This website is a personal project of mine that I hope to fill with original content over the coming months and years.  What you see here is just the beginning, If time permits I'd like to have at least one new article written every week in an effort to provide a valuable resource on ancient Egypt and answers to many of the common questions and misconceptions regarding her history.

If you check "Latest updates" in the top left navigation page you can keep up to date on the development of content.  For the time being you'll find the majority of content under the pyramid section, as it is with regard to this area that I most frequently receive questions.

Regards,

Pete Vanderzwet

Latest content submitted:

Were the Pyramids Aligned Astronomically?
Tomb Robbery in Ancient Egypt & the 20th Dynasty Trials.
Who Built the Pyramids?
Prince Khaemwaset: History's First Archaeologist?

Coming soon:

A Geological Analysis of the Sphinx.
Foreman Paneb: Artist, Thief, and Murderer.
An Attempt to Better Understand the Rekhyt Bird. (This will take some time).

Mummy Smugglers Reveal Vast Antiquities Black Market 
FOX July 28/11

Nevertheless, so many mummies were made during ancient Egypt times that enough were available to make mummy powder, or mummia, whose pigment "one assumes was a dark brown," said Gary Vikan, director of the Walters Art Museum. "Mummification was not just something for pharaohs or the upper class ...

VMFA reviewing artifacts after Chesterfield man indicted in smuggling scheme

By Mark Bowes
July 20, 2011

The aftershocks of a federal probe that dismantled an international smuggling ring of Egyptian antiquities is being felt in Richmond at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which has closely re-examined the ownership origins of eight artifacts on loan from a Chesterfield County businessman indicted in the scheme.By MARK BOWES

A  General's Wife is MIA (or AWOL?)
Al-Ahram
August 19/09
By Zahi Hawass

I am currently trying to locate the bones of Horemheb's queen, Mutnodjmet, in order to include her remains within our DNA research on the family of King Tutankhamun. Her bones could be an extra piece of the puzzle in helping us to identify more individuals who were related to the Golden Boy.

Egyptian Youth Pay Tribute to the Pyramids
CCTV.com
August 12/09

The towering pyramids are the most recognizable symbol of the country. Young Egyptians launched a campaign to promote preservation of the ancient monuments last weekend.

More than 400 Egyptian youth began a march, starting at the Sphinx and ending at the pyramids. They hoped the parade would raise public awareness on the need to preserve the ancient sites.

Putnam Museum unwraps new Egyptian mummy display
Kay Luna
August 11, 2009

With its gray industrial tile, stationary labels and faux-wood shelving, the Egyptian mummy exhibit room - deep in the basement of the Putnam Museum - has looked the same since about the 1970s.

"So, since about the `Partridge Family,' " Davenport artist Steve Banks, 36, said out of the blue, sending those around him into fits of laughter, "or maybe the `Brady Bunch.'"

"These shelves look like they could've been made by Mike Brady," chimed in museum history curator Christina Kastell, referring to the father on the old "Brady Bunch" TV show.

Well, not anymore.

4000 Year Old Dye Found on Egyptian Artifact

AP - August 10/09

WASHINGTON - Four thousand years ago Egyptians had mastered the process of making madder, a red dye, according to a researcher who uncovered the earliest known example of the color still used today.

Refining a technique that allows the study of microscopic bits of pigment, Marco Leona of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York was able to analyze the color of a fragment of leather from an ancient Egyptian quiver.

The discovery that the color was madder is the earliest evidence for the complex chemical knowledge needed to extract the dye from a plant and turn it into a pigment, Leona reports in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Also see: Scientific American

Do Mummies Sweat?
By Hazel Heyer, ETN Staff Writer
August 12/09

Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni has said the tomb of Haremhab, in the Valley of the King’s on Luxor’s West Bank, has been reopened following the installation of the state-of-the-art equipment controlling the rate of humidity within the burial ground.

According to Minister Hosni, the tomb has received for the first time technology of this kind, installed in an attempt to reduce and control the rate of humidity and heat. Humidity has affected the tomb’s wall paintings in the past leading to its initial shutdown.

Discovery Channel to air new series, hosted by Dr. Kara Cooney

In its early days, cable-TV was deeply dependent on Nazis, sharks and mummies. Documentaries kept returning to the same, high-profile subject.

And now that cable is thriving? There are fewer World War II films, but Discovery – fresh from its latest Shark Week – is launching “Out of Egypt.”

This time, those old pyramids and mummies are just a starting point for Kara Cooney, a UCLA professor. “It's about culture all over the world,” she said.

You can see interviews with Dr. Cooney here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS0uOXfVhzI (2007)
and here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lq2SdvPvi4 (2009)

Efforts to control humidity in KV 57
Discovery News
August 05/09

The tomb of Haremhab, in the Valley of the King’s on Luxor’s West Bank, has been reopened today following the installation of state-of-the-art equipment to control the rate of humidity within.

Belonging to Haremhab, the last Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty from 1319 BC to late 1292 BC, the tomb is the first to have such technology installed. The aim is to reduce and control the rate of humidity and heat. This condition has heavily affected the burial’s wall paintings in the past, leading to its original closure.

A scientific team is now monitoring the efficiency of the technology. If all operates successfully, the innovative equipment will be installed in all tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

Also: From Zahi Hawass

Unwrapping Brooklyn's Mummies
Archaeology Magazine
July 24/09

On June 23, 2009, a team from the Brooklyn Museum supervised by Edward Bleiberg, curator of Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Middle Eastern Art, and Lisa Burno, Head Objects Conservator, transported four mummies from Brooklyn to North Shore University Hospital for CT scans. Drs. Jessie Chusid, Amgad Makaryus, and Karen Lisk of North Shore volunteered their time and services to scan four of the oldest patients they had ever encountered. The mummies on board were from various periods dating from the Third Intermediate Period (1064-656 B.C.) to the Roman Period (30 B.C.-A.D. 395). The trip was smooth and the CT scans went without trouble. The scans produced vast amounts of data to be sorted and analyzed, but even immediate, preliminary readings of the scans revealed some very unusual discoveries. Pasebakhaemipet, a Theban "prince" of the 21st dynasty, had a reed in his throat (1070-945 B.C.). "Lady" Hor of the 22nd Dynasty was identified as a man after 70 years of misidentification (712-664 B.C.). Thothirdes also of the 22nd Dynasty had also been misidentified as a woman, while the fourth, an unnamed first-century Roman period mummy still had some brain left in him. Bleiberg discussed the Brooklyn Museum's fascinating mummies and their CT scans with ARCHAEOLOGY's Morgan Moroney. He described what's been learned so far and the future plans for the scans, while emphasizing the importance of non-intrusive mummy unwrappings, the open exchange of scholars, excavating in museum storerooms, and public outreach.