Ancient Egypt

Switzerland on July 3 handed back to Egypt a fragment of a 3,400-year-old statue of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II, which was stolen more than 30 years ago.

Carine Bachmann, director of the Federal Office of Culture, handed over the fragment to the Egyptian embassy in the capital Bern.

Archaeologists in Egypt have unearthed two human and animal embalming workshops, as well as two tombs, discovered in the Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo, the government said on May 27.

The vast burial site, at the ancient Egyptian capital Memphis, is a UNESCO World Heritage site and home to more than a dozen pyramids, animal graves and old Coptic Christian monasteries.

Some 2,000 mummified ram heads dating from the Ptolemaic period and a palatial Old Kingdom structure have been uncovered at the temple of Ramses II in the ancient city of Abydos in southern Egypt, antiquities officials said on March 25.

The discovery of dozens of beakers and bowls in a mummification workshop has helped reveal how ancient Egyptians embalmed their dead, with some "surprising" ingredients imported from as far as Southeast Asia, a study said on Feb. 1.

How old is the Sphinx?

The charging of the Louvre's former director in an antiquities trafficking investigation has shone a light on a vast, transnational criminal problem that remains fiendishly difficult to target.

Egypt on Monday unveiled a cache of sarcophagi and bronze statuettes, including one of pioneering architect Imhotep, at the Saqqara archaeological site south of Cairo.

They were the latest in a series of discoveries made in the area.

The 2,700-year-old Ushabti statuettes used in funeral rituals in ancient Egypt and found in archaeological excavations in western Turkey began to be exhibited for the first time at the İzmir Archaeology Museum.

Ushabti figures, small statuettes made of wood, stone, or faience, are often found in large numbers in ancient Egyptian tombs.

Workers dig and ferry wheelbarrows laden with sand to open a new shaft at a bustling archaeological site outside of Cairo, while a handful of Egyptian archaeologists supervise from garden chairs.

Archaeologists hailed on April 8the discovery of "the largest" ancient city found in Egypt, buried under sand for millenia, which experts said was one of the most important finds since unearthing Tutankhamun's tomb.

Famed Egyptologist Zahi Hawass announced the discovery of the "lost golden city", saying the site was uncovered near Luxor, home of the legendary Valley of the Kings.