Last Wednesday, like DON QUIXOTE, the hero of Miguel de Cervantes' famous book on chivalry, I once again mounted my own ROSINANTE, that hobby horse of travel, to do another trip out of Nigeria. I write these lines in Room 354 of Cairo's INFANTRY HOTEL. The truth is that I have stopped trying to rationalise my love of travel, but wired into my subconscious, or my DNA, is the gene of my nomadic ancestors! The passion to travel is of course very much at the heart of being human, and as Doctor Karl Sagan said in his remarkable television series of the nineteen eighties, COSMOS, directly related to travel is also the urge to tell travellers' tales...

In that sense, it is always an imperative to visit Egypt, because of its place as a source of African history; of human civilization; the land of the gods; the home of the Pharaohs; the place of the splendour of the great River Nile (the longest river in the world) and in much later centuries, the location of superb examples of Islamic civilization. Let's not forget that Ibn Khaldun, one of the greatest thinkers that ever lived, and the scholar whose work, MUQADDIMA, is universally recognised as having given birth to the science of sociology, lived and died in Cairo. He loved the city and once described Cairo as "the metropolis of the universe, the beacon of Islam, a city of fountains and gardens, lit by the moon and stars of erudition"...

Egypt: Travel in the Land of the Pharaohs, Is'haq Modibbo Kawu, Daily Trust via AllAfrica.com, Nigeria, September 06, 2007.

The Hong Kong Museum of Art announced here Wednesday that it will hold an exhibition which provide the public with a rare opportunity to view some 270 artefacts selected from the British Museum.

Running from Sept. 14 to Dec. 2 [2007], the exhibition entitled Treasures of the World's Cultures from the British Museum, will feature about 270 artefacts covering a vast span of time from two million years ago to the present day.

The exhibits include sculptures, ceramics, wood carvings, jewellery, drawings and prints selected to give visitors a glimpse of the diversified arts and cultures of ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, the Middle East, Africa, India, Japan, Korea, America and Oceania...

HK to display treasures from British Museum, People's Daily, China, September 05, 2007.

Three weeks ago, Dr. Hawass said he, “got lucky,” when he made a new discovery inside King Tut’s tomb.

“I found 20 big pottery jars completely sealed,” he said. “I always say that the mystery of King Tut will never stop, it will always continue.”

Dr. Hawass will be discussing his latest discovery at the University of Pennsylvania Thursday, September 6 [2007] at 7:00 p.m. Click here for ticket information...

Egyptian Expert To Discuss New King Tut Discovery, Angela Russell, CBS 3 News, USA, September 05, 2007.

Cf. Video: Egyptian Expert To Discuss New King Tut Discovery, Angela Russell, CBS 3 News, USA, September 05, 2007.

German entrepreneurs are planning to outstrip the ancient Egyptians by building the world's largest pyramid on a derelict site in eastern Germany — which they claim will eventually contain the remains of millions of people in concrete burial blocks.

Many have dismissed the idea as a harebrained and improbable but the scheme has already received a €89,000 (£60,000) state grant to assess its feasibility. It envisages a pyramid some 60ft taller than the 432-ft high Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt on a site near the city of Dessau.

The project's initiators include the writer Ingo Niemann and Jens Thiel an economist who have joined other entrepreneurs to form a "Friends of the Pyramid" association. They argue that their scheme will be one up on the Pharaohs who only interred a few in the Egyptian pyramids.

"In future the chance to be buried in a pyramid will be open to all," they say on their website, "Our great pyramid will be the first internationally advertised burial and remembrance site to link the peoples, religions and cultures of the world," they add...

On the drawing board: the great pyramid of...Germany, Tony Paterson, The Independent, UK, September 03, 2007.

cf. 'Great Pyramid' would hold millions, UPI, September 02, 2007.

With its long run in Philadelphia, Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at the Franklin Institute is "on pace" to break the U.S. travelling-exhibition attendance record for a single city, the Franklin says.

The show has sold 1.18 million tickets — 1.13 million of which have been used — and has a month to go in its eight-month Philadelphia visit, prompting museum officials to predict yesterday that it will break the previous record of 1.3 million visitors set in 1977 when Treasures of Tutankhamun visited the Field Museum in Chicago.

That would mean the museum would host 195,000 visitors more between now and the end of the show's run here Sept. 30 [2007].

"I think we can do it," said Karen Corbin, the museum's marketing chief. "In August we had 166,390, and I am assuming we'll do better in September because people are actually in the city..."

Tut exhibit eyes record for visitors, Peter Dobrin, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pennsylvania, USA, September 05, 2007.