Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said that Egypt has received 454 rare pieces from Myers Museum in London that had been illegally carried from Egypt in the Seventies. These pieces were in the possession of the English family "Ron Duffy", which in turn donated them to the Myers Museum, but some family members objected to the decision as they thought that it would be better to donate them to the Egyptian Museum.

In the 1970s and 1980s an International Photographic Mission initiated and sponsored by the Association Internationale de Papyrologues and UNESCO made slides and photographs of the several thousand published Greek papyri held in the Cairo Museum. The International Photographic Archive of Papyri (IPAP) consists of about 6000 slides and large format negatives, in equal proportions, held at Oxford, Brussels, Cologne, Heidelberg and Copenhagen. These images are now available via the website http://ipap.csad.ox.ac.uk/index.shtml.

A small bundle found at the feet of an ancient Egyptian mummy contained the remains of a young dog, according to University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology staff. The approximately 2,300-year-old puppy, revealed during a recent CT scan, is thought to be one of the world's rarest mummified animals.

The Coptic Museum archives, considered to be the world's most important Coptic library and containing more than 5,000 manuscripts and books, are being given a facelift. Since January, the library has been converted into a scientific laboratory so that a comprehensive survey to assess the current conditions of its treasured manuscripts and books can be carried out.

The bust of Queen Nefertiti housed in a Berlin museum and believed to be 3,400 years old in fact is a copy dating from 1912 that was made to test pigments used by the ancient Egyptians, according to Swiss art historian Henri Stierlin. He says in a just-released book that the bust currently in Berlin's Altes Museum was made on the orders of Germany archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt on site at the digs by an artist named Gerardt Marks.

Archaeologists have found a nearly 5,000-year-old tomb near Egypt's mud brick Lahun pyramid, in a sign that the site held religious significance a millennium before previously thought. Inside the tiny tomb a box-like wood coffin contains what is left of the remains of a 40 to 49-year-old man who was likely a significant figure in the ancient Egyptian government of the time. The body, buried in a bent position and wrapped in linens, was not well preserved.

The Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Zahi Hawwas said that a Greek archeological mission discovered a rare statue made of white marble in Alexandria. The 80 cm long, 23 cm wide statue has been discovered eight meters deep under the earth surface. The facial features of the statue are much similar to that of Alexander the Great especially the nose and hair style, he said.

An Egyptian archaeological team has found prehistoric fishing gear, sewing equipment and jewellery all made from animal bones, as well as pottery and coins in the Fayum oasis near El-Karn island on Lake Qarun. The team also found a rare block which dates back to 3150 BC depicting the mythical leader known as the Scorpion King.
See also: http://www.drhawass.com/blog/press-release-archaeological-discoveries-fa...

Very detailed 3D scans of a 3000-year-old mummy of the Egyptian temple singer and priestess Meresamun.

Fragments of pottery with inscriptions in one of pre-Islamic languages have been found by a U.S-Polish team of archaeologists near Berenike, a Greco-Roman harbour on the Egyptian Red Sea coast. The finds confirm that Berenike was the most active Red Sea port during Hellenistic and Roman times. Inscriptions and other written materials found in Berenike have been written in 12 different languages. This attests to the cosmopolitan mix of people who lived in or passed through the town.