Even for a forensic expert it's a tough case. Three children die in Egypt around the time of Christ ... about 1870, their mummified bodies are stored in the British Museum ... now, after 2000 years, give or take a century, people are seriously looking for answers.

Who were these kids and how did they die? How old were they? Were they suffering from disease? Were they related? And were they Egyptians, Greeks or Romans?

It sounds like a job for a "forensic Egyptologist", which is how Janet Davey describes herself.

Ms Davey and a team of colleagues from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine are using modern medical and forensic techniques, including CT scans and DNA testing, to answer the questions. The mummified bodies of the boy and two girls, nicknamed "the angelic one", the "cross one" and the "sad one", had been in the British Museum since the 1870s.

Apart from being identified as coming from the "Graeco-Roman" period (332BC to 395AD) and being X-rayed in the 1960s, they were left alone...

She then suggested the three mummies as a research study for the Melbourne Mummy Project...

Mummies tell their tales from the crypt, Liz Porter, The Age, Australia, October 07, 2007.

A giant statue of the ancient Egyptian god of the dead floated down the Thames, turning heads as it crossed under London’s Tower Bridge.

The 25-foot fibreglass representation of the jackal-headed god was taken down the river on the back of a cargo ship to Trafalgar Square, where it will stand for three days before moving to various locations around the capital.

Anubis’ arrival is part of an effort to promote an exhibition of the treasures taken from the tomb of the ancient Egyptian King Tutankhamun. The show, ‘Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs’, opens Nov 15 at London’s O2, previously known as the Millennium Dome...

Anubis, god of dead, floats down river Thames, Daily Times, Pakistan, October 03, 2007.

It looks like a mirage but the lush fields of cauliflower, apricot trees and melon growing among a vast stretch of sand north of Cairo's pyramids is all too real — proof of Egypt's determination to turn its deserts green.

While climate change and land over-use help many deserts across the world advance, Egypt is slowly greening the sand that covers almost all of its territory as it seeks to create more space for its growing population.

With only five percent of the country habitable, almost all of Egypt's 74 million people live along the Nile River and the Mediterranean Sea. Already crowded living conditions — Cairo is one of the most densely populated cities on earth — will likely get worse as Egypt's population is expected to double by 2050.

So the government is keen to encourage people to move to the desert by pressing ahead with an estimated $70 billion plan to reclaim 3.4 million acres of desert over the next 10 years. Among the incentives are cheap desert land to college graduates.

But to make these areas habitable and capable of cultivation, the government will need to tap into scarce water resources of the Nile River as rainfall is almost non-existent in Egypt...

Egypt plan to green Sahara desert stirs controversy, Reuters, UK, October 08, 2007.

Siwa is a small desert oasis some 350 miles west of Cairo, and the best time to go there is between October and April, which is before the mosquitoes and the heat arrive. At this time of year the nights can be very cold, even freezing.

It isn't easy to reach Siwa which is the most western of the five major oases of Egypt. A hire car, fully air conditioned can take about eight hours to get to this Sahara Oasis.

Most of the tourists who visit Egypt restrict themselves to the Nile Valley, and visit the cities of Aswan, Luxor and Cairo. There they explore the familiar ruins and monuments of ancient Egypt, including the Great Pyramids and the temples of Karnak, Luxor and Abu Simbel. Sadly they are missing something totally unique in the Siwa Oasis, which after all is one of the great places of history, because of the visit of Alexander the Great seeking confirmation that he was a demi-god from the Temple of Amun.

If you love the desert, and you want to explore well off the tourist trail the Siwa with its oases, tumbledown ruins, salt lakes, springs, tombs, and amazing eco hotels is not to be missed...

Why You Must Visit Siwa A Sahara Oasis In Western Egypt, Peter Stewart, PR-GB.com, UK, October 08, 2007.

Egyptologists are being invited to learn about the myths and misunderstandings of mummification.

Wigan's Horus Egyptology Society is to host a day school on the subject and has secured the attendance of two experts.

and Dr Stephen Buckley will lecture on The Art of Anubis – Mummies, Myth and Misunderstanding.

Dr Fletcher said: "Mummies have long been a subject of fascination for the public as well as those with an interest in ancient Egypt.

"This day school will take us through 4,000 years of embalming by discussing the wealth of evidence available and how this has impacted on understanding within Egyptology.

"First studies in 17th century Britain using scientific techniques available at the time, modern science, and indeed pseudo-science, has been applied to mummies in an attempt to better understand the embalmers art..."

Egyptologists come to Wigan, Kristina Santus, The Wigan Observer, UK, October 08, 2007.

It is said that a well-proportioned face must lie in what is called a "golden rectangle" of dimensions in the ratio of approximately 1 to 1.6. Not only living forms, but also works of art and buildings, including the splendid domes of Persia and the Athens Parthenon, are found to adhere to this rule. The ratio became even more pronounced during the European Renaissance, when Leonardo Da Vinci studied the physical proportions of man and portrayed them in his unfinished canvas of St Jerome along with other works such as the "Mona Lisa" and the "Vitruvian Man".

So, quite apart from the other mathematical constants, Pi = 3.14, e = 2.718 (Euler Number), Gamma = 0.577 (Euler Constant), and i = sqrt(- 1) which possess mathematical properties only, the Golden Ratio Phi = 1.618... has an additional aesthetic feature. Since mathematicians in ancient times were often poets and philosophers who believed in the uniformity of nature, mathematics served to satisfy their need to understand the world around them and to resolve its secrets. Hence, they started tracking this constant in everyday objects such as plants and animals, and discovered that the proportions of many conformed with this ratio. This was why, by the time of the Renaissance, it had become known as the "Divine Proportion"...

The amazing Golden Ratio, Assem Deif, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 864, September 27 - October 03, 2007.

Previously:

The Ahmes code, May 11, 2007.

A Question of Ancient Mathematics, March 21, 2007.

Reply: Mathematics in Ancient Egypt, February 07, 2007.

Mathematics in Ancient Egypt, January 26, 2007.

Conservation work on a 2,300-year-old Egyptian mummy is taking place at Durham University.

Specialists have been examining the body of the adult male at the university's oriental museum, before it goes on a year-long tour of Japan.

It was brought to the UK in the 1860s and has proved a popular attraction at the museum for many years.

Curator Craig Barclay said the mummy had what was believed to be one of the first examples of a prosthetic hand...

Egyptian mummy prepared for tour, BBC News, UK, September 29, 2007.