At an international press conference the minister [of tourism] yesterday said before [a] meeting with 380 owners of tourist companies from Spain, Portugal, and North America that there is one pyramid in the world and [it] is [the] largest of any competition and [it is] unbecoming to enter any competition with any old or new wonders.

A number of media representatives accompanying the foreign delegation asked the Minister about excluding the Egyptian pyramids from the New 7 Wonders institute's referendum led by the Swiss businessman Bernard Wiper, and the result will be declared on next July 07 in the Portuguese Capital [Lisbon]... ***

*** What are they announcing? The result of the question they asked? Or the result of the New 7 Wonders competition? The latter obviously but, nonetheless, a slightly confusing article! And they got the capital of Portugal wrong!

One does not have to exclude the Pyramids wonder of the world, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, April 27, 2007.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) has formally requested the temporary display of unique ancient Egyptian antiquities kept in several museums abroad during the inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum in 2011.

SCA Secretary General Zahi Hawass said he met Ambassador Mona Saudi, Assistant Foreign Minister for Cultural Affairs, and discussed with her procedures to put into effect an agreement between Culture and Foreign Ministers Farouk Hosni and Ahmed Abul-Gheit respectively to contact foreign countries to allow the return of the monuments for display during the ceremony.

The objects in question are the Rosetta Stone, now in the British Museum in London, the bust of Nefertiti in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, the statue of Great Pyramid architect Hemiunnu in the Romer-Pelizaeus Museum in the German city of Hilesheim, the Denderah Temple Zodiac in the Louvre in Paris, and the bust of Khephren pyramid builder Ankhaf in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA.

Hawass said he hoped the foreign countries would accept the Egyptian request in the light of distinguished ties with these countries.

Egypt wants to showcase its unique antiquities abroad, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, April 30, 2007.

Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass has said the government is planning to establish an up-to-date laboratory to conduct DNA tests on mummies.

Hawass said the lab will cost $3 million to be paid by the American National Geographic network.

The American TV will further produce a documentary on Queen Hatshepsut, he added.

Hawass noted that the lab will be equipped with state of the art technology and located at the basement of the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo...

Egypt to establish up to date labs to conduct DNA tests on mummies, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, April 29, 2007.

Egypt said Sunday it would seek the temporary return of some of its most precious artefacts from museums abroad, including the Rosetta Stone and a bust of Nefertiti.

The country's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, said the Foreign Ministry would send letters this week to France, Germany, the United States and Great Britain requesting that the ancient artefacts be loaned to Egypt.

Hawass has previously demanded the permanent return of many of the artefacts, claiming some of them were taken illegally.

This time, the country is requesting museums loan the artefacts so they can be exhibited either at the 2011 opening of the Egyptian Museum, near the site of the Great Pyramids at Giza, or the Atum museum, which is set to open in the Nile Delta city of Meniya in 2010, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement.

Egypt said it would request the loans from the British Museum, Paris' Louvre, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and two German museums...

Egypt will ask museums abroad to temporarily send back artefacts, Salah Nasrawi, AP via The Seattle Times, Washington, USA, April 30, 2007.

cf. Egypt Seeks Loans of Overseas Artefacts, Salah Nasrawi, AP via PhysOrg, USA, April 30, 2007.

The 6,000-pound red granite lion symbolizes the power of the Egyptian Pharaoh. But Mary Ellen Soles, curator of ancient art at the North Carolina Museum of Art, said the sculpture reminds her of “a big kitty cat.”

It’s the first thing people will encounter when visiting “Temples and Tombs: Treasures of Egyptian Art from the British Museum.”

Soles pointed out the big cat’s casual pose. One front paw is crossed over another and his tail curls around the front of his body. There’s a benign expression on his face.

Soles noted the “acutely observed naturalism,” such as the animal’s ribs and a pouch of sagging skin incorporated into the sculpture...

The exhibition catalogue can be found here: , Edna R. Russmann, Nigel Strudwick, T.G.H. James, University of Washington Press, 2006, pp. 136.

Temples, tombs and more, Mike Wilder, The Times News, North Carolina, USA, ...

A love for mummies is not uncommon, but a love for figuring out the mysteries that surround their deaths is not an easy task.

Just ask , a man whose love for mummies has taken him halfway around the world to discover the mystery of a mummy known as Unknown Man E.

Brier recently spoke as part of a series held at Camden County College's Dennis Flyer Theatre. The lectures dealt entirely with the mysteries and history of Ancient Egypt and brought to the college experts on the subject from all around the world.

Not originally scheduled to speak that night, Brier, whose wife was unable to speak due to an illness, filled in and provided a glimpse into the mysteries surrounding an ancient mummy that had been labelled only by the name Unknown Man E...

Speaker gets wrapped up in talk on mummies, Drew Ciccotelli, The Philadelphia Record Breeze, Pennsylvania, USA, April 26, 2007.

Previously:

The Mystery of Unknown Man E, February 16, 2006.

Italy will return to Libya an ancient Roman statue taken from its former North African colony, a gesture Rome hopes will help its own campaign to retrieve allegedly looted antiquities from museums worldwide.

The 2nd century statue of the goddess Venus was found in 1913 by Italian troops near the ruins of the Greek and Roman settlement of Cyrene, on the Libyan coast, the Culture Ministry said Tuesday. It is now housed in Rome's National Roman Museum...

Libyan authorities requested the statue in 1989, but a protracted judicial battle ensued with a group that considered the work part of Italy's cultural heritage. Last week, a court ruled in favour of returning the statue to Tripoli, the ministry said in a statement. No date has been set for the return.

The ruling sets "a useful precedent to promote the return, in favour of Italy, of antiquities that were looted by other states," the ministry said.

Italy is aggressively campaigning to recover antiquities it says were smuggled out of the country and sold to museums worldwide...

Three Associated Press photographs can be found here on Yahoo! News' Archaeology & Anthropology slideshow.

Italy to Return Ancient Statue to Libya, Ariel David, AP via The Guardian, UK, April 24, 2007.

The dramatic scaling down of Scotland Yard's once renowned arts and antique squad has left organised criminals free to plunder the nation's heritage, according to a leading fine art insurer.

Police have sought private money to finance the squad after its annual budget of some £300,000 was halved earlier this year. But the Guardian has learned that Scotland Yard has failed to secure a penny from insurers or auction houses, after months of discussions.

Britain's art market is second only to the US and experts claim up to £200m worth of stolen art and antiques are sold in the UK each year. Interpol estimates that art theft is the fourth largest organised crime after drugs, people trafficking and arms...

[S]uccesses include the uncovering of a multimillion pound British smuggling operation in which precious antiquities and archaeological artefacts were stolen from Egypt, some of which were sold at Sotheby's...

Met's art theft squad has to go cap in hand, Sandra Laville, The Guardian, UK, April 21, 2007.

Seven years after being given the go-ahead, the Al-Arish National Museum is ready to open...

North Sinai's National Day celebration had a different flavour this year. Apart from the inauguration of new urban development projects that usually mark the event, the city's long-awaited LE50 million National Museum is at last finished.

The two-storey Al-Arish National Museum (ANM) will make a huge visual difference to North Sinai's capital city. The temple- shaped, honey-coloured edifice has finally been revealed after being hidden for almost a decade under ugly iron scaffolding, wooden panels and plastic sheets.

Although plans for the museum were drawn up in 1994 — shortly after the return of Sinai's archaeological collection taken by Israel during their occupation — the foundation stone was laid only in 1998. Lack of funds subsequently placed the project on hold for nearly four years. However in 2002 the Ministry of Culture put Egypt's museums at the top of its priority list in an attempt to preserve the country's priceless treasures, both stored and newly-discovered. The plan was to create the optimum environment to display the treasures, and thus release the pressure on overstuffed major museums. In line with the ministry's plan, steps were taken towards the museum's completion...

The gates of history, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Issue No. 842, April 26 - May 02, 2007.

I can’t wait for that touring King Tut exhibit I keep hearing about to come to New York.

Yes, but the closest that “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” will get to us is Philadelphia — it’s there through September 30 [2007].

Why’s that?

Well, Egypt’s antiquities director, Zahi Hawass, pitched it to a number of New York museums, and they all turned it down.

I get the sense it’s kind of a hypefest.

Perhaps. It’s atypical in that most blockbuster exhibits make at least gestures toward an intellectual conceit. Here, the wall labels are pretty basic, and the idea is mostly Look at all this awesome gold stuff. The museum’s shop even sells knockoffs of Hawass’s hat.

Is it not worth the trip, then?

No, it is — you just have to be willing to do a little reading on your own beforehand. If you do, you can take a lot away from the show. And of course it’ll interest kids...

The Gist: “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs”, Christopher Bonanos, New York Magazine, New York, USA, April 30, 2007.

I find it hard to imagine anyone visiting Egypt for the first time, no matter how well read on the subject, and not being impressed. It is amazing so many people spent decades building pyramids or digging, carving and painting elaborate underground vaults, long before some civilisations had cottoned on as to the potential of the wheel.

The legacy of buildings they have left is remarkable and we stare and wonder at it all. Yet the republican pulse still beats deep inside and I just feel all that ability, knowledge of higher mathematics, craftsmanship, energy and grotesque amounts of labour could have been used for the general good.

Instead thousands of workers were directed at the behest of a succession of deluded leaders who actually believed they were to become one of the gods, and despite this ethereal elevation, needed their worldly goods in the hereafter.

Not everyone swallowed this, however, for it is believed the tombs were cleaned out by robbers within 70 years of them being sealed...

A bit of envy for the simple life, Oliver Phillips, This is London, UK, April 20, 2007.

Our endless fascination with ancient Egypt owes much to the beauty of the tomb paintings, statuary, temple reliefs, and other magnificent artworks that are the legacy of this remarkable culture. But despite the multitude of objects and texts that have survived, questions abound, particularly about the true role of women in Egyptian society. This wonderfully illustrated, brilliantly researched book draws on unpublished material from author Zahi Hawass' own excavations as well as new analyses of older evidence to penetrate the silent images and paint an astonishing picture of women's lives. Hawass contrasts the stereotype-inspired by such symbols of femininity as the queens Nefertiti and Nefertari-with a more realistic view of the common woman's everyday involvement in matters ranging from family life to dress and adornment to the workplace and the legal system. Lavish photographs of places and objects, many made especially for this book, round out an enthralling, richly textured work. Zahi Hawass is a world-renowned archaeologist. He is director of the Giza Pyramids and field director of the Bahariya Oasis excavation, as well as a frequent lecturer around the world. He has written books on the pyramids and on kingship in ancient Egypt, and his articles have been published widely. He teaches archaeology at Cairo University and the University of California at Los Angeles. 150 illustrations in full colour, 9 3/4 x 11 3/4"

, Zahi Hawass, Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1995 (2000), pp. 207.

An exhibition mounted by the Department of Art and Archaeology offers a look at vintage photographs from the second half of the 19th century, during the concurrent development of photography and tourism. The exhibition, "Global Views: 19th-century Travel Photographs," runs through Friday, Sept. 28 [2007], in the first floor lounge of McCormick Hall.

In the second half of the 19th century, professional photographic firms arose in the major cities of Western Europe, as well as in more remote travel destinations such as Greece, Egypt, India, Asia and the Middle East. Catering to an influx of European and American tourists, a growing number of travel photographers documented historical monuments, archaeological sites and scenes of daily life from the Middle East and Asia.

The exhibition features some of these unique images, which have historical value in terms of the development of photography and the study of the architectural and social history of the regions in which they were produced...

Princeton University Department of Art and Archaeology.

Exhibition highlights vintage travel photographs, News @ Princeton, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA, April 24, 2007.

An 83-year-old man and his family have appeared in court charged in connection with the sale of a fake Egyptian statue which was thought to be worth £1m.

Bolton Council paid £440,000 for the Amarna Princess in 2003 believing it was 3,300-years-old — but in 2006 experts found it was counterfeit.

George Greenhalgh, his wife Olive, 82, and sons, George, 52, and Shaun, 46, appeared at Bolton Magistrates' Court.

They were bailed to appear at Bolton Crown Court on 24 July [2007]...

Family in court over fake statue, BBC News, UK, April 26, 2007.

cf. Family in court over sale of fake statue to council, Jon Land, 24dash.com, UK, April 26, 2007.

Previously:

Two men charged over fake statue, April 23, 2007.

Fake £1m statue: Bail extended for trio, March 01, 2007.

The ancient Egypt statue from Bolton (circa 2003), March 28, 2006.

More on £500,000 statue in police 'fake' probe, March 21, 2006.

Two held as '£1m Egyptian statue' is found to be a fake, March 21, 2006.

Egyptian statue in forgery claim, March 20, 2006.

Archive:

cf. Museum secures rare Egyptian sculpture, BBC News, UK, September 30, 2003.

Could this mysterious, 3,000-year-old ring be part of the lost — and cursed — treasure of Tutankhamun?

It's owner, Markas Dove of Kintbury, certainly believes so.

Since the ring was unearthed by a huge storm in 1987, Mr Dove has been offered a fortune for the ring, although bad luck has followed in its wake.

Mr Dove said: "My dad found the band with a metal detector after the hurricane of 1987 removed about 10 feet off the beach at the Isle of Wight...

Elisabeth O'Connell, the research curator at the British Museum's Egyptology department, said: "The inscription suggests it belonged to either Tutankhamun or one of his inner court.

"I would not like to try and put a figure on its value."

She added that an early-20th-century shipwreck of a vessel carrying Egyptian antiquities was the most likely explanation for the find...

King Tut's treasure, John Garvey, Newbury Today, UK, April 26, 2007.

The 3,400-year-old bust of the wife of the Sun King Akhenaten has been in German hands since it was dug out of the desert by the archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt in 1912. It was smuggled out of Egypt and became a central part of Berlin’s museum collection.

Now the Egyptians want it back, if not for keeps, then at least on loan to mark the opening in 2012 of a new Grand Egyptian Museum, near the Pyramid at Giza. If the Egyptian Museum in Berlin does not agree, says Zahi Hawass, there will be trouble. “We will make the lives of these museums miserable,” the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt said. “It will be a scientific war.”

German officials say that the bust is too fragile to travel. “Nefertiti is not a pop star that can simply go on tour,” a senior official said. Dietrich Wildung, head of the Egyptian Museum, says there is no doubt that Nefertiti is German property. “She was donated to the state museum in 1920 by James Simon [who sponsored the Borchardt dig].”

The bust, he says, has become globally famous in a way that it would not have had it stayed in Egypt. “Nefertiti has become an outstanding example of how the foreign can be integrated into society,” Dr Wildung says. “She is accepted, not assimilated. She keeps her separateness and her uniqueness, yet she belongs here.”

Nefertiti, in other words, is not budging. Mr Hawass has sent the Germans an ultimatum: “We will never again organise antiquities exhibitions in Germany if it refuses the request...”

Museums at war over a flying visit home for Queen Nefertiti, Roger Boyes, The Times, UK, April 26, 2007.

Previously:

Egypt officially requests Nefertiti bust, April 23, 2007.

Nefertiti: Face to face, April 20, 2007.

Egypt Vows 'Scientific War' If Germany Doesn't Loan Nefertiti, April 19, 2007.

Berlin museum rebuffs threat over Nefertiti, April 17, 2007.

Egypt threatens German ban in Nefertiti row, April 16, 2007.

Nefertiti Is Too Fragile to Visit Egypt, German Minister Says, April 13, 2007.

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.

Legendary land of the Pharaohs and home of the goddess Isis and her husband Osiris, god of fertility and ruler of the afterlife — Egypt is a magical place for a holiday.

This fabled north-east African country — with its face to the Mediterranean, its back to the desert and flanked by the Red Sea — exudes a serious sense of the exotic.

Tutankhamen, the great Pyramids and the Sphinx at Giza, the Valleys of the Kings and Queens, Abu Simbel — these are all names which cause a frisson of excitement.

And to such wonders of the ancient world, Egypt has added the modern Aswan Dam...

Travel: Fit for the Gods... Ancient and modern Egypt will change your Life, Aine Hegarty, Red Nova, USA, April 21, 2007.

[I]f it weren't for