The pioneering exhibition, 'Illustrations of Time: Impressions from Edfu Temple', consists of hundreds of works of art by Spanish painters Asunción Jódar Miñarro and Ricardo Marín Viade. The drawings, many of which are over two meters in height, were made between 2005 and 2010 and are based on sketches from life and photographs of the 31 priests’ figures from the west staircase of the Ptolemaic Temple of Horus in Edfu, Egypt. It is the first exhibition on contemporary art to be hosted at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
'Illustrations of Time: Impressions from Edfu Temple' has been jointly organized by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), the Cervantes Institute in Cairo, and the University of Granada in Spain.
There were six Ceremonial Chariots discovered in the Tomb of King Tutankhamun (KV62), all dismantled in order to be able to take them down through the narrow corridors. In addition to the discovered chariots were miscellaneous fittings which would have belonged to other chariots. Sandro Vannini, the Egyptology photographer who has captured on film some of most stunning artefacts in history, took photographs of the State Chariot - the most beautifully decorated of the six found in the chamber - and the images are bought exclusively to the internet by Heritage Key.
These small ritual figures portray Tutankhamun riding a papyrus raft, hunting an invisible hippopotamus with a spear or harpoon. They came in a pair and were located along with 32 other ritual figures inside a black resined wooden box in the treasury section of Tut's tomb, KV62, in the Valley of the Kings. Like all of the statuettes found, they are believed to have had a ritual and religious significance. The ancient Egyptians expected them to aid the young pharaoh's passage to the afterlife.
The hippopatmus was considered by the ancient Egyptians to symbolise evil and disorder, because the evil deity Seth - according to Egyptian mythology - transformed himself into a hippo before he was defeated by the god Horus, in a battle in a swamp. Tut is therefore shown restoring order to the Egyptian universe like a golden god, by hunting down the hippo.
Carved from hard wood, and covered with gold leaf, he is shown in highly realistic detail taking a long stride forward, as he prepares to launch his spear. In his other hand is a coiled bronze rope, for capturing the defeated animal. The style of the statuettes reflects trends of the Amarna period - particularly the exaggeration of certain physical features. It has been speculated that they may have originally been created as an image of Tut's father, the "heretic pharaoh" Akhenaten, who founded Amarna.
In the age of video games, board games might not be the popular pastime they once were. But they have a venerable history.
Board games originate thousands of years ago as a spare-time preoccupation of the upper-castes of civilizations from South America to China, Egypt and northern Europe.
One does have to wonder how Zahi Hawass actually finds time to partake in any archaeology. The Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities is one of the world’s leading archaeologists, as well as one of its most famous. When he’s not travelling the world promoting Egypt’s wonders (Dr. Hawass will be in London on the 8th of December) or grabbing headlines demanding them back, he must surely find himself tied to his desk, busily tinkering away at his keyboard. How else would Hawass manage to become one of archaeology’s most prolific authors?
As we described in our recent handy guide to how to make a mummy, the ancient Egyptians went to great and grizzly lengths to ensure that every last bit of a body was efficiently preserved. The internal organs had to be removed in order to effectively dry out a corpse. They would then be individually wrapped and preserved separately in canopic vessels.
Dr Janice Kamrin takes us on a trip through the Egyptian Museum, Cairo and shows the spectacular Canopic Shrine - a golden and intricately decorated container flanked by four figures of gods. Inside this stunning shrine was the Canopic containers, which held the vital organs of the mummified body. Made from solid blocks of alabaster, the individual viscera containers were themselves protected inside gold coffinettes.
The third and innermost coffin of Tutankhamun is one of the most splendid relics in human history. Unlike the boy-king's first and second coffins, this is made of solid gold, which Howard Carter excitedly explained in his diaries.
"An astounding fact was disclosed," he wrote. "The third coffin...was made of solid gold! The mystery of the enormous weight, which hitherto had puzzled us, was now clear. It explained also why the weight had diminished so slightly after the first coffin, and the lid of the second coffin, had been removed. Its weight was still as much as eight strong men could lift."
Carter thus spent weeks removing a hard layer of thick black resin that had been laid tightly between the inner coffin and its middle counterpart. However once this was done, the coffin's true beauty was there for all to see. 1.88m tall, the masterpiece weighs around 110kg - and its gold shell ranges from 0.25 to 0.3cm thick.
King Tut's face is slightly more subdued-looking than the outer coffin at least, with obsidian pupils and calcite whites for his eyes. Like the second coffin, the king's brow is adorned with the nemes, and blue, green and red faience beads comprise his stunning necklace.
One does have to wonder how 
