Tomb

A 3,200-year-old tomb in Egypt that was explored briefly and then sealed last century after scientists concluded that it held little of value is instead turning out to be a window onto the reign of one of the most powerful kings of ancient Egypt, Ramses II, who some scholars believe allowed Moses to flee with the Israelites in search of the Promised Land.

The Tomb of the Unknowns, the memorial that honors unidentified American servicemen and women killed in battle and attracts millions of visitors annually, is being replaced after 72 years. The white marble monument atop a hill in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia is cracked on all four sides.

The Sphinx was built by aliens--silver-colored visitors from space, not workers from Nubia. Ramses' tomb was built by slave laborers who were killed after it was finished so that its location could not be revealed. The ancient Egyptians must have had access to high technology that has subsequently been lost, or they couldn't have moved the mammoths blocks used to construct the pyramids. These exotic notions have long colored our perception of the wonders to be found on the arid deserts of Egypt, but a series of new discoveries over the last decade have given the lie to all of them.

Fourteen years after President Reagan presided over the burial of a Vietnam War veteran in the Tomb of the Unknowns, the remains will be exhumed to see if they can be identified after all, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen decided Thursday. Relatives of Air Force 1st Lt. Michael J. Blassie, a missing Vietnam War pilot, believe that his remains are in the tomb. Cohen's decision, Blassie's sister said, could put them "one step closer to bringing our family member home."

Solving a solemn mystery thought once beyond human reach, military experts have concluded that the Vietnam-era remains contained in the Tomb of the Unknowns belong to Air Force 1st Lt. Michael J. Blassie, whose aircraft was shot down north of Saigon 26 years ago. Six bones that had lain in the Arlington National Cemetery crypt for 14 years were identified by military forensic pathologists using sophisticated mitochondrial DNA techniques, officials confirmed Monday.

The painted 3,000-year-old face of a woman -- her eyes lined in black kohl -- stared from a funerary mask Friday as authorities revealed to the world the first tomb discovered in eight decades in the Valley of the Kings. The five mummies inside were found by a team of American archeologists working on the neighboring tomb of Amenmeses, a late 19th Dynasty pharaoh. "It's a dream come true," said Edwin Brock, co-director of the project, affiliated with the University of Memphis.

As a monument, its appearance is completely misleading: a narrow flight of stairs leading below ground to a still narrower door. To expose the stairs, archeologist Kent Weeks had to nibble away at the roadway covering it, and the pavement remains behind like a giant asphalt cookie with a bite taken out of it. Dotting the area are shabby huts where vendors hawk sodas and keepsakes to the tourists whose buses once unknowingly parked on top of the...

Among the gold, jewels, chariots and boomerangs tucked away in King Tutankhamen's tomb 3,200 years ago, a small child's glove intrigued Arthur Crutenden Mace the most. After he entered the tomb in 1922, the British archeologist dispatched his wife to a London department store for clues. "Will you please go to Harrods and look at children's gloves," wrote Mace, who hoped they might shed light on the boy-king's age when he wore the delicate, linen glove.

In "The Red Pyramid," the first book in "The Kane Chronicles," Rick Riordan's new series for middle readers, a child has godlike powers but doesn't know it until strange things begin to unfold. A parent disappears, prompting introductions to ancient characters and travels to otherworldly places. There are battles with evil forces and a looming deadline by which the child must complete a mission, lest society descend into chaos. If this sounds like "Percy Jackson & the Olympians," the author's five-book, New York Times bestseller fantasy series — and source of the film "The Lightning Thief" — that's no coincidence.