Replica of King Tut's Tomb to Open in Egypt

Exact copy will be near the Valley of the Kings, site of the original tomb.

A. R. Williams
National Geographic
Published October 23, 2013

Visitors to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt will soon be touring a replica of King Tut's tomb rather than the real thing. The installation of an exact copy is now scheduled to begin in January 2014, with an opening to the public expected in April.

King Tutankhamun, like all prominent ancient Egyptians, hoped that people would remember him forever, calling out his name into eternity.

But even in his wildest fantasies, the teenage ruler could never have imagined that he would become the rock star of the pharaohs. Since British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered his tomb in 1922, countless thousands of tourists have come to visit, descending a flight of stairs and a sharply sloping corridor to arrive at the painted burial chamber.

And therein lies the problem. As breathtaking as a visit to the tomb may be, people eventually have to breathe. And with each breath, they exhale bacteria, mold, and moisture.

In one day 400 visitors can leave behind an ounce of vapor. Add body heat and the warmth from light bulbs, and the 1,182-square-foot (109.83-square-meter) space turns almost tropical.

That's an unhealthy environment for any work of art, let alone murals that are more than 3,300 years old. It's doubly challenging for murals that were compromised from the start. When Howard Carter opened King Tut's burial chamber, he found that spots of mold had stippled the scenes on the walls. Experts think the room may have been sealed before the plaster and paint were dry, allowing mold spores to grow.

Egypt's ancient artifacts feel nation's ills

by Nancy A. Youssef

Yasmin el Shazly, an Egyptologist, last gave a VIP tour through the Egyptian Museum two years ago, before the uprising just outside the museum doors in Tahrir Square led to the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak.

Before that, el Shazly once lectured Paris Hilton and Charlize Theron about the world's greatest collection of Egyptian artifacts. Now the museum is an empty monument to a nation shunned by tourists and unwilling, or perhaps unable, to preserve its history, both recent and ancient.

As el Shazly prepared to return to work after a 15-month maternity leave, she stopped by her office and discovered a museum all but abandoned since the ouster July 3 of former President Mohammed Morsi, a development that officials say killed the last vestiges of tourism here.

Shocked by the emptiness of the world's oldest museum building, el Shazly offered to give her friends a VIP tour last week. As she spoke about the artifacts, she and her friends discovered that even Egypt's rich history, which gave rise to modern civilisation, hasn't been spared from today's volatility: Ten army tanks and long strings of barbed wire lined the streets to protect the already-once-looted building and its collection, a visual reminder of where Egypt's past and present collide.

Alexandria, Egypt's 'Pearl of the Mediterranean'

by Rick Steves

Most tourists in Egypt visit only Cairo and Luxor. Few visit Alexandria, just a three-hour drive away -- the country's second city, and one of the great cities of the Mediterranean. Egypt's historical capital for almost a millennium, today the "Pearl of the Mediterranean" is a favorite summer getaway for locals who appreciate its cosmopolitan flavor and cooler climate. It's like Cairo in its mega-millions intensity, but cleaner and quieter, and facing the Mediterranean instead of the Nile.

Alexandria, founded in 331 B.C. by Alexander the Great, is a fabled place. Queen Cleopatra ruled from here, back when the city was, along with Rome, one of two in the ancient world with a million people. Back then, it rivaled Rome as a cultural and intellectual capital. Alexandria's awe-inspiring lighthouse (or Pharos) -- one of the seven wonders of the ancient world -- marked its harbor, and its legendary library was the world's largest. No ship could dock here without giving up its books to be copied for this, the ultimate repository of knowledge. Tragically for all of civilization, the library burned (likely around 48 B.C.), and today only its legend -- and a fragment of a single scroll (now kept in Vienna) -- survives.

History has been harsh: No trace of Alexander's day survives, Cleopatra's city is now under the sea, the library is long gone, and the lighthouse has tumbled (the only surviving image of it is engraved on a coin). Of its ancient wonders, only a hint of Alexandria's street plan, a few archaeological digs, and the towering Pompey's Pillar survive today.

The nearly 90-foot-tall Pompey's Pillar, carved out of a single mighty piece of granite, was shipped 500 miles from Aswan down the Nile to this spot 1,700 years ago. It stands like an exclamation mark, reminding all who visit that today's city sits upon what was a mighty urban center of a million ancient Egyptians.

Pyramids for Rent: Egypt Mulls Desperate Measures to Save Crumbling Economy

By VASUDEVAN SRIDHARAN


Egypt's finance ministry has proposed renting out the country's famous pyramids to international tourism firms in an attempt to save the country's economy from collapse.

Officials believed the scheme, which would also encompass the Sphinx and the temples of Luxor, could raise nearly $200bn (£132bn; €153bn), enough to pay off Egypt's spiralling national debt.

Adel Abdel Sattar, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, confirmed that he received the proposal from the finance ministry at the end of January during an interview with Cairo-based broadcaster ONTV.

Sattar said the proposal was originally conceived by Egyptian intellectual Abdallah Mahfouz, before being sent to the finance ministry for consideration and then forwarded on to him by officials who believed it could offer a viable solution to Egypt's economic woes.

However Sattar revealed that he has rejected the proposal out of hand, after taking legal advice. He asked the interviewer: "Is it possible that we rent our monuments? ... This is our heritage, our roots."

Sattar's sentiments were echoed by a number of cultural activists and archaeologists, who dubbed the finance ministry's plan "insulting" and "humiliating."

Tomb opens doors to tourism

After four years of restoration, the tomb of King Ramses II’s beloved son Merenptah in the Valley of the Kings is open to the public. Nevine El-Aref entered down its very steep ramp

Luxor has been called the world’s greatest open-air museum, not only for its unique ancient Egyptian monuments, which stretch along the Nile Corniche and dominate the desert on the west bank, but for its agreeable weather and picturesque pastoral and natural scenery. Indeed, Luxor has it all.

Regrettably, however, it sometimes appears that the curse of the Pharaohs has cast its spell over the town.

Although Luxor’s Governor Ezzat Saad announced two weeks ago that tourists were flowing back to Luxor and that the town was slowly returning to normal, with hotel booking rates indicating that the catastrophic downtown in the Egyptian tourism industry was nearing an end, the town is quieter than usual. The airport is empty except for a very few passengers that can be counted on two hands. Luxor residents work in or depend directly or indirectly on the tourist industry, which has been in the doldrums since the 2011 revolution owing to the uncertainty and the lack of security that accompanied the revolution, and they are suffering financially. A stroll along the Corniche and through the bazaars reveals how desperate felucca (boat) owners, hantour (carriage) drivers and shopkeepers have become as they solicit passers-by to buy from them or take a carriage ride.

What happened? Why is Luxor empty apart from its residents and the revolutionaries camped in the Midan Abul-Haggag Mosque in the core of the city?

How tourism cursed tomb of King Tut

Damage from breath of visitors forces closure of chamber

by Alastair Beach, Sunday 4 November 2012

At around 10am on November 4, 1922, an unknown and slightly prickly archaeologist was working with his team to clear away some rubble close to the tomb of Ramses VI, the twentieth dynasty pharaoh who ruled Egypt during the twelfth century BC.

After five years of toil in the Valley of the Kings, the vast desert funerary complex close to modern day Luxor, Howard Carter had little to show for his relic-hunting efforts.

Time was running out, and Lord Carnarvon, his benefactor back in Britain, had reluctantly granted him just one more season to come up with something spectacular.  

In the mid-morning heat exactly 90 years ago today, it arrived.

As Carter and his men cleaned up the debris near some ancient stone huts, they inadvertently stumbled upon the steps leading down into the tomb of Tutankhamun.

The unprecedented find – the first time a royal burial chamber had been found containing all of its treasures – triggered a wave of Egyptmania in the West and cemented Carter’s place in history.

Yet although Egyptologists initially hailed the discovery for the unique insights it provided into ancient burial rites, the tomb itself has not fared well since being prised open after 3000 years of regal isolation.

New tourist magnets

Khafre's Pyramid and several Old Kingdom tombs on the Giza Plateau are now officially open to the public, part of the effort to encourage tourists to return to Egypt, as Nevine El-Aref finds out

Six tombs in the vicinity of King Khufu's Great Pyramid, as well as the second pyramid, that of Khufu's son Khafre, have been reopened as part of the government's strategy to encourage tourists to come to Egypt in the wake of plummeting tourist numbers following the revolution in January last year.

Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim officially inaugurated the six royal and noblemen's tombs at a gala ceremony last Thursday morning at the foot of the Khafre Pyramid.

The tombs, which all date from the Old Kingdom, are located at the eastern and western cemeteries on the Giza plateau and have undergone extensive restoration.

Work on the second pyramid, which has been going on since 2009, was deemed necessary because the humidity rate inside soared to 80 per cent and salt encrustation was seen to be causing rapid deterioration.

Ali Al-Asfar, director-general of the Giza Plateau, explained that each visitor to the pyramid exhaled about 20 grammes of water vapour. The salt this contained accumulated and caused cracks in the pyramid's inner walls.

Luxor: Rediscover Egypt’s jewel of the Nile

A closer look at one of the most attractive tourist destinations

By Sarah Loat

As the searing heat of the Egyptian sun releases its grip on Luxor a little, now is the perfect season to venture back to the beginning of time.

Post-revolutionary Luxor has been hit hard. This ancient capital of Egypt has been left bereft of tourists and the economy is struggling. Little else has changed; the temples still stand as they have for millennia and the Nile still enchants.

All the reasons why Luxor has attracted tourists for centuries and why it should definitely be on your bucket list – never has there been a better time to get a reduced-rate hotel room, from back packer’s lodges up to 5 star luxury. And Luxor needs you now!

The city is a treasure trove of ancient Egyptian wonder and has some of the world’s most awe-inspiring sights. Luxor has, somewhat unfairly, built a reputation for being the hassle capital of Egypt. It is true, it can be intimidating to have feluccas and caleche rides and West Bank tours thrust at you, seemingly by every person you pass in the street. But greet them with humour and politeness and remember, they are only trying to make a living.