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SAQQARA, Egypt - Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the "missing pyramid" of a pharaoh and a ceremonial procession road where high priests carried mummified remains of sacred bulls, Egypt's antiquities chief said Thursday. Zahi Hawass said the pyramid — of which only the base remains — is believed to be that of King Menkauhor, an obscure pharaoh who ruled for only eight years more than 4,000 years ago. In 1842, German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius mentioned Menkauhor's pyramid among his finds at Saqqara, calling it the "Headless Pyramid" because its top was missing, Hawass said. But the desert sands covered Lepsius'...

CAIRO: Egyptian archaeologists have discovered what they say was the ancient headquarters of the pharaonic army guarding the northeastern borders of Egypt for more than 1,500 years, the government said on Wednesday. The fortress and adjoining town, which they identify with the ancient place name Tharu, lies in the Sinai peninsula about 3km northeast of the modern town of Qantara, Egyptian archaeologist Mohamed Abdel Maksoud said. The town sat at the start of a military road joining the Nile Valley to the Levant, parts of which were under Egyptian control for much of the period, the government's Supreme Council for...

Grim secrets of Pharaoh's city By John Hayes-Fisher BBC Timewatch Bones reveal the darker side to building Ancient Egypt Evidence of the brutal lives endured by some ancient Egyptians to build the monuments of the Pharaohs has been uncovered by archaeologists. Skeletal remains from a lost city in the middle of Egypt suggest many ordinary people died in their teenage years and lived a punishing lifestyle. Many suffered from spinal injuries, poor nutrition and stunted growth. The remains were found at Amarna, a new capital built on the orders of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, 3,500 years ago. Hieroglyphs written at the...

How Pharaoh sailed to Karnak New discoveries at Karnak Temple in Luxor have changed the landscape and the history of this great religious complex, writes Nevine El-Aref Clockwise from top: Ptolemaic bath with 16 seats; a stelae bearing the name of the 25th-Dynasty King Taharqa; the obelisk of Tuthmoses I at the eight pylons; restoration work at the Chapel of Osiris Neb-Ankh History has a special scent and taste at Karnak Temple. The emotions it evokes are powerful and timeless. Inside the lofty pylons is amassed an unsurpassed assembly of soaring obelisks, awe-inspiring chapels and hushed sanctuaries reflecting the spectacular...

Is she or isn't she? Mummy lab working to ID pharaoh queen CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Months after Egypt boldly announced that archaeologists had identified a mummy as the most powerful queen of her time, scientists in a museum basement are still analyzing DNA from the bald, 3,500-year-old corpse to try to back up the claim aired on TV. DNA testing continues on these mummified remains thought to be Queen Hatshepsut. So far, results indicate the linen-wrapped mummy is most likely, but not conclusively, the female pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled for 20 years in the 15th century B.C. Running...

Contact: Aeron Haworth aeron.haworth@manchester.ac.uk 44-771-788-1563 University of Manchester Manchester University helps with pharaoh DNA analysisPreliminary results support positive identification of Egyptian queen Preliminary results from DNA tests carried out on a mummy believed to be Queen Hatshepsut is expected to support the claim by Egyptian authorities that the remains are indeed those of Egypt’s most powerful female ruler. Egyptologists in Cairo announced last month that a tooth found in a wooden box associated with Hatshepsut exactly fitted the jaw socket and broken root of the unidentified mummy. Now, Dr Angelique Corthals, a biomedical Egyptologist at The University of Manchester, says...

'They Show No Respect for Their Caesars'by Gerald A. HonigmanDec 18, '06 / 27 Kislev 5767  E-mail This  Print  Homepage The year was 1887. An Egyptian woman discovered a treasure trove of over three hundred clay cuneiform tablets that would shake the world of religion and the study of ancient history. Named for a local Bedouin tribe, the Tel El-Amarna tablets (which can now be found mostly in the Berlin and British Museums) were mostly the official correspondence between Pharaoh Amenhotep IV - Akhenaten - and his governors and vassals from places such as Canaan, Syria, Babylonia, etc. They date mostly from...

Researchers studying Tut hit by huge storm, CT malfunction Scientists who recently conducted a high-tech examination of King Tut's mummy insist they don't believe in the "Curse of the Pharaohs." Still, some awfully strange things happened when the team X-rayed the boy king's body with a medical CT scanning machine. On the way to the Egyptian site, one researcher's vehicle nearly hit a child. Then a huge storm hit. The CT machine, usually reliable, wouldn't work at first. And when researchers finally began the CT scan, one scientist came down with such a violent coughing attack he had to leave....

Engineers on Friday moved a 3,200-year-old statue of Ramses II. The pharonic statue had stood for more than 50 years in a congested square in downtown Cairo. Its new home will be at a tranquil spot next to the Great Pyramids. Thousands came out to watch the statue makes its 20 kilometer journey. Onlookers crowded along the street around the statue of Pharaoh Ramses II which was surrounded by a convoy including 1,500 soldiers, during the final leg of its journey It took 10 hours for the 11 meter, 83 ton statue to travel through downtown Cairo and cross the...

CAIRO (Reuters) - A massive statue of one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs, Ramses II, rolled through the streets of Cairo to a new home near the Pyramids on Friday to escape the corrosive pollution of its former spot in a crowded transit hub. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to bid farewell to the 3,200-year-old red granite statue, which weighs 83 tons and was wrapped in plastic and thick padding for the painstakingly slow 35 km (21 mile) journey, which took 10 hours. Only the face was visible. "We are going to miss you. Cairo will never be...

Georgeos Diaz-Montexano, scriptologist and Egyptologist amateur, has been able to identify the names of the Hyksos kings like pertaining to the group of languages and proto-Greek or Mycenaean's dialects. The true ethnic origin of the mysterious Hyksos that were able to take control of the power of a considerable part of Old Egypt, during centuries XVII to the XVI before Christ, has been always a true challenge for the Egyptologists. However, the generalized opinion more for a long time has been that the Hyksos would be Semitic towns, fundamentally coastal inhabitants of the strip Syrian-Palestine, that is, Canaanites or proto-Phoenicians....

No, this is not a blonde joke. If you want one of those, go to this week’s Humor File. Cleopatra was in fact a blonde. That’s because she was not Egyptian. She was a Macedonian Greek, with hair as blonde as Alexander’s. Alexander conquered Egypt in 332 BC, then went on to subdue all of the Middle East. When he died nine years later, his just-conquered empire was fought over and carved up by his generals. The one who ended up running Egypt was Ptolemy (367-283 BC). Declaring himself Pharaoh, he founded the Ptolemaic Dynasty, with twelve Ptolemies in succession,...

This is the chamber where King Khufu was ultimately buried. Unfortunately, all that remains in this sacred space is the king's sarcophagus made of large blocks of red granite. Khufu's body, along with his earthly possessions, were looted before archaeologists arrived. Some of the colossal ceiling stones for the King's Chamber weigh as much as 9 tons. This chamber, which lies 95 meters below the apex of the pyramid, is a remarkable space in which to stand and some visitors come from points far and near to meditate here.

Statue of Egyptian pharaoh found after nearly 3,600 years Sat Jun 4, 4:45 PM ET LUXOR, Egypt (AFP) - Buried for nearly 3,600 years, a rare statue of Egypt's King Neferhotep I has been brought to light in the ruins of Thebes by a team of French archaeologists. Officials said on Saturday that the statue was unusual in that the king is depicted holding hands with a double of himself, although the second part of the carving remains under the sand and its form has been determined by the use of imaging equipment. Archeologists unearthed the 1.8 metre (six foot)...

CAIRO -- Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a number of rare Pharaonic seals of soldiers sent out on desert missions in search of red paint to decorate the Pyramids, Egypt's culture minister said on April 28. The 26 matchbox-sized seals belonged to Cheops, who ruled from 2551 to 2528 BC, in whose honor the greatest of the great pyramids of Giza southwest of Cairo was built, and show Pharaonic soldiers' ranks, the MENA news agency quoted Farouq Hosni as saying. "These seals were used by a mission sent by Cheops to collect ferric oxide, which is necessary to make red paint,"...

Coptic manuscripts unearthed in Pharaonic tomb in Egypt Published February 21, 2005 CAIRO -- Polish experts excavating in the southern city of Luxor have discovered three ancient Coptic manuscripts in a Pharaonic tomb, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Saturday. The find was the single most important Coptic discovery since 1945 when a pair of bedouins stumbled onto the Coptic codices in Nag Hammadi in Egypt's western desert, it said. The manuscripts date to the sixth century and were concealed in a Middle Kingdom (2000 to 1800 BC) tomb in Luxor, about 710 kilometers (440 miles) south of Cairo,...

Kheops [Khufu, building of the Great Pyramid] was succeeded by Djedefre, his oldest surviving son. The mother of Djedefre is unknown. He married his (half-) sister Hetepheres II, which may have been to legitimise his claims to the throne if his mother was one of Kheops’ lesser wives... The Turin King-list credits him with a rule of 8 years, but the highest known year referenced to during this reign was the year of the 11th cattle count. This would mean that Djedefre ruled for at least 11 years, if the cattle counts were anual, or 21 years if the...

[T]he exclusively masculine epithets referring to this individual in the same tomb and on a now-vanished block at Memphis, confirm that we are dealing with a man - as distinct from the pharaoh-queen Ankh(et)kheperure Neferneferuaten... Contrary to Ancient Egyptian custom, Smenkhkare is not presented under a coronation name and a birth name in his two cartouches, but under two coronation names. The explanation for this curious fact seems to me clear: both his royal names were composed on the occasion of his coronation. He therefore must have had another name beforehand... The absence of a birth name, the lack of...

Instead of building a 'saff' tomb like those of his predecessors, Mentuhotep II decided to build an impressive tomb by the cliffs of Deir el Bahri (the same location chosen in the 18th dynasty by Hatshepsut). A T-shaped terrace was built using masonary and by using the natural rock. The walls built on this terrace were then decorated both inside and out with painted relief carving.

Black pharaoh trove uncovered The Nubian kings ruled 2,500 years ago Monday, 20 January, 2003, 17:47 GMT By Ishbel Matheson A team of French and Swiss archaeologists working in the Nile Valley have uncovered ancient statues described as sculptural masterpieces in northern Sudan. The archaeologists from the University of Geneva discovered a pit full of large monuments and finely carved statues of the Nubian kings known as the black pharaohs. The Swiss head of the archaeological expedition told the BBC that the find was of worldwide importance. The black pharaohs, as they were known, ruled over a mighty empire...

Monday, 20 January, 2003, 17:47 GMT Black pharaoh trove uncovered The Nubian kings ruled 2,500 years ago By Ishbel Matheson BBC, Nairobi A team of French and Swiss archaeologists working in the Nile Valley have uncovered ancient statues described as sculptural masterpieces in northern Sudan. The archaeologists from the University of Geneva discovered a pit full of large monuments and finely carved statues of the Nubian kings known as the black pharaohs. The Swiss head of the archaeological expedition told the BBC that the find was of worldwide importance. The black pharaohs, as they were known, ruled over a mighty...

4,000-year-old seal of Egyptian pharaoh found in stable ruins on Scottish estate By Paul Kelbie Scotland Correspondent 05 June 2002 An ancient Egyptian seal belonging to a pharaoh who died almost 4,000 years ago has been uncovered in the rubble of a Scottish stable block. The delicately carved soft blue-grey stone, which measures only 45mm (2in) in height, was found during excavations of Newhailes, a 17th-century country house in Musselburgh, near Edinburgh. The seal is highly polished and bears a series of hieroglyphics inside a royal cartouche, which experts have been able to identify as an official seal of office...