Prominent Egyptian archaeologist and former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass has launched a petition for the return to Egypt of the pharaonic bust of Queen Nefertiti from the Neues Museum in Berlin. Nefertiti's famous painted limestone bust was uncovered at Tell el-Amarna, around 300 km (185 miles) south of Cairo, in 1912 by a German archaeological mission, which shipped it to Berlin the following year. Amarna was the short-lived capital of Nefertiti's husband, the 18th dynasty Pharaoh Akhenaten, who reigned until about 1335 B.C. FILE PHOTO: The bust of Queen Nefertiti, Berlin, March 1, 2021. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch Akhenaten, called the heretic king, was notorious for promoting the worship of the god Aten to the exclusion of Egypt's other gods. His reign also introduced a ra...
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Read MoreEgypt unearthed human and animal mummification workshops as well as two tombs in the ancient burial ground of Saqqara, officials said on Saturday, marking the latest in a string of discoveries that the country hopes can help revive its vital tourism industry. Mostafa Waziri, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters that the two large "embalming workshops" date back to the 30th dynasty (380-343 BC) and the Ptolemaic (305-30 BC) eras. Reflections of people are seen on the unearthed ancient artefacts displayed after a conference to announce the newly discovered site where two embalming workshops for humans and animals along with two tombs and a collection of artefacts were found, near Egypt's Saqqara necropolis, in Giza, Egypt May 27, 2023. REUTERS/Amr Abdalla...
Read MoreEgypt has restored, documented and opened to tourists the Middle Kingdom tomb of Meru, the oldest site accessible to the public on Luxor's West Bank, home to some of its most spectacular Pharaonic monuments including the Valley of the Kings. Meru was a high-ranking official at the court of the 11th Dynasty King Mentuhotep II, who reigned until 2004 BC and who, like Meru, was buried at the necropolis of North Asasif, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday. An Egyptian employee works at the 4,000-year-old tomb of Meru, the oldest site accessible to the public on Luxor's West Bank, Egypt February 9, 2023. The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities/Handout via REUTERS Meru's rock-hewn tomb was restored by the Polish Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw and...
Read MoreFor thousands of years, ancient Egyptians mummified their dead in the search for eternal life. Now, researchers have used chemistry and an unusual collection of jars to figure out how they did it. Their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is based on a rare archaeological find: An embalming workshop with a trove of pottery around 2,500 years old. Many jars from the site were still inscribed with instructions like “to wash” or “to put on his head.” By matching the writing on the outside of the vessels with the chemical traces inside, researchers uncovered new details about the “recipes” that helped preserve bodies for thousands of years. This illustration provided by Nikola Nevenov in January 2023 depicts an embalming process in an underground chamber in Saqqara, Egy...
Read MoreEgypt on Thursday unveiled dozens of new archaeological discoveries, including two ancient tombs, at a Pharaonic necropolis just outside of the capital Cairo. The artefacts, unearthed during a year-long excavation, were found beneath an ancient stone enclosure near the Saqqara pyramids and date back to the fifth and sixth dynasties of the Old Kingdom, spanning from roughly 2500 B.C to 2100 B.C., the excavation team said. Egyptian antiquities workers dig at the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, 24 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil) One of the uncovered tombs belonged to a priest from the fifth dynasty known as Khnumdjedef, while the other tomb belonged to an official named Meri, a palace official who held the...
Read MoreArchaeologists unearthed an ancient tomb in the southern Egyptian city of Luxor, known for its treasures dating back to the pharaohs, authorities said Saturday. Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said an Egyptian-British mission found the royal tomb in an ancient site on the west bank of the Nile River in Luxor, 650 kilometers (400 miles) south of the capital of Cairo. He said initial examinations show that the tomb apparently belongs to the 18th Dynasty of Pharaonic Egypt, which spanned from 1550 B.C. to 1292 B.C. The tomb is the latest in a series of ancient discoveries Egypt has touted in recent years in hopes of attracting more tourists. Egypt has been trying to revive its tourism sector, a major source of foreign currency. The ...
Read MoreThe debate over who owns ancient artifacts has been an increasing challenge to museums across Europe and America, and the spotlight has fallen on the most visited piece in the British Museum: The Rosetta stone. The inscriptions on the dark grey granite slab became the seminal breakthrough in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics after it was taken from Egypt by forces of the British empire in 1801. Now, as Britain’s largest museum marks the 200-year anniversary of the decipherment of hieroglyphics, thousands of Egyptians are demanding the stone’s return. ’’The British Museum’s holding of the stone is a symbol of Western cultural violence against Egypt,” said Monica Hanna, dean at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport, and organizer of one of two p...
Read MoreMarine scientists’ letter in the journal Science urges preservation of one of the last coral refuges from climate change An international group of marine scientists led by Karine Kleinhaus, of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), has published a letter in Science that is a call to action for policy makers, government agencies and ocean conservation groups to take major steps to preserve Egypt’s 1800 km of coral reefs– a massive section of the Red Sea’s reef system. Egypt’s reefs generate billions of dollars annually from tourism and tourism-related commerce. The reefs of the northern Red Sea are especially valuable as they constitute one of the world’s few marine refuges from climate change. Almost the entire western coastline of this ref...
Read MoreMissing Ukrainian and Russian tourists: From Sharm el-Sheikh to Adriatic coast
On Sharm el-Sheikh's sandy beaches many of the sun loungers lie empty. At a central promenade packed with shops, cafes and nightclubs, crowds are thinner than usual. The resort on the southern tip of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula is reeling from the impact of the war in Ukraine, which has seen Ukrainians and Russians - previously among the town's top visitors - virtually disappear, tourism sector workers say. A general view of a pool at a hotel in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, June 4, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany Similarly, the once ubiquitous Russian signs along Montenegro's picturesque Adriatic coast have all but disappeared as the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia keep tourists from those countries away from one of their favourite destinations. Adriat...
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