Web site follows Egyptian excavations

Armchair archaeologists can follow an excavation in Egypt courtesy of a Web site set up by Johns Hopkins University researchers, school officials said. A Johns Hopkins Egyptologist and her team will share the progress of their excavation of the Temple of Mut precinct in Luxor at http://www.jhu.edu/egypttoday/index.html. A blog by Egyptologist Betsy Bryan and a daily photo journal will give virtual visitors a taste of what life is like for the graduate students, undergraduates, artists, conservators and photographers working on a site yielding important finds from ancient Egypt's New Kingdom, a university release said. A myriad of discoveries have been made by Hopkins researchers in Egypt over the past decade, including a major find in 2006: a 3,400-year-old nearly intact statue of Queen Tiy, one of the queens of the powerful king Amenhotep III. The statue is "one of the true masterpieces of Egyptian art," Bryan said. The "Hopkins in Egypt Today" Web site can bring ancient Egypt to any smartphone, iPad or Internet-ready device around the world, the university said. The site will be updated daily through June and the posts will remain online as part of the archives of digs dating back to 2001, the school said.