Art News. Vasari Codex

gavel restitution schedule Nov 3, 2025 visibility 12 link 1 artist

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The Netherlands will return a 3,500-year-old Pharaonic bust to Egypt, as announced by Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during the opening ceremony of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza. The sculpture, depicting a high-ranking official from the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III, was spotted for sale at an art fair in 2022 and later seized by Dutch authorities after an anonymous tip revealed it had been looted from Egypt. The art fair trader voluntarily renounced the piece, and the bust will be handed over to Egypt's ambassador to the Netherlands by year's end.

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article news schedule Jun 30, 2025 visibility 13 link 6 artists

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The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Cairo has delayed its official opening again, now expected in the fourth quarter of 2025, due to regional conflicts including the Israel-Iran war. Originally proposed in 1992 and under construction since 2002, the $1 billion museum has faced repeated setbacks from the Arab Spring, the pandemic, and wars in Gaza and Sudan. When it opens, it will showcase over 100,000 artifacts, making it the largest archaeological museum in the world, with the Tutankhamun galleries as its centerpiece featuring over 5,398 objects from the pharaoh's tomb.

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article news schedule May 13, 2025 visibility 11 link 4 artists

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The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza has received another 163 artifacts from the tomb of King Tutankhamun, transferred from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo's Tahrir Square. This delivery includes the pharaoh's ceremonial chair, gilded footstool, canopic shrine, and jewelry, bringing the museum closer to staging the first-ever complete display of the boy king's treasures. The artifacts were transported with care and underwent condition reports at GEM's conservation labs. The final piece to arrive will be Tutankhamun's funerary mask, ahead of the museum's long-awaited grand opening on July 3.

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article news schedule Dec 16, 2025 visibility 12 link 3 artists

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Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities unveiled the newly restored Colossi of Memnon, two monumental quartzite statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, at the entrance of his 86-acre Luxor tomb site. The restoration, led by German-Armenian archaeologist Hourig Sourouzian and involving Waseda University, the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and the World Monuments Fund, began in 2006 after decades of damage from earthquakes, floods, and looting. The team cleaned, 3D-scanned, and reassembled the statues using original fragments and new additions, also uncovering nearly 300 other sculptures and fragments. The Colossi now stand 45 feet tall, with the pharaoh depicted in royal regalia alongside smaller figures of his wives.

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article news schedule Apr 27, 2026 visibility 15 link 1 artist

Seven-Foot-Tall Monument to Ramses II Discovered in Eastern Nile Delta Region

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered the upper half of a 7-foot-tall statue of Ramses II at the site of Tell El-Faraoun in the eastern Nile Delta. Weighing over 5 tons, the fragment is believed to have originally been carved for a temple in the ancient capital of Per-Ramesses and was later relocated. The find was announced by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, with Hisham El-Leithy of the Supreme Council of Antiquities noting its importance for understanding how statues were moved and reused during the New Kingdom.

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museum exhibitions schedule Mar 2, 2026 visibility 13 link 1 artist

Blockbuster show on ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II opens in London

The blockbuster exhibition "Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharaohs" has opened in London near Battersea Power Station, featuring over 180 ancient Egyptian treasures. Produced by Neon Global in collaboration with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, the show includes the coffin of Ramses II, animal mummies, and a VR experience. The tour has already visited cities like Paris and Sydney, serving as a major international cultural ambassador for Egypt.

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article news schedule Aug 28, 2025 visibility 8

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Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities recovered underwater ruins from a sunken city off the coast of Alexandria on August 21. Divers and cranes retrieved ancient statues, including royal figures and sphinxes from the pre-Roman era, such as a partially preserved sphinx with the cartouche of Ramses II. The site in Abu Qir bay also revealed limestone buildings, residential and commercial structures, a 125-meter dock over 2,000 years old, a merchant ship, stone anchors, and a harbor crane from the Ptolemaic and Roman eras. Tourism and Antiquities Minister Sherif Fathy noted that only specific material meeting strict criteria is brought up, with the rest remaining underwater heritage.

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article news schedule Apr 28, 2025 visibility 9

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Egyptologist Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier, a lecturer at Sorbonne University, discovered hidden cryptographic messages on the Luxor Obelisk in Paris's Place de la Concorde. During the pandemic, he noticed unusual hieroglyphs while walking past the 3,000-year-old monument. After scaffolding was erected for renovations ahead of the 2024 Olympics, he obtained permission to study the obelisk up close, becoming the first person in over a century to climb it. He identified seven crypto-hieroglyphs—encoded messages using puzzles and wordplay—that only a few experts can read. These inscriptions, set to be published in the journal ENiM, reveal that Pharaoh Ramses II used the obelisk as a propaganda tool to assert his divine right to rule, targeting the intellectual elite who approached the Luxor Temple by boat.

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article news schedule Aug 25, 2025 visibility 10

Ancient artefacts from sunken city lifted out of Mediterranean near Alexandria

Ancient artefacts from the sunken city of Canopus, submerged off the coast of Alexandria, have been recovered for the first time in 25 years. During a three-day underwater heritage event (19-21 August), archaeologists lifted limestone structures, a quartz sphinx bearing cartouches of Ramses II, and a white marble statue of a Roman nobleman from the Mediterranean. The operation was led by the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM) in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, with French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio playing a key role. The finds are now on display in the exhibition 'Secrets of the Sunken City' at the Alexandria National Museum.

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