Culture Minister Farouk Hosni approved the travel of an antiquities team to Japan to inaugurate the Egyptian monuments exhibition to be staged in the museum of the University of Waseda, in the City of Sengoku on July 31, 2007 to last till September 9. The team is headed by Dr. Zahi Hawass Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Hawass said this is the sixth tour for Egyptian antiquities in the Japanese cities which started Mid-July last year and will last till the middle of the year 2008.

The exhibition will include 317 pieces dating back to various historical epochs. The exhibition will be touring Japan until the year 2008.

Egypt will receive EGP1 million in two instalments for the exhibition, he added.

Egyptian monuments touring Japan, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 28, 2007.

A French antiquities team working in Al-Kharja's Deir area, New Valley governorate, discovered a big plant for potteries, dating back to the third century.

The site included a large number of rare pots which had been produced for trade purposes and distribution in distant areas.

In terms of production and shape, the pots were the first of their kind to be discovered in Egypt or any other place in the world.

As part of an integrated Deir Castle development project, another collection of pots were found by the same team.

Third century pottery plant discovered in New Valley, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 28, 2007.

Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. today announced that researchers running simulations on the Cray supercomputer at Sandia National Laboratories have re-created what could have happened 29 million years ago when an asteroid explosion turned Saharan sand into glass. The greenish natural glass, which can still be found scattered across remote stretches of the desert, was used by an artisan in ancient Egypt to carve a scarab that decorates one of the bejewelled breastplates buried in King Tutankhamen's tomb.

"Supercomputers now allow us to approach these problems as if we were conducting actual experiments," said Mark Boslough, the physicist at Sandia whose theory about the origins of Libyan Desert Glass sparked the research. "With this class of computer, we can run multiple simulations at such high resolution and fidelity that we can see phenomena that we wouldn't be able to predict from first principles. That means we can explore alternate possibilities as we go. It's more like doing iterative experimental science than theoretical science..."

"The Libyan Desert Glass study at Sandia is truly exciting research that crosses a number of scientific disciplines — ranging from impact physics and geology to Egyptology," said Jan Silverman, senior vice president, corporate strategy and business development at Cray. "We are delighted to hear about how our highly scalable Cray XT(TM) supercomputer architecture allows iterative modelling techniques to find the most probable explanation. Using the computational power of our supercomputers we also see similar iterative techniques being used to optimize designs from automobiles to airplanes..."

Cray Supercomputer at Sandia Helps Researchers Discover Origin of Mysterious Glass Found in King Tut's Tomb, Market Wire via Macroworld Investor, USA, July 31, 2007.

cf. Solving the riddle of the desert glass, Mark Boslough, Sandia Technology, Sandia National Laboratories, USA, Volume 8, No. 4, Winter 2006 - 2007.

Previously:

Travel: Snap Shots: Desert Glass, April 13, 2007.

Mysterious Egyptian Glass Formed by Meteorite Strike, Study Says, December 29, 2006.

More on Meteorite Crash Helped Form King Tut Necklace, June 30, 2006.

King Tut’s glass beetle came from outer space, June 27, 2006.

An 83-year-old man and his family are due in court in connection with the sale of a fake Egyptian statue thought to be worth £1 million.

George Greenhalgh, his wife Olive, 82, and their sons, George Jnr, 52, and Shaun, 47, who live together at The Crescent, Bromley Cross, Bolton, are accused of running a family firm selling bogus antiquities.

Bolton council bought the Amarna Princess, believed to be around 3,300 years old, for a "bargain" £440,000 in September 2003.

But officers from the Metropolitan Police's Art and Antiques Unit removed the 20-inch artefact in March 2006 after concerns were raised...

Man, 83, in court over fake artefact, ITV News, UK., July 31, 2007.

Previously:

Family in court over fake statue, April 26, 2007.