Beard of Egypt’s King Tut hastily glued back on with epoxy

The blue and gold braided beard on the golden mask of famed pharaoh Tutankhamun was hastily glued back on with epoxy, damaging the relic after it became detached during cleaning, conservators at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo said Wednesday. The museum, which many archaeologists and restorers say is not run to professional standards, is one of the city’s main tourist sites. Tutankhamun’s mask, over 3,300 years old, and other contents of his tomb are its top exhibits, drawing tourists from around the world. Three of the museum’s conservators, who spoke anonymously, give varied accounts of what happened to the beard but all say orders came from above to fix it as soon as possible and that an inappropriate adhesive was used.

Unfortunately he used a very irreversible material - epoxy has a very high property for attaching and is used on metal or stone but I think it wasn’t suitable for an outstanding object like Tutankhamun’s golden mask

One conservator

Egypt’s tourist industry, once a pillar of the economy, has yet to recover from three years of tumult following a 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Museums and the opening of new tombs are part of plans to revive the industry. But authorities have made no significant improvements to the Egyptian Museum since its construction in 1902, and plans to move the Tutankhamun exhibit to its new home in the Grand Egyptian Museum scheduled to open in 2018 have yet to be divulged. Neither the Antiquities Ministry nor the museum administration could be reached for comment Wednesday evening. One of the conservators said an investigation was underway and that a meeting had been held on the subject earlier in the day.

Arts