Dozens of ancient artifacts stolen by a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot were returned to the Egyptian government on Wednesday during a ceremony in Manhattan. Officials said the items, including several small urns on display at the ceremony, came from the Ma'adi archaeological site outside Cairo and date to 3,600 B.C. or earlier.

The purpose of the dam being constructed close to the Fourth Cataract, about 200 kilometres north of Khartoum, is to generate electricity. Once completed, its 200-kilometre long reservoir will displace 50,000 people and inundate countless archaeological sites including Meroe in the African kingdom of Kush.

In the wake of the 1997 attack at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor, the Egyptian government obliged all foreigners travelling overland between the country’s main tourist centres to join armed convoys. This visible security was intended to dissuade attacks and reassure visitors, but it has long outlived its usefulness.

The ram statues include the first discovery of a complete royal dedication in Meroitic script, only found before in fragments. The statues were discovered at el-Hassa, a site close to Sudan's 50-odd Meroe pyramids, about 200 km (120 miles) north of the capital Khartoum.

An archeological team has begun uncovering rubble under which the largest known statue of Pharaoh Ramses II is buried in the southern Egyptian town of Sohag. The statue, which workers discovered more than 15 years ago, 476 kilometers miles south of Cairo, is finally being uncovered. The Egyptian team had been hampered in its excavation work, until now, by the presence of a Muslim cemetery in the region of Akhmim across the Nile River from Sohag. Archeologists were finally able to begin their work when bodies from the modern-era cemetery were moved elsewhere.

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni has decided to put recently restored stolen antiquities from the United States at the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo. Egypt received in 2006 a tip about the sale of the artifacts to a U.S. antiquities dealer in the Maadi district. The dealer, identified as Edward George Johnson, managed to smuggle them out of Cairo Airport but was arrested by US federal authorities following a demand from Egypt.

An inscribed limestone block found in a storeroom at el Ashmunein shows that Tutankhamun was the child of Akhenaten. The stone block was used in the construction of the temple of Thoth during the reign of Ramesses II. See also: http://www.freshnews.in/stone-inscription-solves-mystery-of-king-tut%E2%...

Egypt retrieved on Friday 19/12/2008 a statue of the head of King Amenhotep III that had been smuggled out of Egypt in the nineties. The hand-over ceremony took place in the Egyptian Embassy in London.

Culture minister Farouk Hosni announced today that an Egyptian archaeological mission has discovered two rock-cut tombs at the El-Deir bridge area in the Saqqara necropolis, 400 meters south of the step-pyramid. The rock-cut tombs were built for high officials — one responsible for the quarries used to build the nearby pyramids and another for a woman in charge of procuring entertainers for the pharaohs. See also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7796675.stm

An Australian teacher who stuffed his luggage with 2,000-year old animal mummies and religious figurines wrapped as gifts was arrested Wednesday, an Egyptian airport security official said.