Epoxy boo-boo: Ancient King Tut mask damaged by cleaners, gets a clumsy fix

The blue-and-gold braided beard broke off from the golden mask of famed pharaoh Tutankhamun during cleaning, then was hastily glued back on with epoxy, damaging the relic, conservators at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo said Wednesday. Three of the museum’s conservators gave varied accounts of what happened, but all said orders came from above to fix it as soon as possible and that an inappropriate adhesive was used. The mask and Tut’s nearly intact tomb were discovered by British archaeologists Howard Carter and George Herbert in 1922 and sparked worldwide interest in archaeology and ancient Egypt.

The mask should have been taken to the conservation lab, but they were in a rush to get it displayed quickly again and … now you can see a layer of transparent yellow.

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.

Arts King tut