His golden funeral mask with its striped headdress has become the symbol of Egypt's ancient grandeur. Yet for all the fame that surrounds the boy King Tutankhamun, no one really knows who he was.


Now, the mystery of King Tut's lineage has finally been solved. It will be revealed to the world on Wednesday, more than 30 centuries after the pharaoh was sealed in a gold coffin.

Dr Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, will reveal the results of extensive DNA testing carried out over the past 18 months on the pharaoh's mummy as well as two mummified foetuses found in his burial chamber.

The findings, Dr Hawass says, are the most exciting since the discovery of the tomb by the British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922. They are also the latest in a stream of breakthroughs in our knowledge about art and the ancient world that have been made possible by new technology.

Among the outstanding riddles, for example, is whether Tutankhamun's mother was Queen Nefertiti – whose mummy has yet to be discovered – and whether the two foetuses found with him were his children.

"We don't know how King Tut died," Dr Hawass said yesterday. "We have begun DNA testing and we have made some wonderful discoveries. The results have been confirmed by the Journal of the American Medical Association and they will be publishing all the findings. It is very exciting. We will know who King Tut was."


When Vesuvius erupted in AD79 it covered a villa in Herculaneum in feet of ash and carbon. In the 1750s tunnellers found the villa along with carbonised papyrus scrolls which disintegrated if they were opened. Now X-rays and CT (Computerised Tomography) scans of the scrolls reveal they are predominantly the work of the Epicurean philosopher and poet Philodemus of Gadara.


DNA samples have been taken from Tutankhamun and other mummies from the 18th dynasty of rulers in an attempt to establish his family lineage. While the results are being kept under wraps, the level of detail is illustrated by a 4,000-year-old clump of black hair discovered in Greenland. Analysis found that the hair belonged to a short man with brown eyes, non-white skin and "shovel-shaped" front teeth, who had an A+ blood type and probably originated in Siberia.





The fluorescence synchrotron is a powerful X-ray technique that picks up the the glow from chemicals in various layers of paint. In addition to revealing an image beneath a canvas – many painters would paint over earlier works to save money – scientists can link each signal to a paint pigment and reveal hidden paintings in full colour rather than black and white. It was used on Van Gogh's Patch of Grass to discover the face of a woman, providing better understanding of his development.






The Fourier transform infrared spectroscope was used to identify pigments left on ancient statues. It helped in restoring Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 2004 by picking up organic matter in the paint, such as wax, varnish and glue.


The ancient Egyptian Sphinx has been laser scanned from nose to tail to create an accurate 3D computer rendering of the statue. This model is used to measure the effects of humans and nature on the Sphinx. The technique has also been used by Southampton University to create an exact model of the head of an Amazon warrior discovered at Herculaneum. The model revealed the underlying geometry and tiniest detail. New digitisation techniques helped researchers to recreate the statue's colouring.

Debate has raged for centuries over the Turin Shroud, said to be the cloth used to wrap the body of Christ, and imprinted with his image. Tests in 1980 using an electron microscope found red ochre which was said to be blood. An electron microprobe analyser proved that the image was painted. Carbon dating placed it between 1260 and 1390.


Essentially a laser microscope that can zoom down to 1,000th of a millimetre. The topsail from Nelson's flagship HMS Victory is the only extant early 19th-century sail in the world. It was analysed using Raman spectroscopy in 2005, allowing conservators to re-create the sail. The technique also helped to establish that 19 Jackson Pollock drip paintings discovered in 2005 by the film-maker Alex Matter were fakes. Matter found the paintings among his deceased parent's belongings. Pollock scholar Ellen G Landau had said they were genuine, but the Raman microscope picked up five pigments that weren't invented until after the artist's death.

Jelena Jankovic has a clearly laid-out goal – to return to the top of the women’s tennis game, but not only individually, but also as part of the Serbian tennis nation. The world’s number eight qualified yesterday for the third round at Dubai and has stated that her wish was to see Novak Djokovic, Ana Ivanovic and herself get back to where they belonged.

Jankovic had a host of Serbian fans at the $2m event in Dubai and managed to battle her way to the third round after a 4-6 6-4 7-5 win over Aravane Rezai.
- “I wish for a time when Serbian tennis was on top once again. That was a great feat to have three players in the very top of the game for a nation with not much of a tennis tradition,” said Jelena, alluding to the terrific 2008 season for the Serbian trio.
Jankovic has come in Dubai knowing she is below her best form, but a recent encouragement have been the two Fed Cup wins for Serbia over Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova and Alisa Kleybanova.
- “I’ve lost quite a bit of weight and I feel lighter when playing. I’m working on certain aspects of my game and I hope it all falls into place soon,” said Jelena.
She says she has been aided greatly by one of her first tennis coaches – Nick Bollettieri.
- “I sacked my old coach and returned under the wing of Nick Bollettieri, who has known my game since I was a junior. I think he has helped me correct some things.”
Jelena has yet to win a first Grand Slam title, although at a point in her career she climbed to the WTA rankings spot number one.
- “There is no reason why I should feel uncomfortable because of that. I’ve beaten all of the players who have won Grand Slams, while I’ve lost to Serena Williams in one final. I hope I get my hands on a Grand Slam one day,” says Jankovic.
Jelena struggled against Rezai, ranked 21st in the world, as the French won the opening set 6-4 and Jankovic was forced to give her all to turn the match to her favour.
- “Aravane played well in the first set. She hit the ball really hard and I had to do my best to get my rhythm back. Little by little, I managed to get to my game and win the second and third sets. I am happy because of the win,” said the world’s number eight from Serbia.
The match was played in scorching heat and wind.
- “At first it all got on my nerves – the wind, the balls, the sun. However, I tried hard to stay positive and win my points patiently. I arrived here only a few days ago from Serbia, where it’s really cold. I love to play here at Dubai. I am aware this is far from my best but with every match I think I am improving,” Jelena was optimistic.
Her opponent in the last 16 round will be Vera Zvonareva of Russia, who demolished Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens 6-0 6-0.

Swiss diver Peter Kolat was able to set a new world record for staying under water without air, the newspaper writes Swiss Info.

It is reported that 38-year-old athlete stayed under water 19 minutes 21 seconds. He said that "the first 12 minutes were not a problem."

The previous record belonged to the Italian Nicola Putignano, who hold their breath for 19 minutes and 2 seconds.

Achieving Swiss athlete falling into the Guinness Book of Records.

It should be noted that like the record set and a Russian swimmer Natalia Molchanov. In September last year it without breathing apparatus in flippers sank to a depth of 101 m. At the same time she managed to hold his breath for three and a half minutes.

The Chinese authorities have closed what they have called the biggest hacker training website operating in the country and which, in its heyday, had more than 12,000 paying wannabe hackers.

Black Hawk Safety Net (ed : ironic, hey!) boosted up to 182,000 members and was founded in 2005 with its virtual headquarters located in Xuchang of the central Henan Province. The site was discovered as part of the followup to a cyber-attack in 2007 in the Macheng city.

But it was only in April 2009 that the Chinese police caught up with the three system administrators behind the BHSN network. Up to 50 police officers were on duty to investigate the hacking case in three separate Chinese provinces.

More than 1.7 million Yuan (nearly £160,000) in assets were seized, together with nine servers, five computers and a Honda Accord. The business' main websites, 3800cc.com and 3800hk.com, were also closed down.

The National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center of China estimates that the hacking industry costs China and its businesses around £700 million pounds every year.

The arrests come a few weeks after Google disclosed that, together with around 30 other US-based companies, it had been the victim of a cyber-attack that seems to originate from mainland China and threatened to leave the country altogether.

Interestingly, Xinhuanet says that providing online hacking tools has just been labelled as a crime under China's Criminal laws, something which ironically is not the case elsewhere where such tools still carry the label "for educational purposes only".

Hacking "schools" are a new phenomenon. It has been helped by the need and the demand for such a business. Formerly, forums and underground websites were readily available for those looking to learn the ropes of hacking and how to distribute malware.

Archaeologists have begun the search for an ancient civilization in southern Spain that some believe could help pinpoint the legendary lost city of Atlantis.


A team of researchers from Spain's Higher Council for Scientific Study (CSIC) are examining a marshy area of Andalusian parkland to find evidence of a 3,000-year-old settlement.

They believe that Tartessos, a wealthy civilization in southern Iberia that predates the Phoenicians, may have had its capital in the heart of what is now the Donana national park.

Until now historians had dismissed the region as a possible site believing that it had been submerged since the ice age. But it is claimed new evidence suggests the waters may have receded in time for the Tartessians to build an urban centre, which was later destroyed in a tsunami.

The Hinojos marshes, an area close to the mouth of the Guadalquiver river where it meets the Atlantic, have now been pinpointed as the site most likely to provide evidence of a lost city.

Archaeological findings have already proved the existence of Tartessian culture at sites on the opposite bank of the river.

"If they existed on the other side, they must also have been here (in Donana)," Sebastian Celestino, the archaeologist leading the project told the newspaper El Pais.

"There were earthquakes and one of them caused a tsunami that razed everything and which coincided with the era in which Tartessian power was at its height."

Aerial photos show the existence of large circular and rectangular forms that could not have been produced by nature.

The images, together with literary accounts by ancient Greek geographers have given weight to the theory that a great Tartessian city once existed within the park.

The Tartessian civilization, which developed in southern Spain between the 11th and 7th centuries BC and became rich trading gold and silver from local mines, has long been linked by mythologists to the Atlantis legend.

While the Spanish researchers refuse to speculate on whether they are on the brink of discovering Atlantis others believe their research could be a breakthrough in a centuries old quest.

"Evidence is mounting that suggests the story of Atlantis was not mere fiction, fable or myth, but a true story as Plato always maintained," said Georgeos Diaz-Montexano, a Cuban archeologist who has spent the last 15 years searching for the submerged city.

"Atlantis is not exactly where the CSIC is looking, but it is close," he claimed.

The theory is just the latest in a long list of suggested locations for Atlantis, including various Mediterranean islands, the Azores, the Sahara desert, Central America and Antarctica.