Tutankhamun: Egypt demands auction of bust be cancelled
Egypt has called on auction house Christie's to cancel the sale of a 3,000-year-old bust of ancient boy-king Tutankhamun.
The country's foreign ministry claims that the bust was probably stolen during the 1970s from a temple.
The 28 cm (11in) bust is due to go on sale in London on Thursday and is expected to fetch more than £4m ($5m).
Christie's says Egypt has not expressed concern about the bust in the past despite it being "exhibited publicly".
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The brown quartzite relic comes from a private collection of ancient art that Christie's last sold for £3m in 2016.
In a statement, Christie's said: "The object is not, and has not been, the subject of an investigation."
It said it would never auction an object over which there were legitimate concerns.
Christie's has also published a chronology of the relic's owners for the past 50 years. The bust is understood to have been acquired from German aristocrat Prinz Wilhelm von Thurn between 1973 and 1974.
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It said it would never auction an object over which there were legitimate concerns.
Christie's has also published a chronology of the relic's owners for the past 50 years. The bust is understood to have been acquired from German aristocrat Prinz Wilhelm von Thurn between 1973 and 1974.
The auction house also said that the bust's existence had been known for a considerable time and it had been on display for a number of years.
Egypt's former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass told AFP news agency: "We think it left Egypt after 1970 because in that time other artefacts were stolen from Karnak Temple."
Egypt introduced laws in 1983 banning the removal of artefacts from the country.
Tutankhamun died over 3,000 years ago aged 19. His remains were found in 1922.
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It said it would never auction an object over which there were legitimate concerns.
Christie's has also published a chronology of the relic's owners for the past 50 years. The bust is understood to have been acquired from German aristocrat Prinz Wilhelm von Thurn between 1973 and 1974.
The auction house also said that the bust's existence had been known for a considerable time and it had been on display for a number of years.
Egypt's former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass told AFP news agency: "We think it left Egypt after 1970 because in that time other artefacts were stolen from Karnak Temple."
Egypt introduced laws in 1983 banning the removal of artefacts from the country.
Tutankhamun died over 3,000 years ago aged 19. His remains were found in 1922.
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It said it would never auction an object over which there were legitimate concerns.
Christie's has also published a chronology of the relic's owners for the past 50 years. The bust is understood to have been acquired from German aristocrat Prinz Wilhelm von Thurn between 1973 and 1974.
The auction house also said that the bust's existence had been known for a considerable time and it had been on display for a number of years.
Egypt's former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass told AFP news agency: "We think it left Egypt after 1970 because in that time other artefacts were stolen from Karnak Temple."
Egypt introduced laws in 1983 banning the removal of artefacts from the country.
Tutankhamun died over 3,000 years ago aged 19. His remains were found in 1922.
Milky Way galaxy is warped and twisted, not flat
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is "warped and twisted" and not flat as previously thought, new research shows.
Analysis of the brightest stars in the galaxy shows that they do not lie on a flat plane as shown in academic texts and popular science books.
Astronomers from Warsaw University speculate that it might have been bent out of shape by past interactions with nearby galaxies.
The new three dimensional map has been published in the journal Science.
The popular picture of the Milky way as the flat disc is based on the observation of 2.5 million stars out of a possible 2.5 billion. The artists' impressions are therefore rough approximations of the truer shape of our galaxy, according to Dr Dorota Skowron of Warsaw University.
"The internal structure and history of the Milky Way is still far from being understood, in part because it is extremely difficult to measure distances to stars at the outer regions of our galaxy," she said.
Climate change: UK's 10 warmest years all occurred since 2002
The top 10 warmest years on record in the UK have all occurred since 2002, a new analysis from the Met Office says.
Its State of the UK Climate report shows that 2014 remains the warmest year in a temperature sequence now dating back to 1884.
Despite last summer's blistering heat, 2018 only places as the seventh warmest year on record - as the statistic is based on temperatures all year round.
When it comes to the coldest years, the most recent in the top 10 was in 1963.
The patterns of warm and cold years in Britain are a clear signal of climate change, say scientists.
