4,000-year-old tomb found in Egypt

Archaeologists have discovered a 4,000-year-old tomb in Egypt that contains a sarcophagus inscribed with ancient funeral texts as well as ritual objects, according to reports in the New York Daily News. The tomb dates from ancient Egypt's First Intermediate period (2181-2055 BC).

Ritual objects made from alabaster copper, terracotta and other materials were found in the tomb in Deir al-Barsha area in al-Minya province, around 250 km from Cairo.

Research suggest Ancient Egyptians were the original cat breeders

It has long been debated how cats went from running in the wild to becoming our domesticated furry friends.

Researchers may have solved the mystery after analysing the genetic makeup of Egyptian cat mummies.

The results of the study of DNA from the remains of ritually slaughtered animals found in tombs suggest that we have the people of Ancient Egypt to thank for our moggies and ginger toms.

For more see The Daily Mail

Pumping out drainage water from under the Sphinx

This week, Giza Inspectorate operated 18 water pump machines to pump out subterranean water that has accumulated under the Sphinx.

The machines are distributed over the Giza plateau according to a map showing the areas where the subterranean water has accumulated.

Mohamed Ibrahim Minister of State for Antiquities said that the machines will pump out 1100 cubic metres of water every hour, based on studies carried out previously by reputed Egyptian and American experts in subterranean water and ground mechanic and equilibrium factors.

Ahram Online

Police recover pharaonic artefacts stolen in wake of revolution

A collection of 35 ancient Egyptian artefacts stolen in the wake of last year's Tahrir Square uprising was recovered on Monday by Tourism and Antiquities police.

The objects were found buried in sand close to the Horemhab funerary complex in the Saqqara Necropolis on the outskirts of Cairo.

Ahram Online

Space archaeologist: Sarah Parcak

She's been called a real life Indiana Jones but Sarah Parcak, a self-described "space archeologist," says Indy has nothing on her.

"I'd take him on in a search for archeological sites and I'd win," the 33-year-old says.

Parcak uses infrared satellite imagery to uncover Egyptian ruins --pyramids, palaces, and tombs; ancient civilizations thought buried forever. Her work is mind-boggling and is literally transforming the field of archaeology.

ABC2 News

Jean-François Champollion and ancient Egyptian embalming

Two hundred years ago this year, the future founder of Egyptology, French linguist and archaeologist Jean-François Champollion (1790—1832)—the first person since classical antiquity to be able to read the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs—conducted a primitive experiment. It turned out to be one of the initial scientific steps on the long road to unravelling the mysteries of mummification, first described in the fifth century BC by the Greek historian Herodotus.

In 1812, Champollion was an impecunious 21-year-old assistant professor of history at the University of Grenoble and an assistant at the city's municipal library.

For more, see The Lancet

In Egypt turmoil, thieves hunt treasures

Taking advantage of Egypt's political upheaval, thieves have gone on a treasure hunt with a spree of illegal digging, preying on the country's ancient heritage.

Illegal digs near ancient temples and in isolated desert sites have swelled a staggering 100-fold over the past 16 months since a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak's 29-year regime and security fell apart in many areas as police simply stopped doing their jobs. The pillaging comes on top of a wave of break-ins last year at archaeological storehouses - and even at Cairo's famed Egyptian Museum, the country's biggest repository of pharaonic artifacts.

Horrified archaeologists and antiquities authorities are scrambling to prevent smuggling, keeping a watch on European and American auction houses in case stolen artifacts show up there.

Ahram Online

More artefacts to return to Egypt

After two years with Brussels Airport Customs Police, a collection of 80 artefacts that were stolen from Egypt and illegally smuggled out of the country is to arrive to Cairo.

The story started in April 2010 when Customs at Brussels Airport caught an Egyptian woman trying to smuggle 80 genuine objects concealed inside two large replica Egyptian statues.

The objects were confiscated by the Belgian police while Brussels National Museum verified their authenticity. According to routine, the museum referred the case to a Brussels court and Egypt succeeded in obtaining a court order that the artefacts be retrieved.

Ahram Online

Ancient Egyptians tracked eclipsing binary star Algol

Turn your telescope to the constellation of Perseus and you might note an unusual star called Algol, dubbed the 'Demon Star' or the 'Raging One'. You wouldn't notice anything much different at first, unless you happened to be looking during a window of a few hours -- every 2.867 days -- when Algol's brightness visibly dims.

This unusual feature was first noticed back in 1667 by an astronomer named Geminiano Montanari, and later confirmed -- with a proposed possible mechanism - in 1783 by John Goodricke, who precisely measured the period of variability: it dims every 2.867 days.

But a new paper by researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland, claims that the ancient Egyptians may have recorded Algol's periodic variability 3000 years ago, based on their statistical analysis of a bit of papyrus known as the Cairo Calendar.

Discovery News

Ancient Egyptian mummy suffered rare and painful disease

Around 2,900 years ago, an ancient Egyptian man, likely in his 20s, passed away after suffering from a rare, cancer-like disease that may also have left him with a type of diabetes.

When he died he was mummified, following the procedure of the time. The embalmers removed his brain (through the nose it appears), poured resin-like fluid into his head and pelvis, took out some of his organs and inserted four linen “packets” into his body.

At some point the mummy was transferred to the 2,300 year-old sarcophagus of a woman named Kareset, an artifact that is now in the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, Croatia.

The mummy transfer may have been the work of 19th-century antiquity traders keen on selling Kareset's coffin but wanting to have a mummy inside to raise the price.

Until now, scientists had assumed a female mummy was inside the Egyptian coffin. The new research reveals not only that the body does not belong to Kareset, but the male mummy inside was sick. His body showed telltale signs that he suffered from Hand-Schuller-Christian disease, an enigmatic condition in which Langerhans cells, a type of immune cell found in the skin, multiply rapidly.

Fox News