The Supreme Council of Antiquities announced the discovery of twelve new sphinx statues located at the end of a newly discovered road from the reign of Nectanebo I (380-362 BC).

This is the first time an ancient road that runs from east to west, toward the Nile, has been found. The most interesting part of this new discovery is that the 20 meters of road so far excavated is built from sandstone from the quarries at Gebel Silsila, north of Aswan. The total length of this road to the Nile is about 600 meters. Dr. Hawass mentioned that along this way the sacred boat of Amun, king of the gods, traveled on the god’s annual trip to visit his wife, Mut, at Luxor temple, and the king used it as well for religious processions.

drhawass.com

The home page links to a general history of the organization and its current structure and divisions.

The website features lists of sites, museums and exhibitions overseen by the SCA, all accompanied by their respective rules and permissions. A page for the SCA Store names all the publications and artifact replicas available for sale at the SCA headquarters in Zamalek, Cairo. The SCA also sponsors a series of Monday-night lectures, information for which can be found in Lectures and Events. Future events will be posted on the “SCA Events” page as they are scheduled.

Breaking News section – features current and archived columns by Dr. Hawass and provides a link to the SCA Press Office archives

Monthly Column – Dr. Hawass’ highlights of his recent work

Media Resources – PDFs outlining filming and photography regulations for media professionals

Press Office’s page – housed under Media Resources includes current and archived press releases of discoveries, initiatives, and conferences in which the SCA has been involved

Foreign Mission Resources – titles of current and recent projects undertaken by foreign excavators or heritage professionals, with the members of each project listed below the project title

Download Forms page – SCA regulations, application, security form and ASAE publication guidelines

Finally, Recovering Stolen Treasures outlines one of the most concerted initiatives of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in the post-imperial era, reintroducing into Egypt’s possession the thousands of artifacts taken illegally out of the country.

Visit the SCA website at http://www.sca-egypt.org/

The Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt (SCA) is proud to announce that it has been entrusted by the International Association of Egyptologists (IAE) with the task of organizing the 11th International Congress of Egyptologists (ICE) 2012. The SCA hopes to build on the enormous success of the 2000 Congress, the last to be held in Cairo, which is remembered as one of the most memorable Egyptological gatherings in recent history. The ICE 2012 will be held from September 7-14, in the Mena House Oberoi at Giza, and scholars are cordially invited to participate by submitting abstracts of research papers.

The ICE 2012 follows the end of a decade that has witnessed a complete restructuring of the SCA’s administrative system and redefining of its mission in the management of Egyptian archaeological heritage. Over the past decade, the SCA has strengthened its relationship with all members of the Egyptological community, a relationship that is based on mutual respect, and partnership to preserve and protect Egypt’s antiquities. The organization of the ICE 2012 represents one part of this cooperation between the SCA and international scholars, focusing on a better understanding of Egypt’s rich heritage.

The International Congress of Egyptologists is traditionally open to all areas of Egyptological research, and it is the goal of the organizing committee of the ICE 2012 to maintain the ethos set by the previous congresses by seeking research papers focusing on all major themes of Egyptology. However, a multidisciplinary approach to aspects of Ancient Egypt and its material culture is highly encouraged. The list of suggested themes includes: history, social history, prehistory and state formation, archaeology, art history, cross-cultural relations, economy, religion and religious literature, language and literature, archaeometry, and museum studies. Also, proposals for closed sessions (3-4 papers) reporting on the progress of excavation on major archaeological sites will be considered by the scientific committee of the ICE, and time slots will be allocated upon the approval of the proposal.

While attendance of the ICE 2012 is open to all Egyptologists, abstracts of papers will only be accepted from MA and PhD holders, who also must be members of the IAE. In keeping with the tradition set previously, the ICE 2012 organizing committee will administer a refereed congress, whereby abstracts will be peer-reviewed. In the same manner, articles submitted for final publication of the ICE 2012 proceedings will also be subject to peer review.

The languages of communication of the ICE 2012 are English, French, German and Arabic. For scholars who are proposing to present in Arabic, their abstracts should, however, be submitted in English for peer review. The deadline for abstract submission, as well as, the guidelines will be included in the second announcement of the ICE 2012 in January 2011. Questions should be sent to Dr. Ramadan B. Hussein, Coordinator of the ICE 2012 at: rbhussein@gmail.com.

When I speak of ancient Egypt, I am speaking about my first and greatest love, however this does not mean that I do not love anything else, as I appreciate the magnificence and beauty of Islamic art and the genius of the Muslim artists who were able to tame their tools to create a new type of art in accordance with the values of Islam. I think that if I specialized in Islamic antiquities I would speak about this from my heart in the same way that I speak about ancient Egyptian antiquities. In Egypt, there is a popular expression that goes “let the baker make the bread,” meaning that everybody should work according to their own specialization, and this should also apply to antiquities. Therefore whilst I love Islamic, Coptic and Jewish antiquities and monuments, my first love is ancient Egyptian antiquities and monuments.

Asharq Al-Awsat

The People’s Assembly amended Egypt’s antiquities law on Monday to bring in stiffer punishments for the theft and smuggling of relics while granting patent rights to the country’s antiquities council.

The sale of antiquities is still banned and Egyptians who have antiquities must report their possessions to the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Relics can in the future only be given as a gift with the council’s authorization. They may also be passed on as part of an inheritance.

The new law increases prison sentences for smuggling artifacts out of Egypt to 15 years and a fine of LE 1 million. The penalty for stealing artifacts has been doubled to 10 years.

It also increases the punishment for tampering with antiquity sites to five years in jail, while a new provision gives patent rights to the antiquities council on precise replicas of antiquities that are certified by the council.

Google News

Article 8 of the proposed law, supported by Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, would ban the trade or any other form of disposal, of antiquities unless there is a written consent from the Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA). It also states that the council has the right to take an antiquity from the owner and offer a reasonable compensation.

On the opposing side, senior National Democratic Party MP Ahmed Ezz proposed to permit the trading of antiquities inside Egypt. Ezz argued that the majority of Egyptians don’t know the characteristics of an antiquity and some people inherit an antiquity unknowingly, and so penalizing them would be unfair.

Source: zawya.com

What is interesing about this is Malkata is littered with pottery, tonnes of it. Most of it from the Eighteenth dynasty, including some nice red wares (lovely colours), slipped ware, fine bowls, burnished ware. Yet neither of the would-be vendors had picked any of this up, they knew their market, the blue-painted pottery is coveted by western collectors and that is what they were stealing from the site to make a bit of cash. It seems to me to be utterly pointless special pleading to deny that this sort of thing is part of the case for the proposition that current modes of no-questions asked collecting are directly contributing to the creation of the market which is the motor behind the looting of archaeological sites for saleable objects.

Both tombs are cut into the hills and, despite of being looted in the 5th Century AD, the excavators found coffins, skeletons, mummified eagles and pottery.

One of the tombs is the largest one discovered so far in this area, with rock-hewn hallway, small chambers and corridors. The smaller tomb is made of mud brick.

Source: Heritage Key and other sources

“These tombs belonged to middle class Egyptian families, not royalty, and had no names on them. They were reused by many people and can give us lots of information on burial customs and religion at the time.” Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s head of antiquities who led the all-Egyptian archaeological team, told Reuters.

abcNews

A meeting was held today at the offices of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, where Dr. Friederike Seyfried, Director of the Aegyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung in Berlin, presented Dr. Hawass with copies of all of the key documentation held by the Berlin Museum concerning the discovery and removal from Egypt of the Bust of Queen Nefertiti.

From the Press Release:

As director of the Berlin Musem, Dr. Seyfried does not have the authority to approve the return of the head to Egypt, but will act as liaison between Dr. Hawass and the relevant German officials, Dr. Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, and Dr. Bernd Neumann, Minister of State for Culture.

Based on the information currently in the possession of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Hawass will call a meeting of the National Committee for the Return of Stolen Artifacts this week, which will then make a formal request for the return of the Bust of Nefertiti.

drhawass.com

Egypt will host an international conference next March for countries seeking the return of ancient indigenous treasures being kept in foreign museums.

The secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said the conference would be a world first.

”We expect around 12 countries to participate, possibly several more,” Dr Hawass said.

”There is a moral imperative for museums around the world to return certain artefacts to the countries they came from, and we are going to identify how we can help each other to increase the pressure on the keepers of those artefacts.”

Among those nations to attend will be Greece, Italy, China and Mexico.

The Sydney Morning Herald

I need to inform the public that recent reports published in newspapers, news agencies and TV news announcing that “twin brothers Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni have unearthed remains of the Persian army of Cambyses,” are unfounded and misleading.

The brothers are not heading any archaeological mission in Berenike Panchrysos at the small Bahrin Oasis near Siwa Oasis. This site has been excavated since 2002 by an Italian mission led by Dr. Paulo Gallo of Turin University. The Castiglioni brothers have not been granted permission by the SCA to excavate in Egypt, so anything they claim to find is not to be believed.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities has already informed the proper legal and security authorities in Egypt and are taking the necessary procedures.

- Zahi Hawass

The route from Gilf Kebir to the Great Sand Sea is one that can be accomplished by tourists, with all the permissions for travel in place, so there’s no reason why the team should have been able to travel this route as tourists with a secondary agenda. This has been done many times before. The difficulty comes in when people start their own investigations and remove objects for analysis (for example the TL dating of ceramics). This oversteps the line. On having discovered the skeletons and artefacts the brothers appear to have provided information to the authorities but went ahead with a Discovery article anyway, presenting their investigations as a bona fide archaeological mission, which it clearly wasn’t.

In as far as this particular discovery is concerned the real regret is that because of the way in which the Castiglioni brothers made their announcement without waiting for official SCA recognition the discovery will probably be moth-balled, tied up in red tape and bureaucracy and not properly investigated in the near future. That’s a shame because whatever the finds represent the fact is that something was found and it would be good to initiate an official project and learn more about it.