The 2012 Ancient World Tours brochure is now out with some fascinating visits to little-seen sites as well as the better-known monuments. I shall be leading two of these.

The Land of the Red Crown (Nov 3 – 11, 2012) is already attracting a lot of interest.   This tour focuses on some of my areas of especial interest, including the Hawara Labyrinth and the rare surviving monuments of the Middle Kingdom in the Faiyum region; Bubastis and Tanis (and a chance to see the treasures of Tanis, and the Royal Mummies at the Museum); and Saqqara, with clues to the form of the Labyrinth in the Step Pyramid complex, the wonderful Post-Amarna tombs, and the awesome Serapeum. Apart from this, we travel to see a large number of Old and Middle Kingdom pyramids, including those at Dahshur, Meidum and Illahun, as well as Giza. A really fascinating tour, and I know that bookings have already been received.

The Grand Tour (Feb 26th – Mar 11th 2012) ‘does what it says on the tin’ and goes from one end of Egypt to the other, taking in all the ‘must see’ sites along the way. The Giza Pyramids; Islamic Cairo; the Egyptian Museum; Saqqara with the Step Pyramid; Alexandria; the Valley of the Kings; mighty Karnak; the spectacular mortuary temples of Hatshepsut, Ramesses II, and Ramesses III; Luxor Temple and Museum; the tombs of the nobles and the tomb-builders’ village; the Colossi of Memnon; the beautiful temples of Abydos and Dendera; the fabulously well-preserved temples of Esna, Edfu and Kom Ombo; the temple of Isis on the island of Philae; the unfinished obelisk; the Nobles’ Tombs; and the superb Nubia Museum. I’ve probably missed a few items here! A great experience.

Contact me or AWT direct: e-mail: info@ancient.co.uk ; UK Phone: 0844 357 9494; International Phone: +44 844 357 9494;

 web site: www.ancient.co.uk

PREMIERE. To what extent have DNA tests supported or superceded existing techniques in identiying royal mummies? This new talk will be given for the first time at The Library, Beetwell Street, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, UK, at 7pm on June 13th 2011.

The recent published findings will be placed in the context of previous work on the royal mummies, and the methods by which identifications were arrived at through DNA will be demonstrated. You will be able to decide for yourself how strong you believe the identifications of various relatives of Tutankhamun really are!

I look forward to seeing you there.

I receive a lot of enquiries as to when my next book Finding the Pharaohs (Part 1 of Refugees for Eternity: The Royal Mummies of Thebes) will appear. As Part 4 of the series: Identifying the Royal Mummies was released first, this will be the second volume to be published.

Progress is good, but I still have a couple of sections to complete. This will be a large book. Apart from very detailed discussions of the discovery of both Royal Caches (TT/DB320 and KV35), the book covers the discovery of other royal mummies and tombs of the New Kingdom and the immediately following period. Although the discovery of Tutankhamun has been the subject of many works, I found that there was much new to say on this topic, including when the Burial Chamber was first entered, the case of the Lotus Head, and the significance of what was found. Similarly, it was important to make the best of the various sources on the discovery of the Amarna Cache,  Tomb KV55, and these are two of the longest chapters in the book.

My motivation to keep going with this enormous task is the fact that I continually find that there is much new to be concluded about how these discoveries were made and what they actually reveal. I have published some of these findings along the way, most recently for instance my article ’The Enigma of Kings Valley Tomb 58′ , in KMT Journal 21.3, Fall 2010 (See Publications on this site).

Thank you for your patience.