Damage from breath of visitors forces closure of chamber

A British couple arrested in Egypt on suspicion of trying to smuggle priceless artifacts out of the country will return home tonight after it emerged that the objects had in fact been purchased at a local tourist bazaar.

It's the gaggle peering at the caption so that you can't see the actual picture beside it that drives you mad in art shows. Those, and the 6ft 6in (and that across the shoulders) man who stands staring at the object directly in front of you so that you are barely able to see the edges of the picture, never mind the whole. Just as, when booking theatres, people over 6ft should be forced to sit in the back few rows, so there is a case for channelling gallery-goers into separate lines depending on height.

Shame I'm not going to be around to see it, isn't it?" said one of the contributors to Mummifying Alan: Egypt's Last Secret. "I quite like documentaries." I think he'd have loved this one, because Channel 4's film about an attempt to re-create the mummification process turned out to be completely engrossing.

3500BC: Senet

In Cairo, Patrick Cockburn sees seven archaeological sites opened to tempt back visitors who have stayed away since the Arab Spring

Is it possible to hear the past? In one way, obviously. Given the BBC's propensity for repeats, archive documentaries and Hundred Object odysseys, we're hearing it all the time. The impulse to connect with and repackage the past seems ever present. But it's rare to encounter such a shivery sci-fi feeling as in Radio 4's Ghost Music, which this week transported us 3,000 years back to the Valley of the Kings.

5000BC

Iran was the world's first major wine producer. Wine presses and amphora – large vase-like pottery wine flasks – with the preserved residue of tannin and tartrate chemicals, both found in wine, have been found on digs in the Hajji Firuz Tepe region of the country. Carbon dating suggests they are 7,000 years old.

About 70 exhibits at the Egyptian Museum were damaged during the unrest and will need restoration. Zahi Hawass, the Minister for Antiquities, said yesterday that all the mummies escaped harm during a break-in, but damaged treasures included a statue of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun on a panther, and some later objects.

After opening 84 hours non-stop on its final weekend, the largest ever Claude Monet exhibition set a new attendance record when it finally ended last night.

There's something wintry about Stacy Aumonier. His Extremely Entertaining Short Stories feel as if they should be read aloud beside a roaring fire.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is to return 19 artefacts taken from the tomb of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun. The trove was made up of small figurines and jewellery, including a miniature bronze dog, a sphinx-shaped bracelet ornament and a necklace, said the head of Egypt's antiquities council Dr Zahi Hawass.

A new discovery at Giza, the third largest city in Egypt, suggests that an ancient Egyptian king made serious efforts to protect the Sphinx.

The city that is the cradle of civilisation is now a no-frills flight destination. Simon Calder enjoys this Nile gem that offers culture and pleasure in equal measure