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.

The largest known fortress from ancient Egypt's days of the pharaohs has been unearthed near the Suez Canal, archaeologists announced on Sunday.

The massive fortress, discovered at a site called Tell-Huba, includes the graves of soldiers and horses and once featured a giant water-filled moat, scientists said.

The discovery dates back to ancient Egypt's struggle to re-conquer the northern Sinai Peninsula from an occupying force known as the Hyksos.

The campaign against the Hyksos was depicted in etchings on the ancient walls of the Karnak Temple, 450 miles (720 kilometres) south of Cairo.

Archaeologists said the new find shows those stone-chiselled tales to be surprisingly accurate.

"The bones of humans and horses found in the area attest dramatically to the reality of such battles," said Zahi Hawass...

Egypt's Largest Pharaoh-Era Fortress Discovered, Experts Announce, Dan Morrison, National Geographic News, USA, July 27, 2007.

Previously:

Mammoth mud brick fort dating from the pharaonic period unearthed in Egypt, July 24, 2007.

Wrinkles improved the face of Nefertiti, the pharaonic Egyptian queen acclaimed as the world's most beautiful woman, German scientists have discovered.

The 3,000-year-old bust of Nefertiti is the greatest treasure at Berlin's Altes Museum.

X-ray pictures of the bust by a computer tomography machine at the nearby Charite Hospital in Berlin revealed that the sculpture is a piece of limestone with details added using four outer layers of plaster of Paris.

'We have discovered that the sculptor later added gentle wrinkles to her face, especially around the eyes,' said Dietrich Wildung, director of the Museum of Egyptology housed in the upper storey of the Altes Museum.

'The wrinkles make the image more individual and expressive...'

Added wrinkles make Nefertiti more beautiful, The Argentina Star, Argentina, July 30, 2007.

Every month, around 3,000 people visit the Egyptian Museum, on Nicaragua street, in Curitiba, capital of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná, to see the relics of the land of the pharaohs up close. The institution has a permanent exhibition of a mummy of an Egyptian who lived in Ancient Egypt. The body, nicknamed Tothmea, was supposedly a singer and musician who honoured goddess Isis, according to data supplied by the museum. The mummy arrived in the capital of Paraná state in 1995, as a donation from the Rosicrucian Museum of San Jose, California, which belongs to the Rosicrucian Order, a mystical and philosophical institution that also owns the Egyptian Museum in Curitiba.

According to the person responsible for the museum, Rodrigo Bontorin, the donation was made at the request of the institution. The mummy was nicknamed Tothmea in honour of pharaoh Thutmose, who governed Egypt in the 18th dynasty. It was discovered in a necropolis, ancient cemetery, in Thebes, in the second half of the 18th century. In the Egyptian Museum, the mummy is in a funeral chamber, similar to the ancient Egyptian tombs, with pictures of daily and religious scenes on the walls, made especially for Tothmea. The embalmed body is one of the main attractions of the Egyptian Museum of Curitiba.

Apart from the mummy, however, the museum houses 497 replicas of historic Egyptian artefacts like the bust of queen Nefertiti, wife of pharaoh Akhenaten, and objects of king Tutankhamun...

Museum from Curitiba houses Egyptian mummy, Isaura Daniel and Mark Ament, ANBA, Brazil, July 23, 2007.

Academics want to test an ancient fake big toe to see if it really did help its owner to Walk like an Egyptian.

They have made a replica of the “Cairo toe”, a bending leather and wood body part which they believe could be the world’s earliest practical prosthetic.

Now they are seeking volunteers who themselves lack a right big toe, to test their theory that it actively helped its original user to walk.

If proved correct, it would mean prosthetic medicine started at least 700 years earlier than previously thought.

Jacky Finch, lead researcher at Manchester University’s KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology, said the fact that it showed signs of wear indicated it was a practical limb. It was found strapped to the mummified foot of a 50- to 60-year-old woman who had undergone a toe amputation.

“The toe dates from between 1069 and 664BC, so if we can prove it was functional then we will have pushed back prosthetic medicine by as much as 700 years,” she said...

Fellow Egyptologists at neighbouring Salford University are also testing a model of another fake big toe, fashioned from a type of papier-mâché known as cartonnage...

Click on the picture above for another image of the toe.

Is 'Cairo toe' the first practical prosthetic?, Stephen Adams, The Telegraph, UK, July 27, 2007.

cf. Going out on a limb over 'Cairo toe', Sheryl Uberlacker, The Toronto Star, Ontario, Canada, July 27, 2007.

Previously:

Science steps in to discover wonders of Toe-tankhamun, July 26, 2007.

Braving the heat waves that hit Egypt last week, Culture Minister Farouk Hosni embarked on his first field tour of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) to inspect the progress on building the most ambitious archaeological museum ever planned.

At the western edge of the GEM, on a plot overlooking the Al-Rimayah residential complex, a huge high-tech building complex is planned lying 10 metres below street level. The layout is for four main museological facilities; an archaeological conservation centre, archaeological storehouses, a fire-fighting unit and an energy production station which will provide the power needed to operate equipment for restoring the estimated 150,000 objects of the museum's display.

The conservation centre will contain separate laboratories for stone, wood, ceramics, papyri, metal, textile and leather, as well as an organic laboratory -- designed for running tests on ancient textiles, papyri, dried plants, and species of insects found on excavated items.

To guarantee tight security and complete isolation of the complex from the surrounding neighbourhood, an iron surround fence has been erected and is monitored by CCTV cameras. A buffer zone of trees conceals the complex and provides privacy and security for the transfer of artefacts, while the roof has been covered with the natural sand of the main bedrock. Over the forthcoming six months any required equipment will be fitted in each section...

Egypt's fourth pyramid, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 855, July 26 - August 01, 2007.

A Smithsonian team has now uncovered first underwater evidence pointing to an urban settlement dating back seven centuries before Alexander showed up [in what was to become Alexandria] in 331 B.C...

But little was known about the site in pre-Alexander times, other than that a fishing village by the name of Rhakotis was located there.

Coastal geoarchaeologist Jean-Daniel Stanley of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History said the work by him and his colleagues suggested there had been a much larger community than had previously been believed.

The discoveries, reported in the August issue of GSA Today, the journal of the Geological Society of America, came by accident when his team drilled underwater in Alexandria's harbour, Stanley said...

U.S. geological team uncovers first evidence of city hidden beneath Alexandria, AP via PR Inside, USA, July 26, 2007.

Hidden City Found Beneath Alexandria, Charles Q. Choi, Live Science, USA, July 24, 2007.

cf. Alexandria, Egypt, before Alexander the Great: A multidisciplinary approach yields rich discoveries, Jean-Daniel Stanley, Richard W. Carlson, Gus Van Beek, Thomas F. Jorstad, Elizabeth A. Landau, GSA Today, The Geological Society of America, USA, Volume 17, Issue 8, August 2007. Full text is available free in HTML and PDF formats.

Throwing stone balls along a lane might have been a popular game in ancient Egypt, according to evidence unearthed some 56 miles south of Cairo by Italian archaeologists.

A mixture of bowling, billiard and bowls, the game was played at Narmoutheos [Narmuthis], in the Fayoum region, in a spacious room which appears to be the prototype of a modern-day bowling hall.

The room was part of a structure, perhaps a residential building, which dated from the Roman period, specifically between the second and third century A.D.

"We first discovered a room with a very well-built limestone floor. Then we noticed a lane and two stone balls," Edda Bresciani, an Egyptologist at Pisa University, told Discovery News...

The Roman castrum of Narmuthis, University of Pisa, 2006 - 2007.

Ancient Egyptian Ball Game Discovered, Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News, USA, July 25, 2007.

cf. Egyptians played ancient version of bowling 2000 years back, Daily India, India, July 26, 2007.

An artificial big toe attached to the foot of an ancient Egyptian mummy could prove to be the world's earliest functional prosthetic body part, say scientists.

Research at The University of Manchester is hoping to prove that the wood and leather artefact in the Cairo Museum not only looked the part but also helped its owner walk 'like an Egyptian'.

If true, the toe will predate what is currently considered to be the earliest known practical prosthesis — an artificial leg from 300BC — by several hundred years.

Jacky Finch, who is carrying out the study at Manchester's KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology, is recruiting volunteers whose right big toe has been lost in order to test an exact replica of the artificial toe...

Science steps in to discover wonders of Toe-tankhamun, Manchester University, UK, July 26, 2007.

The Egyptians have landed. Some of them have taken up to 5000 years to get here but their reincarnation at the Art Gallery of WA should be well worth the wait.

More than 100,000 people are expected to see the Louvre’s travelling show of Egyptian antiquities after it opens tomorrow. And the faces of pharaohs unearthed from tombs and shrouded commoners buried in the desert sand will be staring right back at them.

The national tour of more than 500 objects has taken six years to arrange and cost $6 million. It is the first Louvre exhibition to come to Australia in nearly 30 years and is expected to be the gallery’s most popular show since Monet and Japan drew 170,000 people in 2001.

Egyptian Antiquities from the Louvre: Journey to the Afterlife draws its inspiration from the lengths the ancient people of the Nile took to protect themselves on their trip to eternal paradise...

Pharaohs in Perth on trip to paradise, Stephen Bevis, The West Australian, Australia, July 20, 2007.

Meanwhile in Secrets of Egypt's Lost Queen (Discovery) the ebullient Dr Zahi Hawass was trying to identify Queen Hatshepsut from four finalists in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. You've heard of the Old Bazaar At Cairo? Then you will love Cairo museum. It has an ample sufficiency of mummies and sarcophagi but very little idea of where any of them are. The dust of dead kings dances in the sunlight. Which is why a Cat scan and sterile lab, on loan from Germany, arrived like a spaceship...

The film, rather American in tone, treated the search like CSI: Cairo. One by one, possible mummies were eliminated. A skull, when the covering was removed, was so clearly screaming, that museum attendants drew back with their hands to their mouths. Hatshepsut's relatives were scanned and fused to find the family face. DNA, nuclear and mitochondrial, was taken from them. Two mummies remained, but which was the queen and which the servant? In dusty death you could not tell.

Germany would soon be wanting its Cat scan back. As a last resort, Hatshepsut's sealed funerary box was scanned and showed a molar with one root. One mummy had an identical molar missing and one root remaining in her jaw. It fitted like a slipper. The Cat scan had shown a serious abscess and, if it had burst when the molar was pulled to ease Hatshepsut's pain, the infection would have killed her...

Last night's TV, Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian, UK, July 18, 2007.

Dr. Mohammad Argon, Director of the Egyptian Space Program said that a composite satellite photo was taken by the MisrSat-1 launched on April, 17, 2007.

The photo presents the colours of the desert areas around Cairo, indicating their geology and the urban communities surrounding the ring road.

The MisrSat-1 will photograph a strip of the Earth equal to its imaging swath with each orbit. As the satellite revolves around the Earth on one axis the Earth rotates on another, shifting the scanned strip with each orbit. This eventually allows the satellite to photograph the entire planet as it circles around it, and the software at the ground station works to fit these images together to create the complete picture.

Egyptian remote sensing satellite unveils Cairo secrets, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 24, 2007.

Egypt announced Sunday the discovery of the largest-ever military city from the pharaonic period on the edge of the Sinai desert, part of a series of forts that stretched to the Gaza border. "The three forts are part of a string of 11 castles that made up the Horus military road that went from Suez all the way to the city of Rafah on the Egyptian-Palestinian border and dates to the 18th and 19th dynasties (1560-1081 BC)," antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said in a statement.

Teams have been digging in the area for the past decade, but the Egyptian discovery of the massive Fort Tharo and the discovery of two other fortresses by French and American teams confirmed the existence of the Horus fortifications described in ancient texts.

Fort Tharo, the military headquarters for the eastern defence of Egypt, had 13-meter thick mud brick walls running 500 meters by 250 meters and punctuated by 24 huge towers, said a statement from the Supreme Council of Antiquities...

Mammoth mud brick fort dating from the pharaonic period unearthed in Egypt, AFP via The Daily Star Lebanon, Lebanon, July 24, 2007.

cf. Pharaonic-era fort discovered, News 24, South Africa, July 22, 2007.

cf. Egypt's oldest fortress discovered, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 23, 2007.

Memphis-Saqqara-Dashur is a quiet stretch of history, just off Cairo; a superb combination of greenery as well as the barren and rugged desert. We set out on our self guided tour one fine morning to reach Memphis, once the glorious capital of ancient Egypt, now converted to an open air museum, beautifully flanked by the tall date palm trees.

The museum houses a colossal limestone statue of Ramses II, which is kept is a lying position as its legs are broken from the knees and the left arm is totally battered. It is guessed that the statue must have fallen from a great height, causing this condition. The double head gear represented upper and lower Egypt and the waist band has his name written in hieroglyphics, which was only done to pharaohs. The other attraction here was an alabaster sphinx weighing about eight tonnes.

When Memphis was the capital of Egypt, Saqqara was its necropolis. The area around is beautiful with white sand stretching up to the horizon on both sides of the driving road. Apart from King Zsoser’s step pyramid, the other attractions here are a few ancient tombs with magnificent paintings giving a vivid idea about Egypt's wild life at that era and the pyramid of Teti, the first king of the 6th dynasty...

Memphis Marvels, Bidisha Bagchi, Economic Times of India, India, July 11, 2007.

The Egyptians did not invent beer. Rather they had learned the art of brewing from the world's first known brewers, the Sumerians, Babylonian, and Assyrians further to the east in what is now Iraq. The Egyptians, however, left us with the best documentation of ancient brewing practices. Most of the many depictions of Egyptian brewing that have come down to us are murals in vaults, pyramids, and sacrificial chambers. These attest to the importance and high esteem in which the art of beer-making was held in Egyptian society. Yet the find in Meketre's tomb probably ranks among the best preserved and most instructive.

The brewery model in the Metropolitan Museum apparently dates from around 2009 to 1998 B.C. A card at the exhibition in the Museum explains what is going on in the brewery: "The overseer with a baton sits inside the door. In the brewery two women grind flour, which another man works into dough. After a second man treads the dough into mash in a tall vat, it is put into tall crocks to ferment. After fermentation, it is poured off into round jugs with black clay stoppers..."

In Egypt, beer was regarded as food. In fact, the old Egyptian hieroglyph for "meal" was a compound of those for "bread" and "beer". This "bread-beer meal" plus a few onions and some dried fish was the standard diet of the common people along the Nile at the time. Beer came in eight different types in Egypt. Most were made from barley, some from emmer, and many were flavoured with ginger or honey. The best beers were brewed to a colour as red as human blood. The Egyptians distinguished between the different beers by their alcoholic strength and dominant flavour...

Egyptian Beer for the Living, the Dead ... and the Gods, Horst Dornbusch, Beer Advocate, February 28, 2005.

See also the later article in the series "Whatever Happened to Sumerian Beer?"

Museum visitors are being given the chance to help unlock the secrets of ancient Egypt in an innovative exhibition.

The public will be able to vote for six artefacts from an Egyptology exhibition at Harrogate's Royal Pump Room Museum, prioritising the items which will then be taken away for in-depth scientific research.

The idea followed studies of a vase which had been in the museum's collection for almost 30 years but was thought to be a fake because of its pristine condition.

Investigation However, it was established that the artefact did in fact date back 5,000 years.

The latest project is part of the museum's Egyptology: Science Investigation exhibition, which is due to be made a permanent feature later this year after an GBP80,000 grant was secured from the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts.

Museum staff will now work alongside York University's Egyptologist Dr Joann Fletcher and scientist Dr Stephen Buckley to study the artefacts selected by the public vote.

Unlock ancient Egypt's secrets, Macroworld Investor, UK, July 18, 2007.

I first met David O'Connor when he came to pick me up from Malawi in Minya, where as a young man I served as an inspector of antiquities at Tuna Al-Gabal. I was lucky to work with him in 1974 at Malkata on the west bank at Luxor, where Amenhotep III built his palace and the lake used for recreation by his wife, Tiye. In 1979, I spent three months with the Pennsylvania-Yale University expedition at Abydos, supervised by O'Connor and William Kelly Simpson. At Abydos, O'Connor used to rest after a long day work and have a beer. After dinner, we would talk about politics with the young American archaeologists. I was very impressed by President Gamal Abdel-Nasser, but when we began arguing O'Connor would always say, "No politics — we are at a dig house, not a congress." Um Seti ("mother of Seti"), the English woman who believed she had served Seti I in an earlier life, would visit us at Abydos and was keen to help me improve my English.

O'Connor and Simpson invited me to Philadelphia, Boston, and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and I stayed for a while at his house in Philadelphia. When I went to the University of Pennsylvania as a Fulbright scholar in 1980 he was my adviser for my doctoral dissertation, and became a lifelong friend.

O'Connor is unique. Originally from Australia, he received a postgraduate diploma in Egyptology in 1962 from University College London. He then studied for his doctorate at Cambridge. He was always honest, a good excavator, and a true leader. I learnt a lot from him...

Dig Days: An Egyptologist to be remembered, Zahi Hawass, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 854, July 19 - 25, 2007.

Egyptologist Dr. Kara Cooney visits "The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson" to discuss the Pharaoh Hatshepsut and the Discovery Channel special "Secrets of Egypt's Lost Queen".

Dr. Kara Cooney on the Late, Late Show - 7/11/07

Thanks to Anthony Cagle over ArchaeoBlog for this one.

In the first field trip to the Grand Egyptian Museum, Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni inspected on Tuesday 17/07/2007 the second phase which is due to be completed by the end of this year. The phase includes setting up a power station, a monument renovation centre and a fire-fighting unit.

The great achievements in the century's project astonished everyone especially that the 2,700 workers and engineers are working in 24 hour shifts, the minister said. This phase, which will last for 18 months, will be followed by the third phase of constructing the main building at the start of next year.

At a press conference, the Minister confirmed that the museum is designed to withstand all possible dangers, whether natural (earthquakes) or man-made (wars)...

Second phase of Grand Egyptian Museum completed by end of year, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 18, 2007.

Egyptian and Czech archaeologists have discovered the remains of historical residential city dating back to the Pharaonic Old State at Al-Bahariya Oasis, Al Ahram newspaper reported Tuesday.

Remains of walls and pots were among the things discovered in the ancient city.

Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass said the joint archaeological mission had also unearthed mugs, food baskets and two ovens.

He said the findings prove that the discovered city was residential.

Archaeologists discover ancient city in Bahariya oasis, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 17, 2007.

Previously:

Old Kingdom settlement found in Egypt Bahariya oasis, July 16, 2007.

Applera Corp-Applied Biosystems Groups announced its collaboration with the Discovery Communications Inc. and Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities in establishing the first laboratory in Egypt dedicated to testing ancient DNA samples. The laboratory, which is located in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, began testing samples of ancient royal mummies dating back to the 18th Dynasty in April as part of a project to identify the mummy of Hatshepsut, Egypt's most famous queen.

Discovery Channel enlisted the services of Applied Biosystems as part of a project aimed at discovering and identifying the lost mummy of Hatshepsut, one of the most important women in ancient Egyptian history. The primary purpose of the new DNA laboratory is to assist in the identification of this and other mummies that have been removed from their original tombs, and to clarify familial relationships within and between Egypt's ancient dynasties. This is the first time DNA testing has been used in identifying an ancient Egyptian pharaoh.

DNA testing, combined with other forensic techniques, holds the potential to bring closure to unsolved mysteries and help Egypt fill in gaps in its significant history. Applied Biosystems provided the Supreme Council of Antiquities with DNA analysis instrument systems, reagents, software, and training. This included an Applied Biosystems 9700 Thermocycler for DNA amplification and a 3130 Genetic Analyzer for DNA analysis, as well as forensic testing reagents including its newest advance in human identification technology, the AmpFISTR MiniFiler PCR Amplification Kit.

DNA unveils the secrets of ancient Egyptian history, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 15, 2007.

A 2,300-year-old mummified body and an entourage of experts visited St. Elizabeth Hospital in Gonzales Friday as part of a fact-finding mission.

The mummy, a native of Egypt and most recently a resident of Baton Rouge as the star attraction of the Ancient Egypt Gallery at the Louisiana Art and Science Museum (LASM) for the past 21 years, arrived at about 8:15 a.m. for a computerized tomography (CT) scan.

"The mummy and artefacts in the Ancient Egypt Gallery make it one of LASM's most popular exhibits," museum director Carol Gikas said. "With the research and updated information, the renovated gallery will fulfill LASM's new vision: 'Where Art & Science Connect.'"

At times, 20 to 30 people crowded into the imaging room, including hospital staff and a team consisting of LASM and LSU Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services (FACES) laboratory representatives and Egyptologists...

Experts conduct CT scan in Gonzales on 2,300-year old mummy, Wade McIntyre, The Gonzales Weekly Citizen, Louisiana, USA, July 18, 2007.

St George residents will have a chance to gain a rare insight into the world of ancient Egypt this month when St George Regional Museum hosts its second course in reading hieroglyphs for beginners.

The course is being run by the museum's curator-manager Rebekah Schulz who has a masters in Egyptology degree and recently has been on an archaeological dig in Egypt.

The first course in June created a lot of interested and attracted people from all ages: in fact, from 16 to 87 years.

Ms Schulz said hieroglyphs tell the stories of ancient Egyptian officials and pharaohs and very occasionally the stories of ordinary people...

Ancient wisdom revealed, Jim Gainsford, The St. George Amp; Sutherland Shire Leader, Australia, July 19, 2007.

While we've been in Luxor we've visited several tombs, including that of Tutankhamen, taken in treasure troves such as Luxor museum, done a boat trip down the Nile and enjoyed an atmospheric sound and light show at the mighty Karnak temple. But this balloon ride is definitely the highlight.

True, it meant a horribly early start, with an alarm call waking us from our slumbers at 4.15am. But our weariness is soon replaced by a sense of magic as we are ferried across the Nile by felucca, accompanied by the evocative sound of calls to pre-dawn Muslim prayers.

It is still pitch-dark when we reach the launch site, near the Ramesseum temple on the west bank. But before we know it about 20 of us are crammed into four compartments of Captain Bob's balloon and, with a few gusts of fiery air, are rising ethereally into the inky Egyptian sky.

After we've climbed a few hundred metres the darkness is already thinning and we begin to notice the patchwork of fields nearby, and the way that the blanket of green extends about two kilometres from the curling river Nile, then stops abruptly. Beyond that, everything is desert...

Fly me to the tomb ..., The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, July 12, 2007.

A discussion about the mummy of Egyptian queen Hatshepsut with Zahi Hawass, Secretary-General, Supreme Council of Antiquities and Catherine Roehrig, Curator, Department of Egyptian Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art...

I'll have to confess to not having watched all of this yet.

A discussion about the mummy of Egyptian queen Hatshepsut, The Charlie Rose Show, USA, July 09, 2007.

The latest vessel to ply the river is Abercrombie & Kent's refurbished Sun Boat IV, guaranteed to rekindle the romance of adventure inspired by Agatha Christie's murder mystery.

Fitted and furnished in a rich, but contemporary art-deco style, its five decks offer maximum comfort and great panache. Public areas are spacious, some have a warm, clubby feel with dark wood panelling, chrome trim and leather chairs; others are more opulent and elegant — with Italianate chandeliers, plush velvet furniture and atmospheric murals of Nubian scenes.

Cabins are roomy, with floor to ceiling windows, double curtains with reflective glass for privacy, plenty of wardrobe and storage space and compact yet practical closet bathrooms. Fresh fruit and flowers, silk cushions, stocked mini bar, endless bottled water and flat-screen TVs add pampering touches.

Only 80 guests travel in the 36 luxury cabins, two presidential suites and two royal suites with balconies, ensuring maximum service from the crew of 65...

If Cleopatra could see me now, Tricia Welsh, Perth Now, Australia, July 17, 2007.

The program's speaker is Dr. Zahi Hawass, an international spokesman for Egyptian archaeology. He is the Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. For over thirty years, Hawass has studied, unearthed and protected the mysteries of the Giza Plateau and Nile Delta. His passion for Egypt and expertise on its artefacts has made Hawass one of the world's foremost Egyptologists. Raised in the small village of Abeyda, Egypt, Hawass completed his doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His recent significant archaeological finds include the Valley of the Golden Mummies, but it is the tombs of pyramid builders and craftsmen that Hawass considers his greatest discovery. Dedicated to the conservation and protection of Egypt's ancient heritage, Hawass has aggressively campaigned for the return of Egypt's treasures held in international museums. The Rosetta Stone, currently housed in the British Museum of London, is at the centre of the most recent attempt at artefact repatriation. Hawass is often featured on the History Channel and National Geographic, where he is the current Explorer-in-Residence. He appears in conversation with Carol Tang.

Tue, Jul 17, 2007 — 8:00 pm

Wed, Jul 18, 2007 — 2:00 am

City Arts & Lectures: Egyptian Archaeologist Zahi Hawass, KQED Radio, California, USA, July 17, 2007.

Grotesquely obese and a dental disaster, Egypt's long-lost Queen Hatshepsut was no raving beauty. But she is emerging as the poster girl for a new era in Egyptology which will see more old questions answered even as new ones arise.

The recent discovery and positive identification of the 3,500-year-old mummy of Hatshepsut through the use of 21st Century CT scans and DNA technology illustrates the potential for many of history's long-standing assumptions about the ancient world to be affirmed or disproved scientifically, said Dr. Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, who made the identification of the long-nameless mummy.

"What really you can see from this story is that the CT scan and DNA can really reconstruct history and you can see things never seen before," Hawass said during an interview in New York this week...

Mummy awakens new era in Egypt, Lisa Anderson, Chicago Times, Illinois, USA, July 14, 2007.

When mummy experts piece together what an ancient person looked like in real life, one key to body type that's a dead giveaway is the size of the mummy's breasts.

Paleopathologists who have been trying to reconstruct the appearance of Hatshepsut — whose mummy is the subject of a Discovery Channel documentary on Sunday, July 15 [2007] — say they know that Egypt's greatest female pharaoh was obese in part because her breasts were so very large, even after 3,000 years.

"Huge and pendulous," Hatshepsut's upper girth immediately caught the attention of mummy experts, according to Zahi Hawass, Egypt's secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Egyptologist and paleopathologist Bob Brier, one of the world's foremost experts on mummies, told Discovery News: "Breasts are one clear indication of obesity in female mummies. It is fairly simple: fat is deposited there, the skin stretches and that skin does not retract with mummification. So it is easy to see excess skin in the area of the breasts..."

Breasts Key Clue to Hatshepsut's Obesity, Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News, USA, July 13, 2007.

The bust of Nefertiti stored at Berlin’s Altes Museum, is one of the most renowned works of ancient Egyptian sculpture. Fifteen years ago, a computed tomography (CT) scan of the bust revealed that a second structure was hidden inside. This structure was presumed to be a cast of the subject’s face, but the image resolution was too poor to be conclusive. With recent advances in CT scanning, researchers called for a repeat scan to document the structure within the bust. Results of the scan, which was conducted using a Siemens Medical Solutions SOMATOM® Sensation 64-Slice CT, are included in a National Geographic Channel special that will premiere tonight.

“I have always been interested in the secret carried inside that bust. But it is also very difficult and hazardous to examine ancient artefacts without damaging them,” said Prof. Dietrich Wildung, director of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin.

With the help of one of Siemens’ highest resolution CT scanners, Prof. Wildung and Alexander Huppertz, MD, head of the Imaging Science Institute in Berlin, as well as the National Geographic team, were able to X-ray the bust without damaging it...

Siemens CT Scanner Reveals Mysteries inside Egyptian Relic, Business Wire, USA, July 16, 2007.

cf. Siemens CT Scanner Reveals Mysteries inside Egyptian Relic, Business Wire via MSN Money, USA, July 16, 2007.

While it pretty much comes down to a tooth in a box, Discovery Channel's "Secrets of Egypt's Lost Queen" (airs Sunday, July 15, at 9:00pm EST [July 17, at 8:00pm BST]) tries to cover a lot of ground: who was Hatshepsut, the early 18th Dynasty queen and pharaoh, where's her mummy, and who obliterated many of her images and inscriptions? That's a lot, even for a two-hour program.

I've watched the film twice, consulted with a couple of Egyptologists who know the subject, interviewed Egypt's archaeo-honcho Zahi Hawass, and talked with the producer, Brando Quilici (who did last year's Tut special and, before that, a documentary on the Iceman). As an archaeologist, journalist, and some-time docu-consultant, I have mixed feelings about "Lost Queen." Overall, I do think it's better than many shows out there (but is that good enough?) and unlike some past offerings from Discovery it isn't larded with superfluous re-enactments. The science is pretty neat, but I have some questions about its applications here, and there are some gaps and things that are not really explained adequately. So, it is worth watching, but although I have some criticisms.

Does it matter if we find, or identify, Hatshepsut's mummy? If you think of it only in terms of "Royal Mummies Musical Chairs" as Dennis Forbes, editor of KMT, called it in his Tombs, Treasures, and Mummies (1998), it is little more than an intellectual jigsaw puzzle. Fascinating, yes, but not necessarily a gateway to understanding ancient Egyptian culture. It's laudable that the film tries to go beyond that simple game, but it really is the hook for the show and Discovery isn't shy about playing that card. It also matters because this is an important test case. There are new techniques being applied here, especially the DNA work, that have the possibility to replace decades of conjecture with scientific evidence — if the analysis and interpretation is done right. If it isn't, then things just become more obscure than ever.

The basic structure of the film (which I'll ignore from this point on) is a bouncing back and forth between what Zahi Hawass--head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and director of this project — is doing and the footwork of Egyptologist Kara Cooney, who talks to various archaeologists about their work at various sites and logs their various opinions about Hatshepsut. The division of labour is Hawass does the mummies and Cooney does the historical background (who was Hatshepsut, how did she move from princess to queen to pharaoh, and who tried to obliterate her name from history)...

Hatshepsut Found; Thutmose I Lost, Mark Rose, Archaeology magazine, Archaeological Institute of America, New York, USA, July 15, 2007.

All of Egypt's royal mummies will get identity checks after scientists found one was wrongly identified as a pharaoh, Egypt's chief archaeologist said last week.

Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said he would use computed tomography scanning and DNA to test more than 40 royal mummies at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

In June, the mummy long thought to have been King Tuthmosis I was found to be a young man who died from an arrow wound, Hawass said. History showed Tuthmosis I died in his 60s.

"I am now questioning all the mummies," he said in an interview. "We have to check them all again..."

Egypt will retest royal mummies, Reuters via The Boston Herald, Massachusetts, USA, July 16, 2007.

A settlement dating back to the time of the pyramid builders was discovered in Egypt's western desert, the first find of its kind there, Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA) said Monday.

"A joint Egypt-Czech archaeological mission found a city dating to the Old Kingdom [2687 to 2191 BC] in the Garat Al Abyad region in Bahariya," SCA chief Zahi Hawass said, referring to an isolated oasis 400 kilometres (250 miles) southwest of Cairo...

The latest find is "an important discovery for Bahariya as it is the first time a site dating to the Old Kingdom has been discovered in this region where up till now there have only been Stone Age remnants or Middle Kingdom ruins," Hawass said.

"This period is a missing link in the history of this region," he added...

Old Kingdom settlement found in Egypt desert oasis, AFP via Middle East Times, Cyprus, July 16, 2007.

cf. Egyptian Old Kingdom ruins found in desert oasis, AFP via Khaleej Times, UAE, July 16, 2007.

Egyptologists at the University of Manchester have carried out a DNA test on the mummy discovered by an Egyptian archaeological team earlier, and confirmed that it did belong to Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt's greatest female pharaoh...

Now, a research team led by Dr Angelique Corthals has compared the DNA samples with those taken from Queen Hatshepsut's royal relatives — her grandmother Ahmose Nefertari, the matriarch of 18th dynasty royalty, and her father Thutmose I, and established that the mummy was indeed hers.

'The difficulty in carrying out DNA testing on the royal mummies resides in the many times the remains have been handled as well as the chemical processes of mummification. Ironically, the chemicals that preserve the appearance of the mummies actually damage their DNA,' said Dr Corthals.

'But the team was able to extract small amounts of genetic information from the areas of the mummies least affected by contamination. When the DNA of the mystery mummy was compared with that of Hatshepsut's ancestors, we were able to scientifically confirm that the remains were those of the 18th dynasty queen,' she said...

DNA test confirms Queen Hatshepsut's mummy, ANI via New Kerala, India, July 16, 2007.

cf. DNA helps identify an Egyptian royal mummy, UPI, USA, July 16, 2007.

cf. Manchester University helps with pharaoh DNA analysis, Aeron Haworth, University of Manchester via EurekAlert, USA, July 16, 2007.

Rock face drawings and etchings recently rediscovered in southern Egypt are similar in age and style to the iconic Stone Age cave paintings in Lascaux, France, and Altamira, Spain, archaeologists say.

"It is not at all an exaggeration to call it 'Lascaux on the Nile,'" said expedition leader Dirk Huyge, curator of the Egyptian Collection at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels, Belgium.

"The style is riveting," added Salima Ikram of the American University in Cairo, who was part of Huyge's team.

The art is "unlike anything seen elsewhere in Egypt," he said.

The engravings — estimated to be about 15,000 years old — were chiselled into several sandstone cliff faces at the village of Qurta, about 400 miles (640 kilometres) south of Cairo...

Egypt's Oldest Known Art Identified, Is 15,000 Years Old, Dan Morrison, National Geographic News, District of Columbia, USA, July 11, 2007.

Previously:

Lascaux on the Nile, June 15, 2007.

On 7/7/7, at 7pm, the New Seven Wonders of the World were announced, the culmination of an 18-month international poll during which members of the public could cast an Internet vote for one of the 77 nominated sites. The only criteria governing the nominations being that they were constructed before 2000 and remain standing.

The final list was eventually whittled down to 21 nominated sites, out of which Rio de Janeiro's Statue of Christ the Redeemer, the Great Wall of China, Petra in Jordan, the Colosseum in Rome, India's Taj Mahal, Peru's Machu Picchu and Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid emerged the winners...

Bothered and bewildered, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 853, July 12 - 18, 2007.

Archaeologists from the Oriental Institute have discovered a gold-processing centre along the middle Nile in the Sudan, an installation that produced the precious metal sometime between 2000 and 1500 B.C. The centre, along with a cemetery they discovered, documents extensive control by the first sub-Saharan kingdom, the kingdom of Kush.

The team found more than 55 grinding stones made of granite-like gneiss along the Nile at the site of Hosh el-Guruf, about 225 miles north of Khartoum. The region also was known as Nubia in ancient times. Groups of similar grinding stones have been found on desert sites, mostly in Egypt, where they were used to grind ore to recover the precious metal. The ground ore was likely washed with water nearby to separate the gold flakes.

“This large number of grinding stones and other tools used to crush and grind ore shows that the site was a centre for organized gold production,” said Geoff Emberling, Director of the Oriental Institute Museum and a co-leader of the expedition. The research was funded by the National Geographic Society and the Packard Humanities Institute, which also offered to support all the other teams working in the Fourth Cataract salvage project, the location of the University’s expedition...

Discoveries in Sudan reveal economic organization of an ancient African state — the kingdom of Kush , William Harms, The University of Chicago Chronicle, Illinois, USA, Vol. 26, No. 19, July 12, 2007.

Previously:

Ancient Gold Centre Discovered on the Nile, June 19, 2007.

Egypt currently has a dozen new museums under construction — and not enough masterpieces of ancient art to fill them, the secretary-general of the Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said yesterday in an interview.

"People used to say that Egypt does not have good museums. We have better museums now than they have," Mr. Hawass, who is in New York to promote the Discovery Channel documentary, "Secrets of Egypt's Lost Queen," about the possible identification of the mummy of Hatshepsut, said. But "we don't have enough objects," Mr. Hawass said.

... The identification of the mummy now believed to be Hatshepsut could not have been made until recently, for instance, because Mr. Hawass did not allow genetic testing on mummies...

Mr. Hawass changed his position on genetic testing after the Discovery Channel offered to fund an Egyptian-run lab in the basement of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo...

Mr. Hawass also predicted that the Tutankhamun exhibit would come to New York — either to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Brooklyn Museum — after it returns from London next year. The Met had originally declined to be part of the tour because of its policy of not charging for individual exhibitions; it is unclear why the museum would reconsider now...

Mr. Hawass is also intent on making antiquities trafficking a serious crime in Egypt. [A] law before the parliament would increase [the current 5-year sentence] to 25-years. ... [A new] law would also, Mr. Hawass said, make it illegal for foreign museums to make full-size replicas of Egyptian antiquities without obtaining Egypt's permission...

Egypt's Antiquities Tsar Wields His Power, Kate Taylor, The New York Sun, New York, USA, July 12, 2007.

cf. Egypt's antiquities chief embarks on major projects, Business Intelligence Middle East, UAE, July 12, 2007.

It is one of Egypt's enduring mysteries. What happened to Nefertiti and her husband, Akhenaten — the radical king, and likely father of King Tut? In a dark and mysterious tomb located in the Valley of the Kings, there is a small chamber with two mummies without sarcophagi or wrappings. At times, both have been identified as Queen Nefertiti by scholars, filmmakers and historians. But the evidence has been circumstantial at best.

Now, for the first time, National Geographic Channel (NGC) and Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, use a CT scan machine that can go inside these two mummies to get scientific evidence that will establish whether either could be Nefertiti — and if not, who they may be. On Monday, July 16 [2007], at 9 p.m. ET/PT, NGC presents a one-hour special, "Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty," that documents the high-tech forensic investigation conducted by an international team dedicated to resolving the fate of the famed queen.

Some ancient Egyptian history reads like a soap opera. In the city of Amarna, there lived Egypt's most famous royal spouse, Nefertiti, and her beloved husband, Akhenaten, the pharaoh. They were revolutionary leaders, reinventing Egyptian religion and building a new capital city to honour the sun god. Also present at this time were Akhenaten's secondary wife, Kiya, who many scholars believe was the mother of King Tut, as well as Akhenaten's mother, the powerful Queen Tiye. It was a tangled set of relationships that would result in the birth of the legendary King Tut and the eventual disappearance of all the other key players. What happened to members of Tut's royal family, the lost dynasty of Amarna? ...

Don't forget that the Hatshepsut programme is also on Discovery Channel the night before. No news on non-US showing dates.

National Geographic Channel Goes in Search of Nefertiti and Instead May Have Solved the Mystery of King Tut's Father, National Geographic Channel via PRNewswire, USA, July 10, 2007.

Previously:

CT-scans of Egyptian Mummies from the Valley of the Kings, July 11, 2007.

Mystery of Tut's Father: New Clues on Unidentified KV55 Mummy, July 11, 2007.

Using a portable CT-scan machine donated to the Supreme Council of Antiquities by the National Geographic Society and Siemens, Inc., Dr. Zahi Hawass and a team of radiologists and technicians (part of the larger Egyptian Mummy Project) have performed new studies on three controversial ancient cadavers from the Valley of the Kings. The first of these is a disarticulated skeleton, believed by some to be the “heretic” pharaoh Akhenaten, from a cache of Amarna-period (mid-14th century BC) material ( KV 55,); and the other two are anonymous mummies found in a side chamber of KV 35, the New Kingdom tomb of Amenhotep II (c. 1454-1419 BC), which was used as a cache for New Kingdom royal bodies in the 21st Dynasty (c. 1081-931 BC). One of this latter pair of mummies has been in the news a great deal of late, as she has been identified as Akhenaten’s wife, the beautiful Nefertiti; the other is thought by some scholars to be Queen Tiye, Akhenaten’s mother. These new scans have revealed that many of the ideas being promoted about them are in fact unfounded, and that further research is needed before conclusions can be reached concerning their identities.

The results of the recent CT-scan show clearly that it is still too early to unequivocally identify the KV 55 skeleton... The most interesting finding is that the spine, which is slightly scoliotic, shows significant degenerative changes, suggesting an age of over 60. This is a significant new finding that needs further investigation; Dr. Hawass believes that a decision cannot be reliably made as to whether the body is that of Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, or someone else entirely...

Dr. Hawass reiterates that other points made in support of the identification of the Younger Lady [from KV35] as Nefertiti can be refuted without referring to the CT-scans... Dr. Hawass concludes that there is no convincing reason to identify the Younger Lady as Nefertiti...

Dr. Hawass reports that the results of the recent CT-scan [of the Elder Lady from KV35] neither confirm nor deny [the suggested] identification [as Queen Tiye]...

CT-scans of Egyptian Mummies from the Valley of the Kings, Zahi Hawass, The Plateau, Guardian's Egypt, July 10, 2007.

Previously:

Mystery of Tut's Father: New Clues on Unidentified KV55 Mummy, July 11, 2007.

I have also just spotted that there is a second additional article regarding the CT scanning of the supposed mummy of Queen Hatshepsut.

Identifying Hatshepsut’s Mummy

The effort to identify the mummy of queen Hatshepsut began last year, when Dr. Hawass scientifically examined four unidentified New Kingdom royal female mummies. Three of them were stored in the Egyptian Museum’s third floor and the fourth was inside Tomb KV60 in the Valley of the Kings...

Identifying Hatshepsut’s Mummy, Zahi Hawass, The Plateau, Guardian's Egypt, July 02, 2007.

Egyptologists have uncovered new evidence that bolsters the controversial theory that a mysterious mummy is the corpse of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, husband of Nefertiti and, some experts believe, the father of King Tut.

The mummy's identity has generated fierce debate ever since its discovery in 1907 in tomb KV 55, located less than 100 feet (30 metres) from King Tutankhamun's then hidden burial chamber.

So an international team of researchers led by Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, used a CT scanner to peer inside the body and those of several other Valley of the Kings mummies...

The scan revealed a number of striking physical similarities between the mystery mummy and the body of Tut, including a distinctive egg-shaped skull...

"[This] means we can say now the mummy in KV 55, based on this evidence, and based on the age, and based on the inscriptions written in the coffin, that this could be the mummy of Akhenaten," Hawass told the National Geographic Channel.

But the mummy could also be one of several other people — including another mysterious member of Tut's family — Hawass cautioned...

"The [Younger Lady] mummy that everyone thought is Nefertiti, it is not Nefertiti," he told the National Geographic Channel. "We gave the proof for that."

The Elder Lady may be the powerful Queen Tiye, Akhenaten's mother, while the Younger Lady might possibly be his secondary wife Kiya — the likely mother of King Tutankhamun — the researchers say...

See the National Geographic photo gallery link below.

Mystery of Tut's Father: New Clues on Unidentified Mummy, Brian Handwerk, National Geographic News, District of Columbia, USA, July 10, 2007.

Photo Gallery: Who Was King Tut's Father?, Brian Handwerk, National Geographic News, District of Columbia, USA, July 10, 2007.

cf. Mystery of Tut's Father: New Clues on Unidentified Mummy, Kazinform, Kazakhstan, July 11, 2007.

cf. National Geographic Channel Goes in Search of Nefertiti and Instead May Have Solved the Mystery of King Tut's Father , Elites TV, USA, July 11, 2007.

Leno and I leaned against the railing behind the belching stack, watching sparks flit from the pungent black smoke to be wafted aft, burning out their brief lives like miniature shooting stars.

All day we had seen nothing on shore except for two lonely fishing huts that we probed with Leno's binoculars. Ahead now, a pinpoint row of lights slowly rose into view. Abu Simbel.

We nosed to a landing for the night on a sandy beach. A full moon almost seemed to jump up and then hovered just above the horizon as if exhausted. We leaned back, drinking in the magic night filled with personal thoughts. Mine were of home and my wife, Gina, whom I sorely missed. We had parted in India. She had to return home facing the necessity work and missed sharing those magic moments. The passengers were extremely disappointed that our tour did not include going ashore to visit the fabulous tomb first hand...

Our agenda called for us to be viewing the tomb by moonlight...

Does anyone know where parts one and two are?

Flashbacks from here and There: Rambling In Egypt, Part 3, Nick Ellena, Chico Enterprise Record, California, USA, July 10, 2007.

Thousands of international school children are helping pop artist Romero Britto create a 45 foot pyramid in honour of King Tut's anticipated return to London.

The long-dead Egyptian pharaoh has been touring the world for 35 years and will make a stop at England's new O2 exhibition centre this fall.

Single tickets for the eagerly awaited “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” exhibition will go on sale to the public Sept. 12, ahead of a Nov. 15 [2007] opening.

More than 180,000 tickets for the blockbuster exhibition have already been reserved or sold in the United Kingdom.

About 1,500 children joined Britto at The O2 Thursday to paint panels for his tribute to the Pyramids at Giza, said a press release issued by Project Pyramid organizers...

Artist creates pyramid to welcome back Tut, UPI, USA, July 05, 2007.

The Vatican has accused organisers of an internet poll to find the seven new “wonders of the world” of deliberately ignoring Christian monuments.

Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, who heads the Vatican’s pontifical commission for culture and archaeology, said that the exclusion of Christian works of art such as Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel was “surprising, inexplicable, even suspicious”...

A total of 21 sites have been shortlisted, including Stonehenge, the Acropolis in Athens, the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza in Mexico, the Colosseum in Rome, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Great Wall of China, the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu, Petra in Jordan, the Easter Island statues and, the Taj Mahal in India. Also on the shortlist are the giant statue of Christ Redeemer on Corcovado mountain above Rio de Janeiro, and St Basil’s and the Kremlin cathedrals in Moscow.

But according to Avvenire, the Italian Catholic daily, the Vatican believes that these have been selected as tourist attractions, rather than as Christian sites, and only after intense political lobbying by the governments of Brazil and Russia...

Note that this article dates to before the results were announced and in fact The Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rid de Janeiro made the final seven. And anyway why should the organisers pick 'Christian' sites above Muslim or Hindu sites for instance? Ultimately they are correct in their assertion that the competition was all about tourism — which is where the lobbying has come in. In reality it was nothing more than a popularity contest and creating a hundred new wonders list would have been better. It is also interesting to note that since the results were announced that fears have been raised about the future site management of Chichen Itza, Machu Picchu, and Petra, with the probable massive increase in tourist numbers that their inclusion on the list will generate.

Vatican left aghast by new Seven Wonders list, Richard Owen, The Times, UK, July 06, 2007.

The new exhibit of treasures from King Tutankhamun's tomb at London's O2 domed stadium is expected to be the country's largest art show in nearly 50 years.

It was announced Friday that advance reservations for the Egyptian exhibit, which opens in November and runs for nine months, has already reached 180,000, The Telegraph reported.

Organizers already are calling the advance bookings "quite staggering." They expressed confidence the show will smash the current record of 1.7 million visitors set by the first Tutankhamun exhibition in 1972...

King Tut Show Expected To Draw 2 Million, UPI via The Post Chronicle, UK, July 07, 2007.

I was tempted to think that nothing ever changes in Luxor. Temples and tombs survive; boats sail on the Nile; the fellahin, Egypt’s farmers, still irrigate their crops with rainwater from Ethiopia and Uganda; and the sun, the valley and nearby desert remain the defining facts of life, just as they were in the paintings in the pharaohs’ tombs. But I was wrong. Luxor is being transformed.

The city is cut into two distinctive halves by the Nile, which is broad and beautiful here. At the time of the pharaohs, the east bank was busy, a place for the living, while the west side was as quiet as the occupants of the tombs hidden in its Theban hills. And that’s the way it is today: the city, the airport, the train station and two big temples on one side; the tombs and temples, the Theban hills, some villages and farmland on the other.

Yet, in the couple of years since Dr Samir Farag became governor, Luxor has gone through enormous change. On the eastern side of the river, he has renovated the train station, demolished the restaurants and souvenir stalls that blocked the view of Luxor and Karnak temples, and rebuilt the souk. He is enlarging the airport and moving all “floating hotels” several miles upstream; he has opened a Nubian cultural centre, a branch of Cairo’s Mubarak Public Library ... and all this is just the beginning. No wonder some inhabitants are quaking at the thought of what is to come...

The pharaohs get a face-lift, Anthony Sattin, The Times, UK, July 08, 2007.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni has unveiled plans to construct a new building to display Egypt's historical documents and papers.

Hosni said the building will cost LE30 million donated by Sheikh Al-Qasimi, the ruler of the United Arab Emirates of Al-Sharjah.

The new building will be constructed on 5,000 square metres in Old Cairo's district of Al-Fustat...

Culture Minister unveils new building for Egypt's historical, rare documents, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 04, 2007.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities will finish during the coming period a project for developing "El-Lisht" monuments, Middle Kingdom's capital including features of its history. The history of El-Lisht remains a mystery as most of its secrets and treasures are still buried under the earth in an area called "Bakr Area".

An antiquity resource said that "El-Lisht" village was called in the Pharaonic Era "Itj-Tawi" which means holding territerians [sic] [It actually means "the one that seizes the Two Lands"]. The village was the capital of Egypt in the Dynasties era. The area is considered to be an extension to Manf cemetery located in south Dashur area.

The saving project includes important points as decreasing the underwater as it affects the two royal burial rooms in the pyramids. The project also aims to restore the engravings of Senwosret Ankh including hundreds of the pyramids texts. The pyramids texts included the history of the Egyptian religion. The project also aims to dig holes to explore the new cemeteries as "An Gar Hotob" cemetery...

Project for saving Egypt Capital's monuments in the Middle Pharaonic Kingdom, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 08, 2007.

The UN body for culture on Sunday blasted a private initiative that drew nearly 100 million internet and telephone voters to choose seven "new" wonders of the world.

"This campaign responds to other criteria and objectives than that of UNESCO in the field of heritage," said Sue Williams, the spokesperson for UNESCO, the UN cultural body that designates world heritage sites.

"We have a much broader vision," she told AFP.

Voters chose the Great Wall of China; India's Taj Mahal; the centuries-old pink ruins of Petra in Jordan; the Colosseum in Rome; the statue of Christ overlooking Rio de Janeiro; the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru; and the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza in Mexico...

UNESCO slams new 7 wonders, Sapa-AFP via News 24, South Africa, July 09, 2007.

UNESCO slams seven 'new' wonders of the world, AFP via The Age, Australia, July 09, 2007.

7 'new' wonders of the world leave sour taste, Sapa-AFP via The Star, South Africa, July 09, 2007.

Egypt says pyramids still 'only wonder of the world', AFP via Middle East Times, Cyprus, July 08, 2007.

British and American collusion in the pillaging of Iraq's heritage is a scandal that will outlive any passing conflict.

Fly into the American air base of Tallil outside Nasiriya in central Iraq and the flight path is over the great ziggurat of Ur, reputedly the earliest city on earth. Seen from the base in the desert haze or the sand-filled gloom of dusk, the structure is indistinguishable from the mounds of fuel dumps, stores and hangars. Ur is safe within the base compound. But its walls are pockmarked with wartime shrapnel and a blockhouse is being built over an adjacent archaeological site. When the head of Iraq's supposedly sovereign board of antiquities and heritage, Abbas al-Hussaini, tried to inspect the site recently, the Americans refused him access to his own most important monument.

Yesterday Hussaini reported to the British Museum on his struggles to protect his work in a state of anarchy. It was a heart breaking presentation. Under Saddam you were likely to be tortured and shot if you let someone steal an antiquity; in today's Iraq you are likely to be tortured and shot if you don't. The tragic fate of the national museum in Baghdad in April 2003 was as if federal troops had invaded New York city, sacked the police and told the criminal community that the Metropolitan was at their disposal. The local tank commander was told specifically not to protect the museum for a full two weeks after the invasion. Even the Nazis protected the Louvre...

Today the picture is transformed. Donny George fled for his life last August after death threats. The national museum is not open but shut. Nor is it just shut. Its doors are bricked up, it is surrounded by concrete walls and its exhibits are sandbagged. Even the staff cannot get inside. There is no prospect of reopening.

Hussaini confirmed a report two years ago by John Curtis, of the British Museum, on America's conversion of Nebuchadnezzar's great city of Babylon into the hanging gardens of Halliburton. This meant a 150-hectare camp for 2,000 troops. In the process the 2,500-year-old brick pavement to the Ishtar Gate was smashed by tanks and the gate itself damaged...

In Iraq's four-year looting frenzy, the allies have become the vandals, Simon Jenkins, The Guardian, UK, June 08, 2007.

Many thanks to Jacques Kinnaer of The Ancient Egypt Site for sending me this one.

The answer to this one seems to be to send the troops some playing cards.

Troops Get Archaeological Playing Cards

Some 40,000 new decks of playing cards will be sent to troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan as part of an awareness program so troops can help preserve the heritage of those countries, said Laurie Rush, archaeologist at Fort Drum in New York.

It's aimed at making troops aware they shouldn't pick up and bring home artefacts and also to avoid causing damage to sites such as an incident after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when U.S. troops built a helicopter pad on the ruins of Babylon and filled their sandbags with archaeological fragments from the ancient city...

Troops Get Archaeological Playing Cards, Pauline Jelinek, AP via Fox News, USA, June 18, 2007.

cf. Desert Solitaire, Victoria Schlesinger, Archaeology Magazine, Archaeological Institute of America, New York, USA, Volume 60, Number 4, July / August 2007.

The British Museum plans to build an enormous exhibition centre in London that will enable it to stage the biggest shows from all over the world, it announced yesterday.

It has already had to turn down the chance to show 130 spectacular treasures — the largest collection of Tutankhamun artefacts assembled in the West, which will instead be exhibited in the O2, formerly the Dome, in Greenwich, southeast London.

It is now drawing up ambitious plans to construct a centre at the back of its historic building. Lord Rogers of Riverside, the architect celebrated for the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Lloyd’s building in London, has been commissioned to take control of a project that may cost £70 million.

The museum realised that it needed more space after last year’s exhibition of Michelangelo drawings drew more than 160,000 visitors. It was one of the museum’s most popular exhibitions. Neil MacGregor, the director of the museum, said that even though it opened until midnight every Saturday it could not accommodate everybody who wanted to see it and could have sold tickets “many times over”...

Museum thinks big after Tutankhamun loss, Dalya Alberge, The Times, UK, July 05, 2007.

The Nile River Valley of 6,000 years ago is not a time nor a place easily understood by Northerners. Luckily for residents of North Bay and surrounding area, learning about ancient Egypt is about to get a whole lot easier.

Discovery North Bay, in the former CPR station at 100 Ferguson St., will display a Royal Ontario Museum exhibit through to the end of August — Egypt: Gift of the Nile.

The various displays, delivered Thursday from one of Canada's premier museums, cover all aspects of ancient Egyptian life — clothing, food, households, buildings, family life, education, religion, death and the afterlife.

According to Jennifer Buell, director of Discovery North Bay, the exhibit, which will be on display at Discovery North Bay from July 10 until August 24, is rich in actual artefacts from the period, including jewellery, religious statuettes and other things...

Ancient Egypt on display in North Bay, The North Bay Nugget, Ontario, Canada, July 06, 2007.

Forget walking like an Egyptian, you might want to run. The 'Temples and Tombs' exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art ends Sunday. The exhibit includes a guide geared toward families that points out objects from ancient Egypt and makes connections with modern objects used today. Tickets are $10 for general admission, $8 for students and seniors. Children 6 and younger are admitted free. Strollers are not permitted. It's best to get tickets in advance...

'Tombs' about to close, The News & Observer, North Carolina, USA, July 06, 2007.

Xaar, one of the world’s leading suppliers of inkjet modern printing technology, is sponsoring an exhibition of one of the finest examples of an ancient coloured document in the world: “The Book of the Dead of Ramose” at The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

The 3,000-year-old document is made up of papyrus sheets originally forming a 20m roll, and was unveiled on June 19 [2007]. Visitors will have the rare opportunity to view one of the finest and most recently restored Egyptian Books of the Dead in existence.

“One of the most striking features of the Ramose papyrus is the vibrancy of colours used in the painted scenes. It feels particularly appropriate that a company whose primary concern is with colour printing should be involved with this project,” said Julie Dawson, co-curator of the exhibition and Senior Assistant Keeper (Conservation) in the Antiquities Department in a statement to the press...

A passport to Ancient Egypt’s after-life, The Daily Star, Egypt, June 22, 2007.

Previously:

Fitzwilliam Museum travels back to Ancient Egypt, June 22, 2007.

Recently, staff at Bolton Museum have been attempting to identify a mystery bone that came out of bundles of Egyptian linen from Qau el-Kabir.

For 83 years the identity of the bones contained within the bundles has remained a mystery, but Tom Hardwick and David Craven, Egyptologist and Geologist respectively at Bolton Museum, recently decided to re-open the investigation, hoping to find an answer.

Images of the bone were sent to experts around the world, and several ideas were suggested. Eventually Dr Laura Bishop, Senior Lecturer in Palaeoanthropolgy at Liverpool John Moores University, and an expert in North African fossil animals, offered to come over and identify the bone in person.

David and Laura spent a morning examining the bone, trying to settle on an identification. Eventually, after looking at reference texts and comparing the specimen to bones from the museum collections, they were both happy with their answer.

The bone is [from] a large Antelope species, probably a Wildebeest; a species that would not have been present in Egypt as the time the bone was found and wrapped...

Mystery bones identified, Bolton Museum, UK, June 2007.

Previously:

Experts bone up on ancient riddle, April 25, 2007.

Karol Wight, a 22-year veteran of the J. Paul Getty Museum, was named its antiquities curator Wednesday. She succeeds her beleaguered former boss, Marion True, whose job she has held on an acting basis since True's resignation under fire in October 2005.

In a prepared statement, Michael Brand, the museum's director, praised Wight's "steadfastness and calm authority" in presiding over a collection of ancient Greek, Roman and Etruscan art that has become caught up in the turbulence sweeping the art world over antiquities of questionable provenance. At issue is whether prized works at leading museums, including the Getty, were acquired after being illegally spirited out of their countries of origin.

True and a Paris-based antiquities dealer, Robert Hecht, are the defendants in a long-running prosecution in Rome, where they are charged with a criminal conspiracy to receive stolen goods and with illegally receiving artefacts...

As antiquities curator, Wight will be in charge of programming and collections at the Getty Villa, which houses the museum's ancient art collection, and will oversee a staff of eight that includes five other curators...

Long-time Getty staffer named antiquities curator, Mike Boehm, Los Angeles Times, California, USA, June 21, 2007.

Who owns the past? There are efforts by some Kenyans to reinvent themselves and find value and meaning in a cosmopolitan world.

In an effort to make peace with the past in Africa, there has been a call for repatriation of materials held in some of the largest museums in the world. In one of the most interesting debates going on in the world of heritage, the controversy pits mainly African, Asian and Middle East institutions against some of the most prestigious museums in Europe and America.

The debate is centred on materials that include human remains, art, jewellery and objects that are and have been held in the museums for a long time.

Some of the articles are of great prestige and interest — the Egyptian mummies — while others are of outstanding monetary value such as gold pieces taken by the British in Kumasi in the then Gold Coast, present day Ghana, in 1874...

Some museums such as C Carlos at Atlanta's Emory University, US, have returned objects that were part of the heritage of the countries they belong to. The return of a 3,300-year-old mummy to Egypt in 1999, thought to be that of King Rameses I, a 13th century ruler, has set the pace...

It's Time to Return What Was Stolen, Muthoni Thang'wa, East African Standard, Nairobi, Kenya, June 27, 2007.

If the past is a foreign country, as the English writer LP Hartley suggested, that country might well be Egypt. The nation Herodotus called "the gift of the Nile" 2,500 years ago, has a long history stretching back 5,000 years, if you believe the historians, or 7,000 if you believe the politicians.

Either way, the longevity of Egyptian civilisation is beyond debate, making the Greeks look like children by comparison.

Hartley's celebrated quote about the past goes on to say: "They do things differently there." Yet travelling in Egypt today, one is struck as much, if not more, by continuity as by change.

Take Luxor. For half a millennium, from the 16th to the 11th century BC, Egyptian kings ruled their empire from what was then called Thebes. Omnipotent kings came and went in a blaze of splendidly adorned tombs and temples. The Pharaoh's power was absolute.

Most visitors to Luxor's world-famous Valley of the Kings are drawn to a handful of royal tombs, foremost among them that of the boy-king Tutankhamun...

Out of the King Tut rut, Justin Marozzi, Gulf News, Qatar, June 30, 2007.

If it [the discovery of the mummy of Hatshepsut] is ever confirmed, this is one of the biggest announcements in the history of archaeology.

If.

See, there's this tooth.

But before we get to the tooth, let's look at the hype. When the King Tut exhibit opened in February at the Franklin Institute, special guest Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, gave a stirring speech, predicting stunning Egyptological finds soon, including the identification of:

The mummy of Maatkare Hatshepsut, one of the first female rulers in history.

Antony and Cleopatra's tombs.

Either one, if confirmed, would be a wow with exclamation points...

Hawass likes TV. He's been helping the Discovery Channel make a documentary about the search for Hatshepsut... Oh, hey — We found her! We have proof! Just in time!

Maybe they have found The Bearded Queen. But it's no sure thing. This announcement is premature...

Editorial: A Mummy's ID, The Philadelphia Daily News, Pennsylvania, USA, July 02, 2007.

I'm going to make an entire web page with these explaining what they are, but here's [a picture] of me in the bottom of KV-20, Hatshepsut's original tomb.

Several things to note: First, the respirator: At the time (1993) the tomb was open, so it was an absolute heaven for bats. The ground next to the walls on the way down is littered with bat skeletons. And, of course, their leavings. So it absolutely reeked. Hence, the breathing apparatus.

Second, it's very long and deep... And it curves, so once you get to the bottom there is no light at all. This is probably the first time I experienced true lack of light. You open your eyes and there isn't even a smidgen of light. Until you've experienced it, it's hard to explain...

Field photos, Tony Cagle, ArchaeoBlog, USA, July 04, 2007.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) decided to conduct laboratory tests on one of the unknown mummies in the tomb of King "Seti I" with the purpose of determining whether it belongs to the King Tuthmosis I or not. This came after the mummy believed to be of King Tuthmosis I withdrawn from the Royal Mummies Hall in the Egyptian Museum as archaeologists discovered that it is not his mummy.

Dr. Zahi Hawass, SCA Secretary General, said on 03/07/2007 that the DNA analyses on the unknown mummy will be compared to the analyses made on the members of the family of the king including Hatshepsut, Tuthmosis II and Tuthmosis III. Hawass added that after archaeologists have confirmed that the mummy of King "Tuthmosis I" is not for him following the DNA analyses, the mummy withdrawn from the Royal Mummies Hall in the Egyptian Museum and a specialized Egyptian team of archaeologists and technicians will start search for the mummy of King Tuthmosis I.

It is noteworthy that upon Tuthmosis I's death, the throne passed to his son Tuthmosis II who married his sister Hatshepsut, daughter of the main wife of King Tuthmosis I, in order to support his right in the throne but Hatshepsut, who gave birth to only one female baby namely Nefro Ra, took over the throne instead of Tuthmosis III, son of his husband, who was a little child (boy) and had herself crowned pharaoh "Queen" and took male titles and appearance.

Tuthmosis I, to be or not to be, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 04, 2007.

Ever since the mysteries and myths and the Ancient Egyptian civilisation have once again been brought into life, they fascinated countless generations, from kids to adults. The once mighty Egypt is nowadays a source of awe, stories and inspirations for Western audiences, for the Egyptian way of life seems so strange and complicated.

The Auckland Museum, New Zealand, is trying to present one of the most important and interesting chapter in the history of the Egyptian religion — the journey to the Afterlife, with it's rituals and complicate rites. The mummies have always been an enigma to modern public. How did the Egyptian priests made them, what techniques and materials were used, what were the rituals? Even if most of this details are nowadays known, the rites of death of the ancient Egyptians are still fascinating.

The exhibition is focused on the 2700 year old mummy of a woman called Keku, who was discovered, perfectly preserved, in her beautifully decorated sarcophagus, alongside over 200 various artefacts, burial treasures, tools used for the mummification process. With great care and patience, researchers have recreated Keku's story, from the few clues left behind...

Egypt Beyond the Tomb at the Auckland Museum, Art Line, Romania, July 04, 2007.

Our guide was leaning on a walking stick and limping, yet he patiently led a couple of friends and me through more than 100 panels at an exhibition on Islam, held in Chennai (Madras). Suave and gentle, he explained skilfully how science vindicates Islam. Modern discoveries that the prophet of Islam could not have known in early medieval Arabia were described in the Koran, he said. One panel described the phenomenon of internal waves in the ocean — a modern discovery that is mentioned in the Koran.

A sceptic, I am a bit too well aware that faith can twist facts to its convenience. Satellite pictures of coral reef formations can become "incontrovertible proof" for the existence of an artificial bridge built an incredible 17 million years ago by the legendary Hindu king Rama. Otherwise sane people can argue that the abbreviation of World Wide Web, www, is actually 666 — the number of the beast — fulfilling a Biblical revelation. Fortunately, in the mainstream Hindu culture in which I am nurtured, myths are internalized rather than taken literally. That is a civilisational blessing. If you disagree, just look at the way creationists pester science educators in a developed country like the United States.

Our host stopped before a panel depicting a mummy, and explained that it was not a mummy but a miraculously preserved body of the pharaoh drowned in the Red Sea during the legendary episode of Exodus. In the last moment this pharaoh declared his belief in the God of Musa (i.e. Moses). As a reward God preserved his body as a sign for the people to believe the revealed truth, our guide said. However, the panel depicted a rather well-known mummy — a Google search later revealed it was that of Rameses II.

To cut a long story short, after five hours I emerged from the exhibition more a sceptic than a believer. And I decided to check certain claims...

Commentary: Preserved pharaohs and fantasies of prophecy, S. Aravindan Neelakandan, UPI, Asia Online, India, July 05, 2007.

More than 4,500 years after she died, a mummified daughter of the VIth Pharaoh of Egypt cries for attention at the A.P. State Museum at Public Gardens here.

With no experts available in the country to help preserve and waiting for assistance from outside, the Mummy appears to have started giving into the pressures of time.

Though the Mummy, one of the six Egyptian Mummies preserved at museums in the country, has recently been shifted to a better enclosure, the need for immediate steps towards conservation is showing. The wrapping has started to peel and the outer crust is fragmenting at several places and the cracks are very conspicuous at several places.

The Mummy here is believed to be that of a young girl aged between 16 years to 18 years and daughter of the Pharaoh dated to 2,500 B.C. It was brought by Nazeer Nawaz Jung, son-in-law of Mir Mahboob Ali Khan, the VIth Nizam of erstwhile Hyderabad in 1920s. It was said to have been taken for a price of 1,000 pounds and gifted to the VIIth Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan. The same was donated to the Hyderabad Museum which was opened in the year 1930 and since then has been on display...

Mummy in need of preservation, The Siasat Daily, India, July 03, 2007.

Priceless Egyptian treasures at the forthcoming Tutankhamun exhibition will be subject to unprecedented security against the threat of robbery or even terrorist strikes.

The show, which opens on November 15 at the O2 Centre, will feature 42 artefacts never seen before in the UK and organisers are determined that nothing will go wrong.

Airport style X-ray machines will be used to screen every visitor, CCTV will cover every angle and sniffer dogs will be present to seek out explosives and biological agents such as anthrax.

It is the first time the treasures, including the Egyptian king's crown, have travelled to Britain in 35 years, but this may be the last chance to view them...

Unprecedented Security At Tutankhamun Exhibition, Life Style Extra, UK, July 05, 2007.

On Saturday evening [that's 07/07/07 if you hadn't spotted it], in a star-studded ceremony in Lisbon, the New 7 Wonders of the world will be revealed.

Tickets to the event, to be staged at Benfica's Stadium of Light, will cost up to £75 and Christiano Ronaldo, Jose Carreras, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Kingsley will be among the guests.

The "winners" of the Wonders poll will be those voted for my millions of online people worldwide.

But the process is far from perfect, with governments helping skew the votes, and punters being encouraged to vote by text — and even invited to buy additional votes for $2.

UNESCO, which awards World Heritage status to historical sites worldwide and oversees their maintenance, has snubbed the awards as have some governments, including Egypt...

Dr Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) in Cairo, wrote to the Swiss embassy to complain and "informed the event organizers that Egypt will not participate in this campaign nor cooperate with them in any way..."

Controversial 'New 7 Wonders' campaign reaches its climax, Gareth Scurlock, The Times, UK, July 05, 2007.

cf. 7 wonders winners to be announced 7/7/07, Eliane Engeler and Alexander G. Higgins, AP via Yahoo! News, USA, July 05, 2007.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) held a ceremony in Cairo marking the International Museum Day.

During the event, a gallery of rare archival pictures of most important archaeological discoveries in Sinai since 1980 opened.

A short documentary was aired on the renovation and modernisation works carried out by the SCA at existing museums and new ones to be inaugurated soon.

On his part, Zahi Hawass, the SCA Secretary-General, honoured a number of veterans who played a key role in museums renovation and modernisation works.

Hawass said some 16 museums will be set up in the future nationwide, adding that these museums would be provided with up-to-date display equipment.

Egypt marks international museum day, new 16 museums to be set up, Egypt State Information Service, Egypt, July 02, 2007.

Egypt will run DNA tests on an unidentified mummy to determine whether it is the pharaoh Tuthmosis I, who ruled over a period of military expansion and extensive construction, state news agency MENA said on Tuesday.

Egypt's chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass said the findings would be compared with DNA from mummies of known members of Tuthmosis's family, including Queen Hatshepsut, whose mummy was identified last week, and Kings Tuthmosis II and III, according to MENA.

Hawass said on Wednesday that he had recently concluded that a mummy once assumed to be that of Tuthmosis I was not in fact his, but belonged to a much younger man who died from an arrow wound...

Egypt to use DNA tests to identify pharaoh Tuthmosis, Reuters, UK, July 03, 2007.

cf. Egypt to use DNA tests to identify mummy, Reuters via The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, July 04, 2007.

cf. Egypt to use DNA tests to identify pharaoh Tuthmosis, Reuters via Scientific American, USA, July 03, 2007.

In what is being called the most important find in Egypt's Valley of the Kings since the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb, Discovery Channel's Secrets of Egypt's Lost Queen exclusively reveals archaeological, forensic and scientific evidence identifying a 3,000-year-old mummy as Hatshepsut, Egypt's greatest female Pharaoh.

The film follows a team of top forensic experts and archaeologists led by Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt's secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, as they use the full range of forensic technology to identify Hatshepsut...

Featuring Dr. Zahi Hawass and Dr. Kara Cooney.

Global premiere dates for Secrets of Egypt's Lost Queen:

Secrets of Egypt's Lost Queen, Discovery Channel, USA, July 2007.

Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt's greatest female Pharaoh died in pain probably due to caner that spread to her pelvic bones, a new study by researchers has revealed...

Preliminary examination of the 3,000-year-old mummy has now revealed that Hatshepsut was obese, had decayed teeth and possibly suffered from a skin disease.

'Her mouth shows the presence of many dental cavities, periapical (root) inflammation and pockets,' said Ashraf Selim, radiologist at Cairo University, who examined the mummy.

The mummy also showed signs of a rather disgusting skin disease on the face and neck, which, Selim believes, might have added to Hatshepsut's health problems.

'We found numerous tiny spots within Hatshepsut and the Tuthmoside family, which could indicate a skin disease,' said Selim.

He, however, believes that the spots were more likely caused by the mummification process than dermatosis...

One thing, however, researchers say with certainty, is that Hatshepsut had cancer: cancer that had metastasized.

'The type of cancer we discovered is affecting the pelvic bone, specifically the left iliac bone. From its location, character and the few tiny foci of bone rarefaction in the spine, we concluded that this tumour is a metastatic deposit rather than a primary tumour,' said Selim.

Though Selim doesn't rule out bone cancer, he believes it was more likely another kind of tumour that spread to the bone.

'It could have been a tumour affecting the lung, breast or kidney. Whatever the tumour's origins, it is very likely that Queen Hatshepsut spent her last days in pain,' Selim said...

Pharaoh Hatshepsut died in pain due to cancer, New Kerala, India, July 03, 2007.

Pharaoh Hatshepsut Died in Pain

Obesity and poor oral hygiene suggested to Selim and colleagues that she might have suffered from diabetes.

But, Selim said, "Surely this is just a theory based on this circumstantial evidence, which we cannot confirm..."

cf. Pharaoh Hatshepsut Died in Pain, Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery Channel, USA, July 02, 2007.

In my search for Hatshepsut, the first thing that I did was look at the mummies from KV60, which is a small, undecorated tomb located in front of KV20, the real tomb of Hatshepsut. KV60 is actually a perfect cache for the reburial of mummies. Howard Carter, the discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun, had excavated this tomb in 1903, and found two mummies here: one, a small woman, was found inside an 18th Dynasty coffin inscribed for a royal nurse, In; the other was a hugely obese woman, discovered on the floor next to In’s coffin. We know from other sources that Hatshepsut’s wet-nurse was named Sitre-In, and that the last two letters of this name appeared on the coffin from KV60; based on this fact, and the location of KV 60 close to KV 20, Egyptologist Elizabeth Thomas had already suggested that the obese mummy could be Hatshepsut...

Someone (perhaps Ayrton) had moved the coffin and mummy of the wet nurse to the Cairo Museum. With the help of the curator in charge of mummies at the museum, Someya Abdel Someia, I found them in storage on the third floor. The manner of mummification was excellent, but to me her face and features did not look particularly royal.

I then began to look at other unidentified New Kingdom female mummies that might be royal. Two of these were found in the cache of royal mummies found at Deir el-Bahari, DB320...

While I was doing these CT scans in the evening at the Cairo Museum, I told Brando Quilici, the director of the Discovery Channel film on the search for Hatshepsut, that it was very important also to scan some objects from these tombs, to find out more about them. The first objects that were brought to me were Hatshepsut’s canopic jars, and we put them under the machine. The last thing that we scanned was the wooden box bearing her cartouches that was found inside the DB320 cache.

It turned out that this box held the key to the riddle. To our surprise, in addition to mummified viscera, there was a single tooth inside the box. We know from other “embalming caches” that anything associated with a body or its mummification became ritually charged, and had to be buried properly. Therefore, it seemed that during the mummification of Queen Hatshepsut, the embalmers put into the box anything that came loose from the body during the mummification process. The other surprise in the box confirmed this: it contained not only the liver but other, unidentified organic material, probably from the queen’s body...

The Search for Hatshepsut and the Discovery of her Mummy, Zahi Hawass, The Plateau, Guardian's Egypt, June 2007.