Austrian archaeologists have found a Babylonian seal in Egypt that confirms contact between the Babylonians and the Hyksos during the second millennium B.C. Irene Forstner-Müller, the head of the Austrian Archaeological Institute’s (ÖAI) branch office in Cairo, said the find had occurred at the site of the ancient town of Avaris near what is today the city of Tell el-Dab’a in the eastern Nile delta.

The aims of this project are to create a scientific database, including all the objects which come from the Karnak Cachette; to set up photographic documentation concerning the Karnak Cachette, by numbering archives in the current collections and taking additional photographs; to describe each object and give the museographical, epigraphical, prosopographical data and complete bibliography in relation to it and to make the database available on the web.

A German antiquities expert will attend talks next month to discuss Egypt’s demand for the return of a 3,500-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti. Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s antiquities council, said that a meeting planned in Egypt on Dec. 8 to discuss the possession of the statue would be attended by the director of the Egyptian antiquities department at the Berlin museum.

The project to restore the tomb is the latest collaboration between Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute, which in the past restored nearby tombs and designed airtight cases to display Egypt's mummies. The conservation plan will involve a two-year research period to determine the causes of deterioration, followed by three years of implementation. The SCA said it had yet to decide how long the tomb would be closed during that time.

Bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones found in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert have raised hopes of finally finding the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. The 50,000 warriors were said to be buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C.

French archaeologists have unearthed in El- Sharqiya province four ancient wells that date back to the 25th and 26th pharaonic dynasties. The wells are part of a newly-discovered Sacred Lake in a temple to the Egyptian goddess Mut in the ruins of ancient Tanis.

CT scans of Egyptian mummies, some as much as 3,500 years old, shows evidence of atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries, which is normally thought of as a disease caused by modern lifestyles, researchers said today

Egyptian officials have postponed their visit to Iran where they were to discuss the possible location of a Persian army that vanished 25 centuries ago. There had been reports that the remains of an army led by Persian King Cambyses II had been discovered by the Castiglioni brothers in a small oasis not far from Siwa, Egypt.