A Duke University-led research team will use an $814,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop collaborative online editing tools for ancient documents preserved on papyrus. The new electronic editing environment, when completed, will enable scholars –- regardless of their location -- to research, retrieve and display ancient texts, supplementary data and digital images of papyri.

The Digital Karnak Project aims to make the site of Karnak more accessible to students and instructors in the English-speaking world. The website features a geographically-referenced "time-map" highlighting the areas of the temple under construction during the reign of each Egyptian king, thematic videos of a 3D Virtual Reality model of the temple along with corresponding instructional texts, individual descriptions of each temple building recreated on the Virtual Reality model and a fully interactive Google Earth version of the model.

They discovered a ruined pyramid containing fine gold jewellery dating from about 700BC on a remote un-navigable 100-mile stretch of the Nile known as the Fourth Cataract, plus pottery from as far away as Turkey. Other finds included numerous examples of ancient rock art and 'musical' rocks that were tapped to create a melodic sound. They only made the discoveries after being invited by the Sudanese authorities to help excavate part of the Merowe region, which is soon to be flooded by a large hydro-electric dam. More than 10,000 sites were found.

Modern pressures in the form of new farms and buildings have taken their toll on the 3.1-mile (5-kilometer) wide area of Abydos. Local farmers have begun to reclaim land in the Abydos desert up to the walls of ancient temples. This month, a government-run project to renovate Abydos will begin, according to archaeologists and architects involved in the effort.

Minister of Culture Farouq Hosni toured on Sunday 19/10/2008 the second phase of the Pyramids plateau development project. He was accompanied by Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawwas. The second stage of the Ministry of Culture's project involves lighting works, road and sidewalk paving, the development of the Sphinx area and the construction of offices for employees.

Two Egyptian mummies who died more than 3,500 years ago have provided clear evidence for the earliest known cases of malaria, according to a study presented this week in Naples at an international conference on ancient DNA. Pathologist Andreas Nerlich and colleagues at the Academic Teaching Hospital München-Bogenhausen in Munich, Germany, studied 91 bone tissue samples from ancient Egyptian mummies and skeletons dating from 3500 to 500 B.C.

The 'Papyrus Portal' is a project that aims to provide the user with both the opportunity of an efficient and effective search of all digitized and electronically catalogued papyrus collections in Germany and an unified presentation of the search results with the most important information on the particular papyrus.