Egypt Today Online - August 2006

http://www.egypttoday.com/default.aspx
The Egypt Today website was updated today with August 2006 edition. The Egyptology news items have already been reported here and elsewhere, but the Pharaonic mine map feature, provides a more comprehensive version of the story that was reported in brief by other publications.

Pharonic map provides route to modern mine
http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6865

"El-Raghy, founder of Centamin Mining, had returned home to look at the Rosetta Mineral Sands Deposit, a valuable, if unglamorous, 37-metric-ton deposit of ilmenite and zircon located 60 kilometers east of Alexandria. While he was visiting the offices of the Egyptian Geological Survey and Mining Authority (EGSMA), he noticed an unusual wall hanging: a copy of the oldest geologic map in the world.
The 3,200-year-old papyrus map, discovered in Luxor in 1820, showed the locations of the Pharaonic mines in the Fawakhir district between present-day Edfu and Marsa Alam.
Intrigued, Sami quickly concluded his business in Rosetta and made his way to the Eastern Desert to seek out the long-dormant mines of the Pharaohs. What he found some 600 kilometers southwest of Cairo was an incredibly rich mineral deposit — essentially neglected for two millennia — that could transform not just the Red Sea Governorate but the entire Egyptian economy when it is brought on stream later this year."

See the above page for the full story.

Painting by Howard Carter sold
http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6877

"Sold, for £13,000 in England, a painting by world-renowned Egyptologist Howard Carter. Carter, famed for his discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, painted the watercolor of Deir El-Bahari’s Queen Senseneb in 1897. The watercolor was left to owner Barbara Rampton 15 years ago, where it has since been hanging at a holiday cottage, but she did not realize its significance until she took it to a charity valuation."

Application to include Sarabit El-Khadim as World Heritage Site
http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6866
"Egypt filed an application with UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee to include the Temple of Sarabit El-Khadim in its list of World Heritage Sites.
The Ministry of Culture had teamed up with French experts for the 18-year-long restoration of the temple, also known as the Turquoise Temple. The Ancient Egyptian masterpiece dedicated to the god Hat-Hor graces one of Sinai’s highest mountains, and is located in the middle of the area’s richest copper and turquoise mines.
If the application is successful, the temple will become the sixth Egyptian site to be included in the list of the world’s most important monuments."