The Supreme Council of Antiquities will not be pleased
Perhaps they were the ones who ordered the restoration.
FIX IT, FIX IT, FIX IT.
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Egypt conservationists to sue over ābotchedā King Tut mask repair
An Egyptian conservation group said Friday it will sue the antiquities minister over a ābotchedā repair of the mask of King Tutankhamun that left a crust of dried glue on the priceless relic.
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Good to know. Personally I just think it is cool that there is such a thing
as the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
Theyāve epoxied them down?
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This is horrible.
I have a cousin who is an art restorer, she specializes in painting restoration, and has worked for national museums, and I myself do vintage timepiece restorations. So to see something like this, seriously hurts.
Look, I get that when something breaks, even something important, most people think something like epoxy is ok. The thing is, this is a one-of-a-kind, absolutely priceless artifact of incalculable cultural and historical value, made of solid gold, and lapis lazuli. Those facts should be blatantly obvious to ANYONE. How in the hell did someone, anywhere, seriously think it was OK to do this?? Who let them?
Someone needs worse than fired. Someone needs to be permanently blackballed from any contact with historical objects professionally.
I think most on BB understand there is more to actual restoration of an object than these people did, but what many donāt realize is that, in general, restoration work is not a fancy term for fixing something. Those in trades that actually do true restoration work, whether on art works, like my cousin, or very old timepieces, like me, take things that are damaged, and make them as close to they were when made as possible. We all hold to two universal values- 1.Make any work you do, as far as absolutely possible, undectable and reverseable, in case of future repairs, and to preseve the history of the object as unobscured as possible. 2. Everything we do, whereever possible, should replicate traditional techniques that created the item in course of repair, again- to preseve the history of the object as unobscured as possible.
There are times where we canāt hold to these, but only after all other options are exhausted. It also depends on the rarity or cultural/historical value of the piece.
I cannot think of more than 10 items this size of worldwide cultural and historical value at this level, let alone solid value of materials. There are true experts for repairing these items. To think that people there resorted to this method, and that basic climate control isnāt held in that national museum, is a travesty.
I sincerely hope this can be fixed. Remember- some things cannot. History is irreversable sometimes. Be careful you donāt leave something truly valuable to the world- if a hack can do this to something as famous as Tutās burial mask, and I have seen superglue holding parts to 300 year old fusee watches, anything can happen in enough time, with enough assholes.
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Also, why would these particular egghead elites have epoxy on hand?
Conservation types are all about low-impact reversible adhesives and incredibly arduous replacement of individual paint flakes and stuff. Do they secretly fill most of the toolbox with delicate tools and specialist products, and one compartment down at the bottom, labelled āeh, fuck it.ā for the bondo, sharpies, and angle grinder?
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Maybe they ordered it. When Mubarak was overthrown, so was Zahi Hawass, which implies something about the lack of apolitical professionalism inherent in the organization.
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Museum head Mahmoud al-Helwagy denied that conservation workers had damaged the mask
āThis is illogical and inconceivable,ā he told AFP. āThese are conservation workers, not carpenters.ā
I think that there might be more than a few problems in this organization. People who stare the results in the face and then attempt āa priori reasoning for the incompetentā in order to reach a more palatable conclusion are generally not to be trusted.
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I was looking this up and I discovered Zahi was gone. I think he was a showboating eccentric and I didnāt especially like that aspect of him, or his using his post for personal gain. But, he did seem to genuinely be very invested in preserving antiquities and popularizing Egyptology. I think his ego was so heavily invested in the process of bringing antiquities back to Egypt that this would have never happened on his watch. But honestly, this is so embarrassing to the Supreme Council that I think theyāre going to be making some changes real fast like. If my own (relatively limited and somewhat second-hand, so hereās a grain of salt) experience with Arab governmental bodies is any indicator, this is what is going to happen:
- The conservatorsā lawsuit is going nowhere.
- The Supreme Council will call in outside experts to assess the damage and attempt a repair, most likely British experts.
- A few jobs might get lost, but by and large the organization will remain intact, with the addition of foreign experts to babysit the day-to-day.
None of this has any bearing or is based in any way on whether or not there are competent Egyptologists in Egypt, who are Egyptian. Itās just a function of how these organization tend to solve problems.
The epoxy is in a stupidly thick layer. Which is good. Iād attempt to burn it apart with e.g. a fiber-coupled laser, or a diamond-coated string saw, millimeter by millimeter. Then clean from the mating surfaces, by means compatible with the base material (which will dictate the usable solvents, mechanical cleaning, laser, or something else). If the mating surfaces are gold, Iād be in favor of the laser; reflects off the metal, absorbs in the epoxy.
Surface contamination of gold with epoxy should be removable by a pulsed laser. Short enough pulses to vaporize the epoxy without heating the lower layers, wavelength long enough to reflect off gold well, pulse energy low enough to not create significant shock waves.
Hope something like that will be possible.
This, and the salvage op, will go into textbooks.
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Hopefully itās a stupidly thick layer because somebody is an idiot, not because this ārepairā is sponsored by Cash4Gold and they needed a bit of fillerā¦
I have a hard time believing anyone would be that stupid(sneaking Au-198 out of the radiotherapy unit for a little amateur jewelery making would probably qualify as slightly stupider; but thatās about it); but people have an impressive capacity to disappoint.
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Somebody at the museum didnāt get the memo on that.
FTFY. A slight change of perspective leads to much less disappointment in life.
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Why are we upset about this exactly? In 2,500 years itāll just add to the mystique. Itās like aleatoric music or Pollock art, itās all part of the rich human tapestry.
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