Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said the third stage of the project will be completed in 26 months, noting that GEM would be open for visitors by mid 2012.

Egypt's Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni and Dr. Zahi Hawass returned a piece of red granite belonging to an ancient Egyptian temple to its rightful place - the base of Amenemhat I's naos. The naos piece was returned to Egypt last October by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, after it was purchased by the Museum from an antiquities collector in New York.

Parliament 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 amendment requires Egyptians who have antiquities to report their possessions to the Supreme Council of Antiquities, headed by Zahi Hawass, in six months. The sale of antiquities is still banned.

Egypt will soon reveal the results of DNA tests made on Pharaoh Tutankhamun, to answer lingering mysteries over his lineage, the antiquities department said. Speaking at a conference, archaeology chief Zahi Hawass said he would announce the results of the DNA tests and the CAT scans on Feb. 17. The results will be compared to those made of King Amenhotep III, who may have been Tutankamun's grandfather.

Excavations on part of an ancient 2.7km avenue of sphinxes that once linked temples in Luxor and Karnak should be completed in March, Egypt's antiquities chief said. Archaeologists have so far uncovered 65 of the 1 350 sphinxes that lined a path between temples during the time of Pharaoh Amenhotep III.

Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the temple of Queen Berenike as well as 600 Ptolemaic statues in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria in what may be the first traces of the ancient city’s royal quarters, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said.

Documents show that Howard Carter cheated on many counts, manipulating photographs, forging documentation on the discovery and deceiving the Egyptian Antiquities Service. Objects in several museums have now been revealed to belong to Tutankhamun's treasures.

Egyptian archaeologists discovered a new set of tombs belonging to the workers who built the great pyramids. The most important new tomb discovered belonged to a man named Idu and the statement described it as rectangular in structure, with a plaster covered mud brick outside casing.The tomb also featured burial shafts encased in white limestone. Further grave sites were found around the main tomb, including burial shafts containing skeletons and clay pots.

Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed the largest tomb yet discovered in the ancient Saqqara necropolis, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said. One of two tombs found, which were carved out of stone, consists of a vast chamber that branches off into many alcoves. One alcove contained skeletons and pottery, and led to another chamber with a seven-metre-deep well.