Ancient Mexicans and Egyptians who never met and lived centuries and thousands of miles apart both worshiped feathered-serpent deities, built pyramids and developed a 365-day calendar, a new exhibition shows.

Billed as the world's largest temporary archaeological showcase, Mexican archaeologists have brought treasures from ancient Egypt to display alongside the great indigenous civilizations of Mexico for the first time.

The exhibition, which boasts a five-tonne, 3,000-year-old sculpture of Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and stone carvings from Mexican pyramid Chichen Itza, aims to show many of the similarities of two complex worlds both conquered by Europeans in invasions 1,500 years apart.

"There are huge cultural parallels between ancient Egypt and Mexico in religion, astronomy, architecture and the arts. They deserve to be appreciated together," said exhibition organizer Gina Ulloa, who spent almost three years preparing the 35,520 square-feet (3,300 meter-square) display.

The exhibition, which opened at the weekend in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, shows how Mexican civilizations worshiped the feathered snake god Quetzalcoatl from about 1,200 BC to 1521, when the Spanish conquered the Aztecs...

It should, of course, be noted that they are talking, here, of similarities but not suggesting that the ancient Egyptians had any contact with the ancient Olmec or Maya cultures. And certainly not the Aztec culture which postdates the Egyptian culture by over 1,500-years.

Snake-bird gods fascinated both Aztecs and pharaohs, Reuters, Africa, September 24, 2007.

Egyptian antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass insisted Tuesday that Tutankhamun was not black despite calls by US black activists to recognize the boy king's dark skin colour.

"Tutankhamun was not black, and the portrayal of ancient Egyptian civilization as black has no element of truth to it," Hawass told reporters.

"Egyptians are not Arabs and are not Africans despite the fact that Egypt is in Africa," he said, quoted by the official MENA news agency.

Hawass said he was responding to several demonstrations in Philadelphia after a lecture he gave there on September 6 where he defended his theory...

Tutankhamun was not black — Egypt antiquities chief, AFP via The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippines, September 25, 2007.

Eight baskets filled with fruits preserved for more than 3,000 years have been discovered by Egyptian archaeologists in Tutankhamun's tomb, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Monday.

A team of Egyptian archaeologists, led by antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass, made the discovery in the Valley of the Kings in the ancient city of Thebes, the modern-day Luxor, in southern Egypt.

"The eight baskets contained large quantities of doum fruits, which have been well preserved," Hawass said in a statement.

The fruit baskets are each 50cm (nearly 20 inches) high, the antiquities department said.

The sweet orange-red fruit, also known as the gingerbread fruit, comes from the Doum Palm, a native of southern Egypt, and was traditionally offered at funerals...

Ancient Egyptian fruit hamper found in King Tut's tomb, AFP via Yahoo! News, USA, September 24, 2007.

cf. Fruit hamper found in King Tut's tomb, AFP via ABC News, Australia, September 25, 2007.

cf. New discovery found in Egypt's Tutankhamun tomb, Xinhua via People's Daily, China, September 25, 2007.

Previously:

Baskets, pots found abandoned in Tutankhamun tomb, September 24, 2007

Just as the wheels of progress were turning in the Roaring Twenties, so too were they turning up in all the grand new buildings — along with other highly stylized images of gears, planes and other symbols of the Machine Age.

Art Deco's eclectic, geometric style also incorporated stepped forms and sweeping curves, chevron patterns, flowers and sunbursts. Thanks in part to the discovery of King Tut's tomb, designers of the time were under the sway of ancient Egypt — a touch ironic considering the style's futuristic ambitions.

The term Art Deco itself was derived from the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, held in Paris in 1925, but it wasn't popularized until the late 1960s, by art historian Bevis Hillier...

A Touch of Ancient Egypt That Still Says 'Modern', The Washington Post, District of Columbia, USA, September 23, 2007.