A lost ancient Egyptian tomb has been rediscovered by archaeologists in the desert sands south of Cairo.

It has taken him more than a decade, but Italian-Israeli archeologist Prof. Emmanuel Anati now believes his controversial view that the biblical Mount Sinai is in Israel’s Negev desert rather than Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula will soon be adopted by the Vatican.

A team of archaeologists excavating at the site of Amenhotep III’s enormous funerary temple in Luxor have uncovered the 3,000-year-old head of a massive statue of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh, the king of Egyptian kings, whom DNA testing has recently proven was Tutankhamun’s grandfather.

Archaeologists in Egypt made a stunning discovery recently: two of the largest tombs ever found in Saqqara, the ancient burial ground near Memphis where the country once buried its rulers.
According to French news agency AFP, one of two tombs found consists of a vast chamber that branches off into many alcoves, one containing skeletons and pottery, another containing a 23-foot deep well.
“This is the largest tomb in Saqqara,” Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the head of the mission, told the AFP. “It took me two …

‘Egypt is the gift of the Nile’, wrote the Greek historian Herodotus. The Nile’s gift is a layer of fertile soil, replenished annually at the time of the inundation. The Blue Nile conveys the rich silt from the huge catchment area of Ethiopia; an enormous amphitheatre defined by 4,000 metre high mountain peaks. The turbid water churns through canyons and gorges, collecting tributes from the Rihad and Dinder Rivers. Urged northwards by heavy rains and melting snow it cascades over the cataracts of eastern Sudan. On reaching Khartoum the Blue …

An Austrian archaeological mission discovered the remains of a seal made of burnt clay with inscriptions in cuneiform, said Culture Minister Farouq Hosni.
The remains of the seal, found by the mission of the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Cairo and the Egyptology Institute of the University of Vienna, were unearthed during excavation works in the archaeological area of Tal El-Daba’a in al-Sharqiya governorate, 120 kilometres northeast Cairo
Zahi Hawas, the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said the seal, dating back to the Babylonian era, namely the ruling time of …

Recently I was involved in a discussion about ‘icons’. Originally the word referred to a wooden carving or a painting of a religious scene. Nowadays the concept of an ‘icon’ has been usurped by modern usage to mean a recognisable image or symbol representing a product or attribute. Computer screens are full of these little graphic representations. Strangely I have also heard people referred …

The remains of a mighty Persian army said to have drowned in the sands of the western Egyptian desert 2,500 years ago might have been finally located, solving one of archaeology’s biggest outstanding mysteries, according to Italian researchers.
Bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones found in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert have raised hopes of finally finding the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. The 50,000 warriors were said to be buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C.
“We have found …

The Egyptian mud-brick house of British archaeologist Howard Carter has been reopened as a museum.
Carter was living in the house 87 years ago when he made his most famous discovery, the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun.
He had been employed by collector Lord Carnarvon to search for the tomb of the then relatively unknown pharaoh.
The museum displays tools he used in excavations and a collection of photographs of him at work.
It was in November 1922 that the archaeologist made his extraordinary find.
It proved to be the most intact and best preserved …

Researchers have come across evidence in the form of microscopic bits of pollen and charcoal in ancient sediment layers which indicate that Alexander the Great was not the first to settle the area along Egypt’s coast that became the great port city of Alexandria.
Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. The city sits on the Mediterranean coast at the western edge of the Nile delta.
Its location made it a major port city in ancient times; it was also famous for its lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient …