of late last week it was revealed thatthe whiskers from King Tut ’s burial masquerade was hastily glued back on with epoxy glue after being accidentally knocked off by a maintenance work party . After inspect the priceless artifact , a German restoration specialist says it can in all likelihood be fixed .
https://gizmodo.com/king-tuts-burial-mask-has-been-irreversibly-damaged-1681085211
We have some more information for you about this incident , both in terms of what happened and what ’s run short to happen next .
First , it appears that a maintenance bunch criticize the beard off the mask in August 2014while attempt to change a idle light bulb in the glass pillowcase where it ’s celebrate . Then , in a headlong decision , five of the museum ’s curators were tasked with putting it back on . However , they choose an epoxy , which is an passing strong adhesive normally reserved for fixing plastics and ceramic — and most certainly not something to be used when restoring priceless artifacts . If this was n’t bad enough , the squad squeeze out too much on . In despair , they tried to chisel away the excess mucilage ( allegedly with a spatula — and even emery paper ) , leaving a splodge of “ limpid yellowed ” under the Kuki of the masquerade party . To make matters worse , the chin was put on crookedly and it appears the Au has been scratched .
“ The five masses assign to re - attach the beard distinctly lack experience , ” note Abdel - Hamid al - Kafafi , who ’s with the antiquity ministry citizens committee investigating the incident . “ We have taken sample of the mucilage to know what exactly was used and if it is repairable . ”
Needless to say , people are outraged . As the New York Times isreporting , Monica Hanna , an archeologist with Egypt ’s Heritage Task Force , wants the Egyptian functionary charged for damaging the burial masquerade party .
Thankfully , all the news is not risky . According to restoration specialiser Christian Eckmann , the epoxy can probably be removed and the mask properly restored . The APreports :
“ There will be a commission of expert consisting of conservators , archeologists and natural scientist in club to acquire a program for re - conservation , ” he said . “ Up till now we found one clams which is visible but it can not be said now whether this scratch is an ancient one , a recent one , or a mod one which just happened right now , ” he add together .
[ … ] Museum administrators at the news league correct to comment on which specific type of epoxy was used . expert say adhesives used in such fix are chosen for their reversibility , for which epoxy is not renown , although the trouble of its removal varies allot to the case of rosin used .
The expert ’ optimism is obviously campaign for celebration , but given that all the details are n’t in yet , we ’ll have to look and see how effective the regaining effort will be .
[ AP|NYT|Telegraph ]
Ancient EgyptArchaeologyEgyptologyking tutRestorationScience
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