HMN 2025: How Egyptian conservators give King Tut’s treasures new glow

As a teen, Eid Mertah would pore over books about King Tutankhamun, tracing hieroglyphs and dreaming of holding the boy pharaoh’s golden masks in his arms.

Years later, the Egyptian conservator discovered himself gently brushing centuries-old mud off one in all Tut’s gilded ceremonial shrines—a chunk he had solely seen in textbooks.

“I studied archaeology due to Tut,” Mertah, 36, instructed AFP. “It was my dream to work on his treasures—and that dream got here true.”

Mertah is one in all greater than 150 conservators and 100 archaeologists who’ve labored quietly for over a decade to revive hundreds of artifacts forward of the long-awaited opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM)—a $1 billion challenge on the sting of the Giza Plateau.

Originally slated for July 3, the launch has as soon as once more been postponed—now anticipated within the closing months of the 12 months—on account of regional safety considerations.

The museum’s opening has confronted delays through the years for numerous causes, starting from political upheaval to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But when it lastly opens, the GEM would be the world’s largest archaeological museum dedicated to a single civilization.

It will home greater than 100,000 artifacts, with over half on public show, and can embody a singular characteristic: a dwell conservation lab.

From behind glass partitions, guests will be capable to watch in actual time as specialists work over the subsequent three years to revive a 4,500-year-old boat buried close to the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu and supposed to ferry his soul throughout the sky with the solar god Ra.

But the star of the museum stays King Tut’s assortment of greater than 5,000 objects—many to be displayed collectively for the primary time.

Among them are his golden funeral masks, gilded coffins, golden amulets, beaded collars, ceremonial chariots and two mummified fetuses believed to be his stillborn daughters.

‘Puzzle of gold’

Many of those treasures haven’t undergone restoration since British archaeologist Howard Carter found them in 1922.

The conservation strategies utilized by Carter’s crew have been supposed to guard the objects, however over a century later, they’ve posed challenges for his or her modern-day successors.

Coating gold surfaces in wax, as an example, “preserved the objects on the time”, mentioned conservator Hind Bayoumi, “however it then hid the very particulars we wish the world to see”.

For months, Bayoumi, 39, and her colleagues painstakingly eliminated the wax utilized by British chemist Alfred Lucas, which had over a long time trapped dust and dulled the shine of the gold.

Restoration has been a joint effort between Egypt and Japan, which contributed $800 million in loans and supplied technical help.

Egyptian conservators—many skilled by Japanese specialists—have led cutting-edge work throughout 19 laboratories masking wooden, metallic, papyrus, textiles and extra.

Tut’s gilded coffin—introduced from his tomb in Luxor—proved one of the intricate jobs.

At the GEM’s wooden lab, conservator Fatma Magdy, 34, used magnifying lenses and archival photographs to reassemble its delicate gold sheets.

“It was like fixing a large puzzle,” she mentioned. “The form of the break, the move of the hieroglyphs—each element mattered.”

Touching historical past

Before restoration, the Tutankhamun assortment was from a number of museums and storage websites, together with the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, the Luxor Museum and the tomb itself.

Some objects got mild restoration earlier than their relocation to make sure they could possibly be safely moved.

Teams first performed photographic documentation, X-ray evaluation and materials testing to grasp every merchandise’s {condition} earlier than touching it.

“We needed to perceive the {condition} of every piece—the gold layers, the adhesives, wooden construction—the whole lot,” mentioned Mertah, who labored on King Tut’s ceremonial shrines on the Egyptian Museum.

Fragile items have been stabilized with Japanese tissue paper—skinny however robust—and adhesives like Paraloid B-72 and Klucel G, each reversible and minimally invasive.

The crew’s guiding philosophy all through has been one in all restraint.

“The objective is all the time to do the least quantity vital—and to respect the article’s historical past,” mentioned Mohamed Moustafa, 36, one other senior restorer.

Beyond the restoration work, the method has been an emotional journey for a lot of of these concerned.

“I believe we’re extra excited to see the museum than vacationers are,” Moustafa mentioned.

“When guests stroll by the museum, they will see the great thing about these artifacts. But for us, every bit is a reminder of the infinite working hours, the debates, the trainings.”

“Every piece tells a narrative.”

AFP