Officials ink deal to set up a a temporary restoration lab at Salaheddin Citadel and a visitor center at the Urban Plaza at the northern end of the Al-Azhar Park close to the end of the 12th century Ayyubid Wall.

Under the auspices of Egypt’s Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), Dr. Zahi Hawass, and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture’s (AKTC) general manager Mr. Luis Mo nreal signed today a memorandum of understanding finalizing the establishment of a temporary restoration lab at Salaheddin Citadel and a visitor center at the Urban Plaza at the northern end of the Al-Azhar Park close to the end of the 12th century Ayyubid Wall.

The Urban Plaza project will be a mixed-use center with underground car parking, shops and cultural facilities, including a small museum essaying the history of Cairo since the ancient Egyptian era until the modern time through displays of great treasures and collection of artefacts that have never been on exhibit before.

Hawass explained that these antiquities will be carefully selected from the Islamic and Coptic Museums in Cairo as well as the Salaheddin Citadel storehouses and Matariya archaeological sites. The museum will also give visitors insight into the urban, cultural and architectural history of the heart of Cairo...

Tourists in Cairo get more from the Aga Khan, Hazel Heyer, eTurboNews, August 17, 2007.

Egypt has reacted to the whole New Seven Wonders hype by saying the pyramids of Giza remain the only wonder of the world.

“This contest will not detract from the value of the pyramids, which is the only real wonder of the world,” Egypt's antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass told AFP.

He said the competition has no value because the masses do not write history.

Egypt was enraged when it was initially included in the competition, describing as ridiculous the fact that the only surviving wonder of the ancient world be put to a vote.

Hawass said the new wonders would simply fade in people’s memories once the media hype was over. “After several months, ask anyone to name the (new) choices, they won’t be able to remember them,” he said. “But if you ask any primary school pupil, they could still list the ancient wonders of the world.”

Pyramids still the only wonder, says Egypt, Travel & Tourism News Middle East, Volume, 25, No. 8, August 2007.

The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) presents the annual John and Helen Collis Lecture featuring Dr. Robert S. Nelson, Robert Lehman Professor of the History of Art, Yale University. The lecture entitled, The Light of Icons at St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mt. Sinai, Egypt will be held at 2 p.m. on Sunday, September 30 [2007] in Gallery 101 of the Museum.

The Light of Icons at St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mt. Sinai, Egypt will introduce the audience to the physical environment in which the monastery is located, the Sinai desert, the monastery itself and to the life of the monks there in its sixth-century church. The lecture will be illustrated with Dr. Nelson’s photos of the monastery and the monks and accompanied by his commentary.

“My goal is to put the audience in the Sinai and to try to help them see and feel what the church and the monks are like,” said Dr. Robert S. Nelson. “The church and the liturgy are the center of the lives of the monks and icons are at the center of the center...”

Renowned Yale Professor Illuminates the Importance of Icons, Art Daily, Mexico, August 16, 2007.

An ancient Egyptian noblewoman's large stone coffin has been found in a tomb near the pyramid of Unas, experts announced yesterday.

Archaeologists were digging near the crumbling pyramid in Saqqara, 15 miles (25 kilometres) south of Cairo, when they discovered the tomb, which had been built more than 600 years before the noblewoman's death.

El-Aguizy said the coffin of the noblewoman, named Sekhmet Nefret, was the first from Egypt's 27th dynasty (525 to 402 B.C.) to be found in this part of Saqqara, an ancient royal burial ground.

The walls of the burial shaft were made in part with carved stone slabs, known as stelae. The stone dates from the even earlier reign of the pharaoh Djoser, who was buried in Saqqara's distinctive step pyramid.

El-Aguizy and his team were digging in a part of Saqqara built during the reign of Ramses II ... when they found Nefret's sarcophagus...

Egyptian Tomb of Noblewoman Found, Dan Morrison, National geographic News, District of Columbia, USA, August 16, 2007.

Previously:

New pharaonic discoveries at Saqqara dating back to Rameses II, August 15, 2007.