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"[The king] Unis seizes the sky and splits its iron."Inscribed in hieroglyphs in a 4,400-year-old pyramid, this sentence evidences that ancient Egyptians understood the extraterrestrial origin of iron-rich meteorites—thousands of years before European scientists reached the same conclusion......the world's oldest-identified iron objects are small beads that come from a burial in Gerzeh, a roughly 5,300-year-old village in northern Egypt. Other pre-Iron Age iron objects have been found in Egypt, including an amulet in the 4,000-year-old tomb of Queen Aashyet in Deir el-Bahari and a dagger blade in King Tutankhamun's tomb...The earliest-known Egyptian references to iron in connection with stars, meteoroids...

CAIRO, Egypt - An American-Italian team of archaeologists has found the remains of 4,000-year-old ships that used to carry cargo between Pharaonic Egypt and the mysterious, exotic land of Punt, the Supreme Council of Antiquities has announced. The ships' remains were found during a five-year excavation of five caves south of the Red Sea port of Safaga, about 300 miles southeast of Cairo, the chairman of the supreme council, Zahi Hawass, said in a statement late Thursday. The archaeologists, who came from Boston and East Naples universities, found Pharaonic seals from the era of Sankhkare Mentuhotep III, one of seven...

Archaeologists have uncovered more than 100 ancient inscriptions carved into rock at Wadi el-Hudi, where the ancient Egyptians mined amethyst. In addition to the carved-rock inscription, the researchers also found 14 stele (inscriptions carved on a stone slab or pillar) and 45 ostraca (inscriptions written on pieces of pottery). Analysis of the newfound inscriptions is underway. So far, archaeologists can tell that many of the inscriptions date back around 3,900 years, to a time that modern day archaeologists call the "Middle Kingdom." Many of the ostraca date back around 2,000 years, to around the time that Rome took over Egypt....

At the Arabet Abydos area in Sohag, where the large temple of King Seti I is located, an Egyptian excavation mission from the Ministry of Antiquities and Heritage (MAH) stumbled upon a limestone ancient Egyptian chapel from the 11th Dynasty. The excavation work came within the framework of a cleaning programme carried out by the MAH in that area, after officers of the tourism and antiquities police caught red handed inhabitants trying to illegally excavate the area in front their residences in search of treasured artefacts. Ali El-Asfar, head of the ancient Egyptian Section at the MAH, told Ahram Online...

On Monday, Minister of Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim said that the Spanish archaeological mission discovered a tomb of a senior statesman from ancient Egypt's eleventh dynasty in the Zeraa Abul Naga district of Luxor. Ibrahim added that the tomb consists of a well-carved square burial chamber. He said that the discovery was made while exploring one of three wells that date back to the seventeenth dynasty. Ali al-Asfar, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Department, said the tomb could have been used as a cache as it contained a large number of human relics. Also, tools and pottery, dating back to the...