrick looks at the physical remains of the ancient inhabitants of the Oasis.
• The Temple of Khonsu at Karnak
  Charlotte Booth takes us on a tour of the well-preserved small temple, showing how it demonstrates a power-shift from the Pharaoh to the Priests of Amun.
• An unwrapped mummified head in the Hancock Museum
  Gill Scott tells how a male mummified head has recently been conserved.
• From our Egypt Correspondent
  Ayman Wahby Taher with the latest news from around Egypt, including exciting discoveries in the major new excavation of the Avenue of Sphinxes between the temples of Luxor and Karnak.
• Technology Innovators of Ancient Egypt
  In the second of his series of articles, Denys Stocks looks at the technology of the great pyramid-building age of ancient Egypt, the Old Kingdom.
• A Pilgrimage to Abydos
  Blair Wilkins visits Abydos and a special grave there.
• Per Mesut: For younger readers
  This issue Hilary Wilson looks at grain.

Ancient Egypt Magazine, Empire Publications, Manchester, UK, Volume 7, No. 5, Issue 41, April / May 2007.

Subscribe to Ancient Egypt Magazine via Amazon.com.

A riddle of ancient Egyptian bones has been solved by two experts at Bolton Museum.

But they intend to keep people guessing — for the moment.

Two unique linen-wrapped bundles containing remains which could be up to 2m years old were unearthed in the early 1920s by celebrated archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie, who excavated many of the most important sites in Egypt.

The bulk of his finds went to University College in London [to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology], but for a long time it seemed the bundles had disappeared off the scientific map — until they turned up in Bolton.

Intrigued by the discovery, Tom Hardwick, keeper of Egyptology at the museum, and archaeology expert David Craven turned detective to reopen an investigation, hoping to find exactly what they had...

Experts bone up on ancient riddle, Don Frame, The Manchester Evening News, UK, April 25, 2007.