Egypt will shoulder the costs of restoring 11 of the countries historic synagogues.

Hosny committed his ministry to restoring all 11 synagogues across Egypt, three of which have already been renovated. The best-known synagogue that of Ben Ezra, is located in Cairo’s Christian quarter near a number of old churches and was restored years ago.

The ceremony at the Ben Maimon synagogue was closed to media but attendees said it was an emotional event, especially for the Egyptian-Jewish families invited, many of whom now live in Europe.

“There were some lectures on the Jewish sites in Egypt and the temple. It was nice, emotional and nostalgic,” said Raymond Stock, an American close to the Jewish community in Cairo who attended the three-day event.

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A 4,000-year-old burial chamber which belongs to an ancient Egyptian queen has been found outside Cairo.

The necropolis of Saqqara outside Cairo has yielded a string of new discoveries as 10 different teams excavate a previously untouched area of these burial grounds were used continuously for more than 2,000 years until Roman times.

French mission head Philippe Collombert said the mummy of Queen Behenu was destroyed, but the chamber contained green hieroglyphics picked out on white stone known as the “Pyramid Texts.”

“We are excited because the texts are well conserved,” he told The Associated Press, adding the queen’s titles were written on the walls of the 33 by 16 foot (10 metre by 5 metre) burial chamber inside her small pyramid.

The text is primarily concerned with protecting the queen’s remains and her transition to afterlife.

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The project to recreate the “Avenue of the Sphinxes”, which once connected the temples of Luxor and Karnak in the ancient city of Thebes, is causing controversy as families are being uprooted to make way for the 2.7km tourist attraction.

“I will not be forced out of my home without fair compensation,” the village elder vows as a hydraulic hammer reduces his neighbor’s brick home to rubble. “If they try to destroy my house I will lock myself inside it.”

Khodari is the patriarch of an extended family of 14 who live in the two-storey house, its exterior walls adorned with paintings of his pilgrimage to Mecca four years ago. He has defied a municipal eviction order and demands “equitable compensation” before vacating the home he claims is built on land his family has occupied for over 200 years.

“For the past month the government has cut off our water and electricity during the day to pressure us to leave,” he says. “Then they came a week ago and told us we must go. Go where? Into the streets, the desert… to Israel?”

Hundreds of low-income families have lost their homes since Luxor city officials approved a controversial plan to excavate an ancient processional route and develop it as a key tourist attraction.

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A 3,000-year-old Egyptian sarcophagus which was seized by customs in 2008 is set to return home.

The nearly 5-foot-long wooden coffin was confiscated by U.S. customs officials at Miami International Airport from a Spanish merchant in 2008.

The dealer did not possess the necessary documentation to prove ownership of the artifact.

Suspecting that the object might have left Egypt illegally, U.S. authorities began an investigation.

“They determined that the coffin had left Egypt after 1970 as the earliest public record of the piece dated to 2007 when it was exhibited in Madrid,” Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement.

Arrangements are currently underway for the coffin to be handed over Hawass on March 10 in Washington, D.C., during an official gala ceremony.

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A 1,600-year-old monastery, the world’s oldest, has been restored in Zaafarana, Egypt.

Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities spent eight years and $14.5 million dollars to carry out a comprehensive restoration and conservation of the ancient monastery, situated in the rugged desert mountains near Egypt’s Red Sea coast.

It was in this remote spot, at the end of the 3rd century that renowned Christian ascetic St. Anthony took up a residence in a cave, with little more than a spring and some palm trees to sustain him.

Upon his death in A.D. 356, his followers built cells and created the world’s first Christian monastery, which now houses 120 monks, the burial place of four saints, and ancient church paintings dating to the Middle Ages.

Monks say the restoration and discovery of the cells of the monks sheds important light on the early years of monasticism and bolsters the country’s long monastic tradition.

“For the monastery itself, this is very important, we have found a missing part of our history with this restoration, for there is nothing written about the beginning of the monastery,” said Father Maximus, who oversaw the renovation.

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