From Adnkronos Culture and Media:

Archaeologists in the southern temple city of Luxor have unearthed twelve new sphinx statues and a road from the reign of ancient Egyptian pharaoh Nectanebo I (380-362 BC), Egypt’s culture minister Farouk Hosny announced on Monday.
The sphinx statues are inscribed with Nectanebo I’s name and were found in the last sector of the Avenue of the Sphinxes, one of the most important archaeological and religious paths in Luxor, the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes.
The mythological creatures with human faces and reclining feline bodies were typically used to decorate the tombs of ancient Egyptian rulers.
The Avenue of the Sphinxes, built by Nectanebo I, runs from Luxor to nearby Karnak, where it connects to the temple of the goddess Mut. Karnak and contains a vast conglomeration of ruined temples, chapels, monumental gateways to temples, and other buildings.
The archaeologists discovered the new sphinxes at the end of the newly unearthed road of Nectanebo I, said Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The story continues here.  A better photo is posted in this article.

HT: ANE-2

Yale Alumni Magazine has a fascinating and well-written article on the discovery of Umm Mawagir. 

The NY Times article is less interesting but has better illustrations.

For much of the twentieth century, Egyptologists shied away from explorations in the vast sand sea known as the Western Desert. An expanse of desolation the size of Texas, the desert seemed too harsh, too implacable, too unforgiving a place for an ancient civilization nurtured on the abundance of the Nile. In spring, a hot, stifling wind known as the Khamsin roars across the Western Desert, sweeping up walls of suffocating sand and dust; in summer, daytime heat sometimes pushes the mercury into the 130 degree–Fahrenheit range. The animals, what few there are, tend to be unfriendly. Scorpions lurk under the rocks, cobras bask in the early morning sun. Vipers lie buried under the sand.
When Egyptologists finally began investigating the Western Desert, they gravitated first to the oases. But in 1992, a young American graduate student, John Coleman Darnell, and his wife and fellow graduate student, Deborah, decided to take a very different tack. The couple began trekking ancient desert roads and caravan tracks along what they called “the final frontier of Egyptology.” Today, John Darnell, an Egyptologist in Yale’s Near Eastern Languages and Civilization department, and his team have succeeded in doing what most Egyptologists merely dream of: discovering a lost pharaonic city of administrative buildings, military housing, small industries, and artisan workshops. Says Darnell, of a find that promises to rewrite a major chapter in ancient Egyptian history, “We were really shocked.”

The article continues here.

HT: Joe Lauer

This Old Kingdom tomb with “amazing colors” may be the first in a large cemetery that served ancient Memphis.  From the Jerusalem Post:

Egyptian archaeologists on Thursday unveiled a newly-unearthed double tomb with vivid wall paintings in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara near Cairo, saying it could be the start for uncovering a vast cemetery in the area.
The tomb includes two false doors with colorful paintings depicting the two people buried there, a father and a son who served as heads of the royal scribes, said Abdel-Hakim Karar, a top archaeologist at Saqqara.
“The colors of the false door are fresh as if it was painted yesterday,” Karar told reporters.
Humidity had destroyed the sarcophagus of the father, Shendwas, while the tomb of the son, Khonsu, was robbed in antiquity, he said.
Also inscribed on the father’s false door was the name of Pepi II, whose 90-year reign is believed to be the longest of the pharaohs. The inscription dates the double tomb to the 6th dynasty, which marked the beginning of the decline of the Old Kingdom, also known as the age of pyramids.
Egypt’s antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, said the new finds were “the most distinguished tombs ever found from the Old Kingdom,” because of their “amazing colors.” He said the area, if excavated, could unveil the largest cemetery of ancient Egypt.

The 6th Dynasty dates to 2362-2176 BC (NEAEH 5:2127).  Saqqara is 15 miles (20 km) south of the Giza pyramids (which is on the outskirts of Cairo).

The full article with photos is here.