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

• Anticipating Tutankhamun
  An update on information about the forthcoming “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” Exhibition in London later in the year.
• Cairo a Century Ago
  Sigrid M. van Roode looks at how the city of Cairo became oriented towards Europe in the nineteenth century, and at surviving buildings from that time.
• The Great Royal Wives from Akhmim
  Marta Farrugia and Anton Mifsud ask how a small town in Middle Egypt produced some of the greatest Great Royal Wives of the New Kingdom.
• The Ancient Stones Speak: Part Three
  Pam Scott, in her third and final article on hieroglyphs, explains how to read inscriptions found on funerary objects.
• A Woman of Old Akhmim
  Jonathan Elias, Carter Lupton and Heather Gill-Robinson investigate a mummy from Akhmim.
• A Visit to Serabit el Khadim
  Stewart White visits an important site in the Sinai Peninsula, sacred to the goddess Hathor.
• From our Egypt Correspondent
  Ayman Wahby Taher with the latest news from around Egypt, including exciting discoveries in the necropolis of Saqqara.
• The Dakhleh Oasis Project
  In the third of a series of articles on the Project, Jennifer Smith shows how the geology of the Oasis reflects huge climate changes over the millennia.
• Per Mesut: For younger readers
  This issue Hilary Wilson looks at bread.

Ancient Egypt Magazine, Empire Publications, Manchester, UK, Volume 7, No. 6, Issue 42, June / July 2007.

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Humankind has been enjoying beer for the past 10,000 years. The first beer was created, discovered, produced or received from aliens (depending on who's telling the story and their level of sobriety) by Sumerians. Whether this was an accidental discovery by a careless housekeeper who allowed a piece of soggy bread to sit around long enough to ferment, or one that came about through a more intentional act, will forever be fodder for speculation. Which came first, beer or bread, is an equally hot debate. What is not in question, however, is the fact that beer is the earliest known beverage to remain in existence — possibly enjoying even greater popularity at present than in ancient times.

Some historians believe that even if bread preceded beer, bread may have originally been derived from wild plants and grains, allowing our wandering ancestors to continue their itinerant lifestyle while also enjoying bread. But with the discovery of beer — and the subsequent thirst caused by this discovery — tribes opted to hang up their tents, park their goats and end their rambling ways. Then quickly settling into small communities, these former nomads began cultivating barley and other grains, unwilling to rely on unpredictable wild barley for such an important food source as beer...

In Egypt, 1600 B.C., there were 100 documented medical prescriptions calling for beer as one of their ingredients. The data is inconclusive as to whether these prescriptions actually cured illnesses, simply made the patients more fun to be around or contributed to the growing popularity of the medical profession. Another morsel of ancient Egyptian beer trivia: if a gentleman offered a lady a sip of his beer, they were betrothed. The outcome of men sharing a beer is not documented...

I'm sure this article is tongue-in-cheek. I certainly not heard of the beer equals betrothal rule before.

Beer: A contemporary legal buzz or a testament to human ingenuity?,

Holly Morrison, The Baltic Times, Latvia, June 20, 2007.