More re eviction of Qurna

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2374347.ece

"Slowly Qurna is being erased from the map. The process began last December after the Luxor authorities ordered the demolition of all the village's mud brick houses. 'In just five minutes,' reported Agence France Presse on 3 December, 'and under the deafening roar of bulldozer engines, three long-abandoned houses were the first to go ... The stage-managed affair included a fashion show of children parading in ancient Egyptian costumes to the beat of epic drums and enthusiastic speeches by officials for the television cameras. Three thousand five hundred families will leave for a better life...'
The eviction was the culmination of a process that began nearly 60 years ago, before Egypt became independent. The tomb of Rumose is only one of about100 tombs, the so-called 'Tombs of the Nobles', sunk deep into this hillside. But because of the village of Qurna, the archaeologists couldn't get at them. Even worse, the villagers were not beyond plundering the tombs over which they perched, quietly removing items of sensational importance for discreet, expert visitors."

Also at:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/22/news/luxor.php

"The Egyptian authorities have evicted hundreds of peasants from this village in southern Egypt because their mud-brick houses, which have sat atop some of the world's most treasured and ancient tombs for centuries, were leaking sewage onto priceless antiquities.
The families have been resettled in a nearby planned community with running water and telephones. But 80 families are holding out, saying they want more from a government so far reluctant to use brute force.
The Gurna standoff near the famed Valley of the Kings illustrates the challenges facing an authoritarian government that for decades imposed its will on the people, keeping them poor but fed, underemployed but employed, but now seeks to adjust the social contract without sparking widespread unrest. The government has again imposed a solution — one that will change the way hundreds of families live — but is negotiating with those left behind until they find terms that are acceptable, or at least, accepted."

Exhibition: Egyptian Antiquities from the Louvre at Adelaide

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21417369-5006348,00.html

"More than 150,000 people visited the Louvre exhibition in Canberra earlier this year and Art Gallery of SA director Christopher Menz is anticipating similar numbers during its three-month stay in Adelaide. With 500 individual objects making up more than 200 displays, the exhibition is 'certainly the biggest and most complex we've ever had in this new wing', Menz says.
Staff from the Louvre have worked alongside those from the Art Gallery over the past 10 days to install the exhibition. Selected from 60,000 objects in the Louvre's Egyptian collection, the exhibition is subtitled Journey to the Afterlife."

See the above page for more.

Also covered, with rather nice photos, at:

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=182&ContentID=24092
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21343885-5006348,00.html

Also at:

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21411270-2682,00.html

More re New 7 Wonders

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/03/b6f87c2d-b14b-4a44-bc18-a81dab777f3e.html

Another article about the New 7 Wonders vote, the results of which will be announced on 7th July 2007: "Tia Viering, the project's spokeswoman, said Internet votes for the new wonders list have been received from people in over 100 countries -- with the most votes coming from China, Greece, India, Brazil, the United States, Peru, Mexico, Australia, Germany, Canada, and Britain. . . . Not everyone is pleased with the initiative. Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni thinks the idea of creating a new list of seven wonders is 'absurd.' And the chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, has asked for the Giza pyramids to be removed from the voting, because, as he told the Middle East News Agency, they 'don't need a vote to be among the world's wonders.'Viering is unfazed by the fuss.

Also at:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/06/opinion/edjohnson.php

Exhibition: Mummies - Secrets of the Pharaohs

http://www.huliq.com/15714/franklin-institute-s-theatre-presents-mummies
"Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs brings to life ancient wonders, historic intrigue and a modern-day forensic adventure, all in one eye-popping new film, opening at the Tuttleman IMAX Theater. A natural complement to Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, at The Franklin Institute through September 30, 2007, Mummies takes viewers on a journey back thousands of years to explore why mummification was so vital to ancient Egyptian life.
Why are people endlessly fascinated with mummies? The worldwide curiosity about mummification is an age-old phenomenon as enduring as mummies themselves. During Egypt’s history, literally millions of mummies were made. In Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs, filmgoers will marvel at the sight of these human time capsules, shown in larger-than-life detail on the giant screen.
Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs unravels the mysteries enshrouding the ancient royal mummies, how they were embalmed and where they were hidden, and also recreates the dramatic story of their recovery—an 'Indiana Jones'-type tale of tomb-raiders and hidden treasure that led to one of the most significant archaeological finds in modern history. Featuring top Egyptologists and researchers, Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Bob Brier and DNA scientist Angelique Corthals, the film also embarks on a genetic analysis of mummies that could have huge implications for the study of modern human diseases."

See the above page for more.

NASA Finds Sun-Climate Connection in Old Nile Records

http://tinyurl.com/2wga8x

Long-term climate records are a key to understanding how Earth's climate changed in the past and how it may change in the future. Direct measurements of light energy emitted by the sun, taken by satellites and other modern scientific techniques, suggest variations in the sun's activity influence Earth's long-term climate. However, there were no measured climate records of this type until the relatively recent scientific past. . . . Alexander Ruzmaikin and Joan Feynman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., together with Dr. Yuk Yung of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., have analyzed Egyptian records of annual Nile water levels collected between 622 and 1470 A.D. at Rawdah Island in Cairo. These records were then compared to another well-documented human record from the same time period: observations of the number of auroras reported per decade in the Northern Hemisphere. Auroras are bright glows in the night sky that happen when mass is rapidly ejected from the sun's corona, or following solar flares. They are an excellent means of tracking variations in the sun's activity. Feynman said that while ancient Nile and auroral records are generally 'spotty,' that was not the case for the particular 850-year period they studied. "

BU scholar preserved treasures taken by Nazis

http://tinyurl.com/yt4gd5
While history books tell the story of the Nazis' destruction of human life, little is written about their attempt to destroy and steal the culture and art of Europe. Even less is known about those who worked to save the treasures. Named the Monuments Men, the largely unknown group of several hundred men and women worked during and after World War II to save nearly one-fifth of Europe's artwork and artifacts from destruction and theft. . . . Lindsay unpacked thousands of works, he said. . . . Perhaps his most memorable find, he said, was a sculpture stolen by the Germans in 1912. A large box marked "the colored queen" was delivered, and speculation about what the crate held abounded. He was ordered to open it by superiors fearing the contents had been pilfered.
'You had to be suspicious all the time,' Lindsay said. 'Everybody had sticky fingers.' Lindsay obeyed orders and opened the wooden crate, and there, buried under black tar paper and white spun glass, was pure beauty. 'There she was,' he said, 'that face looking up at me.' It was a statue of Queen Nefertiti.

Exploring hidden doors in the Great Pyramid

http://tinyurl.com/2n5fup

"Doors will soon open to reveal one of the mysteries of the Great Pyramid in Giza, Dr. Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Discovery News in an exclusive interview.
Hawass, one of the world's leading Egyptologists, said he will show what lies behind secret doors inside the 4,500-year-old pharaonic mausoleum by the end of this year.
'Finally, people all over the world will know what is behind the second door in the southern shaft and the third door in the northern shaft,' Hawass said.
Built in 2550 B.C. for the pharaoh Cheops, also known as Khufu, the Great Pyramid is the largest of a family of three pyramids on the Giza plateau, on the outskirts of Cairo."

This is the entire item on the Discovery website.

More at:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/03/20/hawass_arc.html

Important rescue archaeology in the Sudan

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article20843

"Sudan’s archaeology is finally stepping out of Egypt’s shadow as teams work against the clock to rescue an entire swathe of Nile Valley heritage from the rising waters of a Chinese-built dam.
'The paradox is that, yes, an entire area is being wiped off the map but thanks to the rescue project, Sudanese archaeology is being put on the map,' said Sudan’s antiquities chief Salah Ahmed. The Merowe dam is a controversial hydro-electric project — one of the largest in Africa — being erected on the Nile’s fourth cataract and due to start flooding the valley over more than 100 miles (160 kilometres) within months.
Archaeologists admit that an incalculable amount of information will be forever lost.
But the largest archaeological rescue project since the Nubian campaign launched in the 1960s during the construction of the Aswan dam in southern Egypt has unearthed heritage that would likely have remained untapped.
'This area was completely unknown to archaeologists, it was a missing chapter in Sudan’s history and nobody was planning to go there because it’s very hard from a logistical point of view,' Ahmed told AFP.
Sudan’s pre-Christian civilisations built more pyramids than the Egyptians but have received little attention since being defeated by Egyptian warrior Pharaoh Tuthmosis I (15 century BC).
'Of course, there is no Abu Simbel here,' said Ahmed, in reference to the massive temples originally carved out of the mountain under the reign of Ramses II and relocated as part of a monumental transfer when the Aswan dam was built.
But teams of archaeologists from Britain, France, Germany, Poland and a dozen other countries have been relentlessly searching the fertile Nile river banks near Merowe for at least five years now and made some significant discoveries.
Some of the artefacts found in the soon to be flooded area enabled archaeologists to redefine the borders of ancient kingdoms, such as Kerma which ruled part of Nubia between 2,500 and 1,500 BC.
'We found very rich Kerma occupation farther upstream, extending the frontiers of this important kingdom by more than 200 kilometres (120 miles)," Ahmed said.
"We also found for the first time in the fourth cataract area the foundations of a pyramid, with Meroitic ceramics. This gives political importance to the area because it shows someone important was buried there.'
Funerary archaeology in the area also benefits from exceptional chronological continuity, offering experts a rare chance to retrace historical developments. 'The fourth cataract is very interesting for the study of transitional periods, which are often shrouded in mystery and uncertainty,' said Vincent Francigny, a resident archaeologist at France’s Khartoum-based SFDAS institute. Only a tiny fraction of the vast area has been excavated and archaeologists, currently wrapping up their season, will have little time left to make more discoveries before the waters start rising.
In addition to scorching heat and accessibility problems, there is simmering tension between the government and local communities being evicted by the dam’s growing reservoir."

See the above page for the full story.

Also at:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070318/lf_afp/sudanarchaeologydam_070318042304

"Sudan's archaeology is finally stepping out of Egypt's shadow as teams work against the clock to rescue an entire swathe of Nile Valley heritage from the rising waters of a Chinese-built dam.
'The paradox is that, yes, an entire area is being wiped off the map but thanks to the rescue project, Sudanese archaeology is being put on the map,' said Sudan's antiquities chief Salah Ahmed. The Merowe dam is a controversial hydro-electric project -- one of the largest in Africa -- being erected on the Nile's fourth cataract and due to start flooding the valley over more than 100 miles (160 kilometres) within months."

Weekly Websites

Amarna, Ancient Egypt’s Place in the Sun

http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/exhibits/amarna/index.shtml

An excellent website from the UPenn, complementing the Amarna exhibition: "Amarna, Ancient Egypt’s Place in the Sun, a new exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, offers a rare look at the meteoric rise and fall of this unique royal city during one of Egypt’s most intriguing times. The exhibition, the centerpiece of the Museum’s event-filled “Year of Egypt” opened on November 12 and runs through October 2007."

KV5
http://www.kv5.com/articles/article_12.3.html

"Tens of thousands of objects have been found in KV 5, most badly broken or battered by past floods that have hit the Valley of the Kings [11513]. These floods washed tons of mud and debris into low-lying tombs. The objects are embedded in this "matrix" and great care must be taken to remove them safely while recording precisely where they were found. Even potsherds can provide information on chronology, the movement of trade goods, and funerary practices. A major problem is determining what was original to the tomb and what was washed in by later floodwaters. The archaeological context (where the object was found and what lay around it) can tell us the function served by a tomb chamber."

Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin
http://www.archaeological.org/webinfo.php?page=10015

"AFOB online continues to be one of the foremost fieldwork resources. There are over 250 listings for archaeological projects around the world. Each AFOB listing features a project profile window with icons to provide information on the size of the project, age requirements, and academic credit availability. The listings continue to provide in-depth descriptions of the projects and accommodations, as well as bibliographies and other detailed information."

Hierakonpolis: 2007 Field Note 4 - All Drawn Out!
http://www.archaeology.org/interactive/hierakonpolis/field07/4.html

"Any excavation at Hierakonpolis would not be complete without collecting bucket after bucket of ceramic sherds. At parts of the site the ceramic pieces are so abundant you literally cannot take a step without stepping on a few or even several. What do we do with all of these collected broken ceramics? We draw them and by doing so we can re-create the pottery vessel from which they originated.
Before we can draw the pottery we must first sort the collected fragments and distinguish exactly which sherds are important enough to draw. It is unrealistic to try to draw every sherd we collect, but most people are surprised to learn just how much information can be gained just by looking at a particular sherd with a trained eye. Pottery is our best guide for determining the relative date of the occupation at a particular location within the vast site of Hierakonpolis and the types of vessels can also tell us something about the activities taking place there, or the function of the locality."

Dictionary of Middle Egyptian
http://www.twonotes.com/hg/dictionary.pdf

In Gardiner classification order (PDF format).

Studies in Egyptian Epigraphy and History in Memory of William J. Murnane
http://history.memphis.edu/murnane/

All articles are available for download in PDF format

James P. Allen, "The Amarna Succession"
Michel Azim & Vincent Rondot, "Note archéologique et épigraphique sur les architraves de la grande salle hypostyle du temple d’Amon-Rê à Karnak"
Peter Dorman, "The Long Coregency Revisited: Architectural and Iconographic Conundra in the Tomb of Kheruef"
Jacobus van Dijk, "The Death of Meketaten" Richard Fazzini, "Two Semi-Erased Kushite Cartouches in the Precinct of Mut at South Karnak"
Luc Gabolde, "Un assemblage au nom d'Amenemhat Ier dans les magasins du temple de Louxor"
Marc Gabolde, "Under a Deep Blue Starry Sky"
Helen Jacquet-Gordon, "The Festival on which Amun went out to the Treasury" Kenneth A. Kitchen, "Egyptian New-Kingdom Topographical Lists: An Historical Resource with ‘Literary’ Histories"

Cómo "Leer" el Arte Egipcio
http://www.egiptomania.com/arte/

"Análisis iconográficos e iconológicos de las obras en tanto que manifestaciones supra-artísticas del antiguo Egipto, en los que se detallarán los elementos que las acompañan, sus diferentes características, así como la inserción de aquéllas en su contexto ideológico, cultural e histórico."

More re New 7 Wonders

http://www.timesnow.tv/To_wonderful_to_be_a_wonder/articleshow/1775063.cms

"The new wonders of the world are being voted for in a global contest. But one of the top contenders, whom voters have placed at the top of the list, doesn’t care for the distinction because ancient Egypt's Great Pyramids are undeniably ''wonder'-ful. Down the rambling deserts of age-old Egypt is one of mankinds most majestic creations -- the Great Pyramids of Giza. Built by Egyptians in 2500 BC as tombs for their pharos, the structures are the oldest and only surviving wonder of the ancient world drawn and documented up by Philo of Byzantium. But today, as the world votes the seven wonders of the modern world, Egypt says it wants no part of the latest contest."

See the above page for the full story.

Also covered at:

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=29&ContentID=23756

"Maybe it simply feeds modern society’s obsession with lists and rankings, but more than 2000 years after ancient Greeks identified the Seven Wonders of the World, millions of people around the globe are casting internet ballots to update the list.
Whether motivated by nationalism, conservation, curiosity or sheer boredom, more than four million Chinese, Indians, Mexicans, Brazilians, Americans and others have cast 28 million votes, organisers say. They have generated 21 wonder finalists, including the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the Acropolis in Athens, Jordan’s ancient city of Petra and the pyramids of Giza in Egypt. "

Pharaoh's pots give up their secrets

http://tinyurl.com/3xmoyz (New Scientist)

"For a century, they have been on display in the Louvre museum in Paris, labelled as Canopic jars holding the embalmed innards of the great Egyptian pharaoh Rameses II. But the four pots, covered in hieroglyphs, are not what they seem.
An analysis by French chemists has revealed that the jars in fact contain ordinary cosmetics, produced at a much later date.
The blue jars arrived in the Louvre in 1905. They carry the name of Rameses II, and seemed to contain embalmed organs, including a trace of what appeared to be heart tissue. Yet Rameses's actual mummy still has its heart - the one organ ancient Egyptians left inside mummies so it could be weighed in the afterlife by the god Thoth. 'The jars look like the pots of unguents found in King Tut's tomb, among others, not like other Canopic jars,' says Jacques Connan of the University of Strasbourg, France.
With the Louvre's permission, Connan's team sampled traces of material in the pots, and analysed them using mass spectrometry and chromatography techniques used in the petroleum industry to identify complex organic mixes.They found no evidence of beeswax, bitumen or other materials Connan says were common in Egyptian embalming. Instead, the ratio of non-radioactive isotopes of carbon was typical of animal fats, while the fatty acids matched pig fat. There were also unusual molecules formed from fatty acids joined with aromatic alcohols found in pine or cedar, woods ancient Egypt imported from the Levant.
Connan concludes that the jar probably held scented ointment made by heating aromatic wood in fat, of the type Egyptians used to anoint their heads, and sacred images (Journal of Archaeological Science, vol 34, p 597).
The ratio of radioactive carbon-14 dated the material at 1035 BC, give or take 50 years. Rameses II died in 1213 BC. A yellowish powder, a remnant of the embalmed packages the jars contained in 1905, turned out to be pure mastic tree resin - which is still used in foods and embalming - from 275 BC.
The Louvre now believes the pots were made for a temple to the sun god Amun-Ra. Because Rameses II built the temple, his name is on the jars, but they were probably used to hold ritual ointments, then later recycled as containers for resin-embalmed remains."

Also covered at:

http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_2083486,00.html

"One of the star exhibits at the Louvre's egyptology wing, a collection of four jars said to have contained the embalmed organs of Egypt's greatest pharoah, Rameses II, have a sadly less glamorous vintage.
The beautiful turquoise-blue earthenware pots, emblazoned with Rameses' name in hieroglyphs and with incantions to the gods Mut and Amon, are genuine.
But the belief that they held Rameses' preserved innards to help ease the pharoah into the afterlife is false, French investigators say."

And at:

http://tinyurl.com/2nh7b8
"The blue jars which have been in the Louvre Museum in Paris since 19O5 carry the name of the legendary ruler who governed his country from 1279-1213 BC and seemed to contain preserved organs - including a trace of heart tissue.They are covered in hieroglyphs and decorated with the symbolic image - or cartouche - of the pharaoh. Two of the jars had been desecrated and the other two were untouched.It was the custom of the time to store the organs of the body in such 'Canopic' jars - a type of funerary vase made from earthenware ceramic.But Rameses' actual mummy still has its heart – the one organ ancient Egyptians left inside mummies so it could be weighed in the after-life by the god Thoth."

And at:

http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/news/science/ancient-egyptian-make-up-uncovered-$1065688.htm

http://tinyurl.com/2jh49h (elperiodico.com) with a photgraph of one of the pots.

The Journal of Archaeological Science website is at:

http://tinyurl.com/3cgbl5

Modern Technology Reveals Mummy's Past

http://www.physorg.com/news93244999.html

"Charles F. Hildebolt, right, a dentist and anthropologist with the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University, talks about the research he helped conduct on a baby mummy as it sits on display at the St. Louis Science Center, Thursday, March 15, 2007, in St. Louis. The mummy was donated to the Science Center in 1985 after it was acquired in the Middle East by a Missouri dentist in the early 1900s. Little is known about the mummy, but researchers believe it to be a boy who died at about seven to eight months old about 2,000 years ago. The baby mummy had a European mom, and likely came from a wealthy family. But where he lived and why he died - and at such a young age - remain a mystery. The mummy, exhibited for the first time Thursday at the Saint Louis Science Center, has been the year-long focus of an international team of investigators. The museum said it may be the most extensive research project ever undertaken on a child mummy."

See the above page for the full story.

Also covered at:

http://www.leadingthecharge.com/ViewArticle.aspx?id=76124&source=2

http://tinyurl.com/358b9w (stltoday.com)

Saturday Trivia

Treasure Pyramid

http://www.robingames.com/games/treasure-pyramid/

"Lost for more than 5000 years, the Treasure Pyramid has been waiting to be discovered. You've found an ancient map that will lead you there. Embark on an adventure that will have you puzzling your way through the lost temples of Egypt. Dodge dangers, find treasures and collect the 7 jewels that will unlock the long-lost majestic pyramid."

Amenhotep, Son of Hapu: A Tale of Egypt

http://tinyurl.com/3xmoyz
"One of the most realistic, fictional accounts of ancient Egyptian life ever penned, Scribe’s Ascent is the first novel in the Amenhotep, Son of Hapu: A Tale of Egypt series. As Egypt’s foremost éminent grise, Amenhotep narrates in Scribe’s Ascent his rise from a miserable provincial backwater to a position second only to Pharaoh’s in power."

A Queen's Destiny
http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=41397&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
"Nobilis announces Kheops Studio' Cleopatra: A Queen's Destiny, an adventure game in which the player will be plunged in the tormented period of the Antique Egypt. Help the young new queen Cleopatra to take the good decisions for her Empire and become the queen of kings. Scheduled for Q3 2007, your quest will lead you through Alexandria and all its mythic monuments like: the Library or the Lighthouse of Alexandria."

Ankh
http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=41445&mode=thread&order=0

"Cairo... the ancient city of thousand shapes, colors and smells. And of Pharaohs, crocodiles and assassins. It won't be easy for Assil to get an audience at the palace to get rid of his death curse. Even worse, the number of his foes is growing faster than his curse takes posession of him. And that's already quite fast. Only a keen mind can save Assil from certain death: You!
During his quest, Assil meets a whole bunch of weird people, from happy slaves to frightened crocodiles and finally Osiris himself, the god of the underworld.
Based on the original Ankh from Artex Software (1998), Ankh will be fateful port of ts PC countpart although restricted in specifications such as limited voiceovers, and graphics, but the point & click adventure aspect will remain identical.
Currently only scheduled for release in Germany, somewhere in August 2007."

King Tut's Gold
http://www.ereleases.com/pr/20070308009.html

"A young Egyptian boy studying to be a scribe embarks on a series of adventures and mysteries that propel him into the services of three royal families in Bill Butler's new book, "King Tut's Gold: Mystery of the Golden Water-Screw" (now available through AuthorHouse). Ahmes-VI is a 14-year-old student scribe at the Temple of Karnak. He is invited to travel with his father, an irrigation engineer, to Nubia, the land of gold and "Ta-Seti," the bow people. With invitations from the royal sculptor Bek, they travel on the royal barge with Egypt's most powerful lady, Tiye, the queen and wife of King Amenhotep-III. Tiye and Amenhotep-III are the grandparents of the boy King Tutankhamen. The queen is making her last journey to Nubia, where she has been summoned by her aunt Catava, a powerful sage who gives prophecies of the next two kings. Catava predicts that one king will cause a crack in the religious foundation of Egypt's 2000-year-old pantheon of gods. As a tribute to the next kings of Egypt, the sage Catava orders the preparation and construction of a 10-foot cylinder, a golden water-screw that will be kept in a sacred magical pond. The wondrous object will be used to pour out unlimited amounts of the finest, purest Nubian gold for King Akhenaten, Queen Nefertiti and their son, the most memorable monarch in all human history, King Tutankhamen. "

See the above page for more.

Book review (fiction): THE WATER THIEF By Ben Pastor Thomas Dunne
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/08/AR2007030802514.html

"Ben Pastor's The Water Thief is one of those books that undermine the categories of fiction. It has all the earmarks of a mystery: a disputed death in the past, present-day murders (the book's "present," that is: the 4th century), an investigating hero and a surprise villain. But Pastor has taken such pains to conjure up Italy and Egypt back then, to take the temperature of the Roman Empire, to depict local officials coping with the challenges posed by the spread of Christianity, that the result is far richer than the traditional whodunit."

Travel: Saqqara, Dashur and Giza

http://blogs.bootsnall.com/sgwood/?p=45

"So we started at Sakkara (or Saqqara, depending upon the translation). There, we were first taken to the Tomb of Mereuka and the Pyramid (realy a pile of rubble) of Teti. It was mildly interesting in the way of carvings and such, but more of an introduction into the world of baksheesh (Egyptian tipping). Basically, at the door, a “watchman” would strike up a conversation and then follow you to explain the site, expecting to be kicked back some Egyptian pounds at the end. The next and more wonderous site was the Step Pyramid of Zoser, built in 2650 BC as the very first of the pyramids as we know them. We were not allowed inside, but the outside was more than worth it. Some of the surrounding funerary complex has been rediscovered and rebuilt, but mostly there is a lot of desert. In fact, by climbing one set of stairs, we had an expansive view over the Sahara. Truly a site on the edge of nowhere!"

Exhibition: Cultural treasures in Taiwan

http://taiwanjournal.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?CtNode=122&xItem=23980

"For many in Taiwan, spending days wandering the halls of the British Museum in London, enjoying exhibits from around the world while getting a dose of global culture strong enough to last a lifetime, was a dream beyond their reach. Time constraints and the daunting reality of having to fly nearly 10,000 kilometers have always presented seemingly insurmountable barriers, thwarting cultural aspirations, no matter how strong.
Thanks to the combined efforts of the National Palace Museum and the British Museum, locals can now experience a partial exhibition of the European museum's extensive collections showcasing the different facets of the evolution of human civilization. The exhibition, titled "Treasures of the World's Cultures: The British Museum After 250 Years," runs from Feb. 4 to May 27 and is part of a series of events staged to create a more culturally festive atmosphere before the launch of the Lunar New Year celebrations.
Divided into 13 sections--including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Europe, Asia, the Islamic World, Africa, Oceania and the Americas--the exhibition showcases works of sculpture and painting, as well as historical and cultural artifacts in a wide range of materials, such as precious objects, glass, gold, silver, bronze, stone, wood, and ceramic from the Paleolithic Age up to the 20th century. Of the 271 historical artifacts valued at over US$150 million on display, 15 percent will be making their first appearance in Asia."

A Sliver of Ancient Egypt in Central Park

http://www.nysun.com/article/50597
The Dahesh Museum, at Madison Avenue and 56th Street, has extended the run of its outstanding exhibition Napoleon on the Nile to April 22. Napoleon's Egyptian venture was militarily disastrous. But the "savants" he sent along with his soldiers helped lay the foundation of modern Egyptology. Part of the Napoleonic booty was the Luxor obelisk (though it didn't go up in the Place de la Concorde in Paris until the time of Louis Philippe).
Egyptian obelisks have been swiped for centuries: They are rare and precious things. Only 22 remain in the world. Egypt still possesses five and Rome has 13. The Romans originally looted the obelisks, but the 16th-century Pope Sixtus V directed their present locations in the Eternal City. Istanbul, London, Paris, and New York each have one obelisk.
The obelisk behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Central Park, is the only ancient Egyptian obelisk in the Americas. How many people are aware of how immensely more important it is than the Met's Temple of Dendur? At least most New Yorkers have stopped calling the obelisk 'Cleopatra's Needle,' in a silly attempt to "sex it up" by association with the actress Claudette Colbert."

Hawass: Lucky hat #2

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/836/he2.htm

"The hat given to me by Ptti Rabbit has rescued me from death. It really did save my life. How was this? Well, the story began little over a month ago, two weeks before I travelled to the US for my eye surgery. I was excavating a site at Taposiris Magna 45km west of Alexandria to search for the tomb of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra. To spruce up the excavation work, I appointed an Egyptian team to work there in collaboration with Katherine Martinez from the University of the Dominican Republic. While we were digging there, cleaning an area near a wall, a huge stone weighing approximately 20kg suddenly fell on my head. I am grateful to God that the stone was only about 30cm higher than my head because it did not have to fall very far. After the stone fell, I felt that my head was about to crack open, but I said thank you to my hat because it had saved my life. I hope that people will now stop criticising me and my hat and realise that it has its uses."

Aid metamorphosis

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/836/ec1.htm

"With a diverse range of development projects that span nearly the whole of Egypt, the USAID programme aims to launch projects that can sustain themselves in the long run without USAID's help, according to the ambassador. "Our assistance is not intended to last forever, we don't wish to create dependency," Ricciardone told Al-Ahram Weekly. "We want to help make the Egyptian economy so strong that it can sustain itself without foreign assistance, and work in a natural way to attract investment."
A recent trend in the aid programme, which was unheard of a decade ago, is the conservation of ancient monuments such as the Shonat Al-Zebib conservation site in Abydos, south of Sohag. The site which marks the funerary cult enclosure of King Khasekhemwy dates back to the Second Dynasty, making it one of the world's oldest free-standing masonry buildings. Ricciardone believes that conserving such monuments can have a direct effect on poverty eradication. "We hope that by preserving these monuments we will also add to the attraction of Sohag in terms of tourism, and that too can generate some employment opportunities," he explained.
The conservation effort, which cost LE5 million, took place under the umbrella of the Egyptian Antiquities Programme (EAP) and was conducted by New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. The conservation work included the use of sand bag buttresses to stabilise the deteriorating mudbrick walls surrounding the funerary."

Journal of The Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 32

http://thessea.org/journal.php
Volume 32 (2005) of the annually produced Journal of The Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities is now available. A list of articles, together with their abstracts, is available at the above address. Full articles, available in PDF format, are available for members only.

Roman frescoes at Luxor Temple

http://touregypt.net/teblog/luxornews/?p=450

Photographs of the restored frescoes and the restoration team, on Jane Akshar's Luxor News blog, above.