Egypt isn’t too happy with eight museum workers who scratched King Tut’s irreplaceable 3,300 year-old burial mask, so the country is sending them to trial for “gross negligence”. The piece was then glued to the funeral mask of solid gold inlaid with precious stones, dating back over 3300 years and probably the most famous piece of ancient Egypt. The employees, on the decision of their superiors, rudely glued beard by a thick layer of epoxy glue that drooled on the perimeter of the chin.
Advertisement
The employees then used a knife to scrape off the residue of the glue off the mask, causing further damage.
The prosecution alleges that the employees were reckless in their dealing with the situation, using large amounts of an inappropriate glue to fix their mistake.
The freakish case was made public in January a year ago following a statement from Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities.
The former director general of the Egyptian Museum, the director of catering, four managers and two workers of the department have been “brought by an emergency decision to the disciplinary court”, said Mohamed Samir, spokesman of the prosecution.
“The officials dealt recklessly with a piece of an artefact that is 3,300 years old, produced by one of the oldest civilisations in the world”, prosecutors said in a statement, referring to the incident in August 2014.
When Carter discovered the treasure, the ceremonial beard was already loose and he himself removed it for the first time.
Last October, following a donation of about $54,000 from Germany, a team of conservators under German expert Christian Eckmann undertook re-repairing the mask.
The discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922 is said to have raised great interest in Egypt’s ancient past and archaeology, which still lasts today.
Advertisement
Tutankhamun, who became pharaoh at age 9, was part of Egypt’s 18th dynasty, ruling from 1361 to 1352 B.C.
