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The largest of the two voids is located just above the grand gallery — a passageway that leads to what may be the chamber of the pharaoh Khufu — and is about 98 feet (30 meters) long and 20 feet (6 m) in height, according to previous pyramid scans. Archaeologists are uncertain as to what they will find in the void, which could be one large area or several small rooms, they said. They also hope to find out the function of that void; the most fantastic possibility is that the opening is the hidden burial chamber of Khufu. A...

Get ready to walk like an Egyptian - King Tut is on his way back to the Big Apple. Tickets went on sale Tuesday for an exhibit of artifacts from the boy pharaoh's tomb, opening April 23 at the Discovery Times Square Exposition. To mark the occasion, former Mayor Ed Koch welcomed a 25-feet-tall, black-and-gold statue of the jackal-headed god Anubis, which floated on a barge past the Statue of Liberty to arrive at the South Street Seaport. King Tut was a huge hit the last time he was here, bringing 1.8 million visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art...

Egyptian antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass insisted Tuesday that Tutankhamun was not black despite calls by US black activists to recognise the boy king's dark skin colour. "Tutankhamun was not black, and the portrayal of ancient Egyptian civilisation as black has no element of truth to it," Hawass told reporters. "Egyptians are not Arabs and are not Africans despite the fact that Egypt is in Africa," he said, quoted by the official MENA news agency. Hawass said he was responding to several demonstrations in Philadelphia after a lecture he gave there on September 6 where he defended his theory. Protestors also...

"This time I mean it very seriously," is how Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, characterized his fresh demand for the bust of Queen Nefertiti, which German archaeologists brought home in 1913... Hawass has long called on Berlin to return the bust of Nefertiti, which sits in the city's Egyptian Museum, but SPIEGEL revealed in this week's edition of the magazine that an obscure document from 1924 charged the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt with "cheating" to secure the bust for Germany... The secretary of the German Oriental Institute reported in 1924 on a 1913 meeting between Borchardt and a senior...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - They were together only a few hours. But that brief union of a celebrated, 3,000-year-old bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti with a modern bronze nude body touched off a furor. Some Egyptians are calling the art project at Berlin's Egyptian Museum an insult to their culture and demanding the return of the ancient bust, charging it isn't safe in German hands. The museum director, Dietrich Wildung, answers that his museum's most famous piece was never at risk and defends the videotaping of Nefertiti's head on a nude torso as a legitimate artistic experiment. The tape...

CAIRO, March 28 (AFP) - Egyptian and German archeologists have discovered the head of a colossal statue which could be an image of Nefertari, the queen of Pharaoh Ramses II, a senior antiquities official said Thursday. The head, discovered in the Nile Delta region of Tel Basta, could also belong to her daughter Princess Merit-Amon, the official said. "The head, in granite, stands 3.5 meters (about 11 feet) high and is 3 meters (about 10 feet) wide, and weighs more than 11 tons," the director of antiquities for the Delta, Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud, told AFP. "These measurements mean that the...

"I am leaving because of a variety of important reasons. The first reason is that, during the Revolution of January 25th, the Egyptian Army protected our heritage sites and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. However, in the last 10 days the army has left these posts because it has other tasks to do. The group now in charge of the protection of these sites is the Tourist Police, but there are no Tourist Police to do this either. Therefore, what happens? Egyptian criminals, thieves (you know, in every revolution bad people always appear…), have begun to destroy tombs. They damaged...

Since 1881, the obelisk known as Cleopatra's Needle has stood in New York's Central Park, but a letter from the secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities indicates that this may change if the monument is not taken better care of. Recently, Zahi Hawass, the aforementioned secretary general and archaeologist, wrote to the Central Park Conservancy and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to inform them that if steps are not taken to protect the obelisk, it would be removed. "I am glad that this monument has become such an integral part of New York City, but I am...

Dr. Zahi Hawass, the secretary general for Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities told a press conference Wednesday that hosting the Tutankhamun's tomb at the Discover Time Square Exposition cheapened the exhibition. "This priceless artifact should be at the Met, not at this hole," Hawass said. In an embarassing preview for the exhibition, Hawass called Arts and Exhibitions International President John Norman to the stage and demanded he "answer the question. Why is King Tut not at the Met?" Norman responded by saying then when plans to bring Tut back to New York began over five years ago, he met with...

Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, announced that his country wanted its queen handed back forthwith, unless Germany could prove that the 3,500-year-old bust of Akhenaten's wife wasn't spirited illegally out of Egypt nearly a century ago... Then he said he was sure the work had been stolen... Mr. Hawass also recently fired a shot at France, demanding the Louvre return five fresco fragments it purchased in 2000 and 2003 from a gallery and at auction. They belonged to a 3,200-year-old tomb near Luxor and had been in storage at the museum. Egypt had made the demand before, but this time...

The man responsible for protecting Egypt's antiquities has said he will "fight" for the return of an ancient bust of Nefertiti, an ancient Egyptian queen, now housed in a Berlin museum. Zahi Hawass also requested the temporary return of other ancient Egyptian artifacts, including the Rosetta Stone which is housed in London's British museum. "Some people say, 'If we give this bust to Egypt for three months they will not return it'." Hawass said, regarding the bust of Nefertiti, in an interview on Wednesday.Zahi Hawass is seeking "unique artifacts" from at least 10 museums around the world [AP]Germany says the...

Plans for a grand exhibition of the teenage pharaoh's treasures at the venue have been thrown into doubt because Egyptian officials will not allow the artefacts to be displayed next to a proposed casino... "If there is a casino in the dome, I will not send the exhibits to London," declared Zahi Hawass, the secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. "It's insulting. These Egyptian artefacts have dignity and therefore we should keep this dignity. I will never -- [even] if they give us a billion dollars -- show an Egyptian exhibit next door to a casino." ...The venue cost...

Renowned Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass, On Egyptian TV: 'The Jews Went to America and Took Control of its Economy… They Have a Plan… They Control the Entire World' Photo: Drhawass.com[1]In June 2009, internationally renowned Egyptologist and Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities secretary-general Zahi Hawass[2] made headlines when he gave U.S. President Barack Obama a personal guided tour of the Pyramids.[3] In February 2010, Dr. Hawass was in the news following the culmination of the two-year international and interdisciplinary investigation into King Tut's death that he led.[4] A New York Times article last week noted his role in the restoration...