It sounds like Cash in the Attic meets the The Da Vinci Code. A pile of junk cleared from a country home finds its way to a car boot sale in a nearby market town. Among the detritus is a small piece of wood measuring just 10 inches by four inches and covered with painted figures.

After the bustle of Cairo, what better way to explore the land of the pharaohs than on a cruiser gently floating down the Nile

Archaeologists believe they are on brink of discovering queen's final resting place

Hats off to the milliner of the moment. Tomorrow, the exhibition Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones opens at the Victoria & Albert Museum, curated by the world’s most celebrated hatter and by Oriole Cullen, the gallery’s head of fashion and textiles. The show has been a long time in the making, and it’s the first of its kind in the museum’s history.

A council which was duped into paying £440,000 for a fake Egyptian statuette said today that it hopes to put the sculpture on display in a local museum.

The director of the National Gallery tells Arifa Akbar why blockbuster exhibitions are a thing of the past

Rory Ross sets sail from Aswan to Luxor on a luxury cruise fit for a pharaoh, stopping off en route to marvel at Egypt's grandest sites – and pay his respects to Tutankhamen

Byzantium, Babylon and now the Tsars. The blockbuster shows of the moment all celebrate the art and artefacts of long-lost empires. Tom Lubbock thinks he knows why

Clockwork marvel before its time

The combined efforts of Liz Taylor and the British Museum have done a good job of familiarising us with Cleopatra's make-up techniques, namely kohl and more kohl; and we've all heard that she softened her skin by bathing in asses' milk. One element of her ancient beauty routine is missing, however. What perfume did she dab behind her ears to impress Mark Antony and Caesar?

She says she was a 'selfish bitch from hell' until she had children. But for the last 30 years, she's risked all to drag the fashion world – kitten heels kicking – towards a greener future. All hail Katharine Hamnett, eccentric eco-hero

Egyptian scientists are performing DNA tests on two mummified foetuses found in the tomb of Tutankhamun to determine whether they are the young pharaoh's offspring.

Holidaybreak; Fuller Smith& Turner

He could have been one of the great all-round athletes but Canvey Island's finest is struggling to reach Beijing, writes Simon Turnbull