The talks between Zahi Hawass and the director of the Egyptian Papyrus Collection Friederike Seyfried at Berlin's Neues Museum has been postponed to december 20, 2009.

Worn teeth, periodontal diseases, abscesses and cavities tormented the ancient Egyptians, according to the first systematic review of all studies performed on Egyptian mummies in the past 30 years. After examining research of more than 3,000 mummies, anatomists and paleopathologists at the University of Zurich concluded that 18 percent of all mummies in case reports showed a nightmare array of dental diseases.

Zahi Hawass has revealed that an excavation team under his charge are investigating an ancient tomb at the centre of claims regarding the alleged discovery of a cave underworld beneath the Pyramids of Giza. In August British writer and explorer Andrew Collins announced that he had rediscovered the entrance to a previously unexplored cave system, entered via a tomb several hundred meters west of the Great Pyramid.

Egypt will host an international conference next March for countries seeking the return of ancient indigenous treasures being kept in foreign museums. Egypt is demanding the return of six iconic pieces that are among the world's most famous archaeological discoveries.

Ancient Egypt was renowned for its prowess in the field of medicine, so much so that sick people went there from abroad in search of herbal remedies. Archaeologists know that the herbs were administered in a potent blend with wine. But the identity of many of those medicinal additives is a mystery - their names recorded in hieroglyphics that have resisted modern efforts at translation. Now, two University of Pennsylvania scientists have begun to crack the puzzle with chemistry.

Dr Hawass first demanded the return of the stone in July 2003. After a series of negotiations, the British Museum sent Cairo a replica of the stone in November 2005. The museum said yesterday it would not return the original item.

Egypt's head of antiquities will drop a demand for the permanent return of the Rosetta Stone if the British Museum agrees to loan it out, he says. A spokeswoman of the meuseum said no official request had been made by Egypt for the permanent return of the stone, but the loan had been discussed and would be considered by the museum's trustees "fairly shortly".

France will hand back to Egypt five stolen relics on Monday when President Hosni Mubarak visits Paris, ending a row over the wall fragments sold to the Louvre. President Nicolas Sarkozy will confirm during his luncheon with Mubarak at the Elysee palace on Monday the decision to return the 3,000-year-old relics from Luxor's Valley of the Kings, aides said Thursday.

France has handed over to Egypt five disputed, frescoed fragments that were held by the Louvre museum in Paris. French President Nicolas Sarkozy presented one of the slabs, or steles, to his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak, who was on a visit to Paris.

Egyptian archaeologists on Thursday lifted an ancient granite temple pylon out of the waters of the Mediterranean, where it had lain for centuries as part of the palace complex of Cleopatra, submerged in Alexandria's harbor. The pylon, which once stood at the entrance to a temple of Isis, is to be the centerpiece of an ambitious underwater museum planned by Egypt to showcase the sunken city, which is believed to have been toppled into the sea by earthquakes in the 4th century.