Belgian archaeologists have rediscovered an ancient Egyptian tomb that had been lost for decades under sand. In 1880 Swedish Egyptologist Karl Piehl uncovered the tomb of Amenhotep, the deputy seal-bearer of Pharaoh Tuthmosis III. The tomb consists of an enclosure and a large hall divided into two parts by six columns. Laurent Bavay, the head of the Belgian team, said most of the inscriptions on the walls of the tomb were damaged.

A colossal statue of Amenhotep III has been raised and given back his head. The red quartzite statue, one of a set that stood around the courtyard of his funerary temple at Kom el-Hettan, near Luxor, fell centuries ago. In the early 19th century the British collector Henry Salt acquired its head, together with a second head from the same site, and both finished up in the British Museum.

During routine excavations at northwest Saqqara, an archaeological mission from Japan’s Waseda University discovered a previously unknown tomb dating to the 19th Dynasty. It lies near the tomb of Khaemwaset, a son of Ramesses II. The mission unearthed a limestone sarcophagus belonging to a noblewoman named Isisnofret, along with three human bodies and several fragmentary funerary objects.

A team of Egyptian and European archaeologists have discovered two statues of King Amenhotep III. Chief Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawaas said in a statement the first statute was made of black granite, while the second depicts the king in the shape of a Sphinx.

The tomb complex includes the base of a pyramid, a monumental gateway, a colonnaded courtyard, and an antechamber with three cult chapels, according to the team from Japan's Waseda University that has been excavating the site since 1991. Hieroglyphics on a sarcophagus in the tomb identify Isisnofret as a spst, or noblewoman—an honorific reserved for women of the royal family or of otherwise exceptional status.

A Spanish mission working at Dra Abu El-Naga on the West Bank at Luxor has discovered a second, painted burial chamber in the tomb of Djehuty (TT11). The Supreme Council of Antiquities says five golden earrings and two rings were found in the tomb of Djehuty, the head of the treasury under Hatshepsut. See also: http://www.drhawass.com/blog/press-release-new-discovery-tomb-djehuty-tt...

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni announced today that an archaeological team from the Vitelli Papyrological Institute of the University of Florence has discovered a talatat block from an Amarna Period monument reused in the construction of a Christian church at the site of Sheikh ‘Ibada (Antinoopolis). The block is carved in sunk relief with the image of a queen of the Amarna Period wearing the vulture headdress. Dr. Rosario Pintaudi, the mission’s director, believes that the queen depicted could be Nefertiti.

Archeologists and forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of Cleopatra’s younger sister Arsinoe.

Egyptian antiquities authorities revealed an ancient pharaonic embalming bed unearthed from a tomb near Luxor used to prepare bodies for mummification more than 3,000 years ago. The wooden bed was painstakingly restored after being discovered in pieces in the KV-63 tomb in southern Egypt's famous Valley of the Kings, next to Tutankhamun's tomb, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement.

Egypt is in talks with U.S. authorities to repatriate a 3,000-year-old pharaonic-era wood coffin that was intercepted by U.S. customs officials, Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities said. The statement said an American had bought the coffin from a Spanish dealer and shipped it to the United States, but U.S. customs officials in Miami, Florida impounded it on February 26 for lack of paperwork establishing legal ownership.