Recording the tomb of Tutankhamun from factum-arte on Vimeo.

The high resolution recording and production of an exact facsimile of the Tomb of Tutankhamun is part of a major initiative by the Supreme Council of Antiquities to preserve the tombs in the Valley of the Kings while making important tombs that are either closed or in need of closure accessible to the public and to scholars.

The project has been launched by Dr Zahi Hawass in collaboration with the University of Basel, The Friends of the Royal tombs of Egypt, the Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation and Factum Arte.

All the recording of the tomb of Tutankhamun has now been completed. Work on the processing of the data is now underway and work on the facsimile of the burial chamber and sarcophagus of Tutankhamun will be completed in time for the opening of the Susanne Mubarak Children’s Museum in January 2010.

Dr Zahi Hawass has identified a site near Carter House at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings to install the facsimiles and a full feasibility study has been commissioned. It is estimated that over 500,000 visitors a year will visit the site and that the paying visitors to the facsimiles will provide revenue that can be used to ensure the long term preservation of the Theban Necropolis.

FACTUM ARTE

The American-Egyptian mission from Yale University has stumbled upon what appears to be the remains of a substantial settlement. The city is a thousand years earlier than the major surviving ancient remains at the Umm Mawagir area in Kharga Oasis.

The settlement is dated to the Second Intermediate Period (ca.1650-1550 BC) and was discovered during excavation work as part of the Theban Desert Road Survey. This project serves to investigate and map the ancient desert routes in the Western desert.

The newly discovered settlement lies along the bustling caravan routes connecting the Nile Valley of Egypt and the western oasis with points as far as Darfur in western Sudan. Archaeological evidence at the site indicated that its inhabitants were part of an administrative center and they were engaged in baking on a massive scale.

During excavations remains of large administrative mudbrick structures were found. These buildings consisted of rooms and halls similar to administrative buildings previously found in several sites in the Nile Valley. These sites may have been used as a lookout post as part of the administrative center of the settlement. Part of an ancient bakery was also found with two ovens and a potter’s wheel, used to make the ceramic bread molds in which the bread was baked. The amount of remains from the debris dumps outside the bakery suggest that the settlement produced a food surplus and may have even been
feeding an army.

drhawass.com

On very rare occasions you get to watch a movie so enticing that you never want it to end. Such is the case of Cairo Time, a stunningly beautiful film that leaves you wanting for yet another chance to reach a conclusion that is simply not there.

Everyone who sees Cairo Time feels as much for Juliette in her desire to spend more time in the city of the thousand minarets and give the main characters an opportunity to turn their infatuation into full-fledged love. The problem is that this is a love affair, an unexpected circumstance due to the politics of the Middle East region.

Except for the chaotic traffic, time seems to take a leisurely stroll as we witness Juliette alone or accompanied by Tareq touring alluring Cairo in a way that Syrian-Canadian writer/director Ruba Nadda has very cleverly woven into the story line.

Cairo Time has the perfect blend of elements for a captivating romantic film; incredible cinematography, breathtaking vistas, superb acting, a script that has just the right words and an evocative soundtrack that captures the mounting sexual tension within the grandeur of eternally exotic Cairo.

Egypt has, for the last two decades, been encouraging university graduates to leave the city and grow food on dry, uncultivated land.

It all began, 20 years ago, in Egypt’s capital, Cairo.

A national newspaper announced that the government was trying to solve the unemployment problem for young graduates – and there were several options. One was to take out a government loan and start a business, another was to get a car. The third option… to buy some cheap farmland that you repaid over 30 years.

The country is aiming to reclaim about 150,000 acres of land each year.

Throughout the desert, east and west of Cairo, dozens of villages are made up of some 40,000 graduates who’ve taken the chance to come to farm.

Despite some stumbles, they’ve reclaimed about a million acres of land, and passed on newfound technical skills to the locals who already eked a living in this harsh terrain. With help from the government and abroad, they’ve started schools, clinics and water reclamation plants.

Despite their successes, the government has now decided not to renew its experiment in helping willing graduates back to the land, unless they have agriculture degrees and are willing to join forces with larger investors.

As for millions of other graduates across the world, who can’t yet find decent work in the global economy, unless other countries follow Egypt’s example, they may have to wait for their own fairytale to begin.

Excerpted from an article by Steve Bradshaw for BBC News

Only eight months after the new Ashmolean was opened by the Queen following a £61m extension scheme, the museum has submitted plans to refurbish its Egyptian galleries.

The work would focus on part of the ground floor in the original Ashmolean building in Beaumont Street which was largely untouched by the major expansion.

It will complete the museum’s new Ancient World Floor, made up of galleries spanning the world’s great ancient civilisations, including Egypt, Rome and Classical Greece.

The four existing Egyptian galleries will be refurbished and a fifth gallery created by transforming the Ruskin Gallery, now occupied by the Ashmolean shop which will move to the lower ground floor, next to the cafe.

The museum’s collections have included important Egyptian artefacts since 1683, when the museum was founded. The collection now contains about 40,000 objects, with some recognised as the finest outside Cairo.

The shrine of Taharqa, the largest free-standing ancient Egyptian building in the UK, and the human and animal mummies are still among the Ashmolean’s biggest attractions.

If planning approval is granted work would begin in October. The Egyptian galleries would be closed completely from January, reopening late next year.

Oxford Mail

Egypt recovered a Greco-Roman bust from Canada.

Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosny, announced that the bust had been illegally smuggled out of Egypt but that the Canadian authorities were giving their full cooperation to repatriate the artifact. Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said that the bust would be handed over to the Egyptian ambassador to Canada, Shamel Nasser, who will then send the bust back to its homeland of Egypt.

Hawass explained that the object is a 13 cm tall marble bust that has been stored at the Heritage Canada Foundation since Canadian Police confiscated it in 2007. Following several negotiations between Egypt and Canada, the bust is finally being returned. Ambassador Nasser said that the recovery of this bust highlights the strong friendship and cooperation between Egypt and Canada.

An ambitious $100 million canal project to bring water from the Nile river to the Toshka desert 225 km south of Aswan in Egypt to convert arid regions into farmland and boost animal production has been completed.

The Sheikh Zayed Canal project, funded by the Abu Dhabi government, is part of a bigger human settlement plan that aims to construct all modern civic amenities in the desert.

The grant was mainly used in the construction of the canal, three irrigation stations and development of farmland.

The canal has a capacity to irrigate about 100,000 acres within the integrated irrigation system envisaged for the development of the southern valley covering over 24 km.

As part of the larger project, farms, irrigation and road network, agricultural facilities and buildings, laboratories, factories and other amenities will be built.

News-Views

When Jihan El Midany leads the Egyptian delegation into Saturday’s opening ceremony of the inaugural Youth Olympics, it will be a historic moment for her country.

The 18-year-old pentathlete will become the first woman from Egypt to serve as a flag bearer at an Olympic event. And if she wins a medal as expected in the competition that includes swimming, shooting, fencing and running, she would be the first woman from her country to do so at an Olympic event.

The Youth Olympics, which runs through Aug. 26, features about 3,600 competitors aged 14 to 18 from 204 countries competing in the same 26 sports on the current Summer Olympics program.

El Midany almost abandoned the pentathlon this year after the sports governing body required athletes to wear swimsuits that exposed the neck, shoulder and legs. She was “disappointed” by the ruling, but got the blessing of her family and sporting authorities to compete in Singapore. She admits feeling “uncomfortable” in the new suit, but knows the swimming event doesn’t last long.

Google News

In Egypt, “Chinese gold”– an affordable imitation of the precious metal– has swamped the jewelry market, granting the poor a little taste of luxury.

The current price of one gram of 24 carat gold in Egypt stands at 218 Egyptian pounds (38 dollars), while the Chinese version — a mixture of aluminium, iron and other metals — only costs around 20 to 30 Egyptian pounds (four to five dollars) per gram.

For young couples struggling to start a new life together, the arrival of Chinese gold has removed at least one obstacle to the costly traditions that surround marriage, including the dowry or “shabka”.

A groom is required to offer his bride a shabka of gold — or diamond for those who can afford it — in order to seal the marriage deal. This is in addition to him providing housing and furnishing a new apartment ahead of the wedding.

Google News

Perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz of Boulder has re-created the fragrances of ancient Egypt in conjunction with the ” Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs” exhibit at the Denver Art Museum for its gift shop.

Hurwitz researched those ancient scents through books at The British Museum in London, works from Egyptian archaeologists and some amateur Egyptologists.

The top seller is Cardamom and Khyphi, which Hurwitz says is probably the most famous perfume that comes from ancient Egypt. It started as incense with ingredients such as juniper berry, myrrh gum and frankincense gum, she says. Add a few other items, mash it, boil it for 21 days and, voilu, you get perfume.

Luckily, modern practice is quicker. Hurwitz buys her oils and aromatics from growers and distillers worldwide. After sampling the smells, she begins to mix the notes. Like music, perfume is broken down into notes. The top notes are scents you smell immediately after putting on the perfume. The middle notes emerge when the top notes start to fade away. That leaves the base notes, which are the main themes of the perfume.

Excerpted from an article by Sara Padorr for denverpost.com

Click here for a list of Dawn Spencer Hurwitz’ creations for the King Tut exhibit at the Denver Art Museum