Tutankhamun's mask is back on display in all its splendor

[webfact]

Tutankhamun’s mask is back on display in all its splendor

CAIRO: -- The magnificent gold mask of Tutankhamun is back on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo after a two-month-long repair job by German experts.

Last year the boy pharaoh’s beard fell off when the priceless artefact was removed from its display case. Museum employees re-attached it with glue…apparently without success.

Stephan Seidlmayer who is Director of the Cairo Department at the German Archaeological Institute explained that the restoration required painstaking research:

“It is not just to undertaking some technical restoration but first its really to understand the object in it’s original character. That means the materials it’s made from, and the technologies which were used … at the time. Only if you understand how the object in the first place was made can you choose a way of restoration and conservation in harmony with the original character of the object.”

The restoration included a 3D scan of the mask as well as warming it to allow the glue to be removed from the first attempt to repair it.

The mask is a top attraction at the museum, which has hundreds of items from Tutankhamun’s tomb, found by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922 in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings.

Euronews correspondent Mohammed Shaikhibrahim said that discovering these priceless relics is a major task in the first place but once found their preservation from damage or all kinds and indeed protection from theft are just as challenging in a country where a large part of its antiquities are still buried underground.

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-12-17

[ParadiseLost]

2 month repair job, or two months to produce this wonderful replica...

[Patsycat]

I saw it in London when i was a kid.

[Humberstone]

I saw it in London when i was a kid.

Me too !! had to queue for hours to get in. Well worth it though.

[WorriedNoodle]

I was in awe as a kid when I saw it at the British Museum. My first ever trip to London on a school bus.

The photo above looks impressive as when I last it in Cairo in 89 it seemed to be collecting dust.

[bangon04]

I saw it in London when i was a kid.

Me too !! had to queue for hours to get in. Well worth it though.

+1

[arunsakda]

The scum of ISIL would melt it down to buy weapons.

[elgordo38]

I saw it in London when i was a kid.

Lucky you. I missed it some years back. An astounding piece for its period. A period of craftsmen not hackers.

[samsensam]

as others, i saw it at the british museum when i was a kid and remember it clearly. later, in my reckless 20's when visiting the tomb climbed over the wooden barrier to touch the place where the sarcophagus had rested for all those years. the curse hasn't got me. yet.

[allanos]

I was lucky enough to see the sarcophagus in situ in the Valley of the Kings in January 1968.

It was fairly soon after the 6-day War between the Israelis and Egypt and its neighbours.

Consequently, tourists in Egypt were scarce, and there was very little in the way of guarding

or supervision either at the pyramids at Giza, or in the Valley of the Kings (and Queens), so

my partner and I had free rein.

I clearly remember taking a photo of the sarcophagus. My flash went off, and, to all intents

and purposes, it was one for the photo album. Strangely, however, of the all the photos which

I took during that visit to Egypt, this was the only one which did not develop.

King Tut's (benign) curse? I am, of course, still alive to tell the tale!

[TheCruncher]

Museum employees re-attached it with glue…apparently without success.

Didn't realize that Cairo was in Thailand.