King Tut's Burial Mask Irreversibly Damaged

[billchao]

Quote:

The most famous archaeological relic in the world has been damaged during a botched cleaning attempt. After being knocked off, the blue and gold braided beard on King Tut's burial mask was "hastily" glued back on with an inappropriate adhesive, damaging the item even further.

Above: King Tut's burial mask before the incident. (Egyptian Museum in Cairo)

Brace yourselves, folks. This story is all kinds of messed up. As The Associated Press is reporting , it appears that the beard was quickly glued back on by curators at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo with epoxy, an "irreversible material" that's completely unsuitable for a restoration effort of this importance. Conservators at the museum revealed the incident yesterday.

Somebody damaged a priceless 3,000 year old artifact and tried to fix it with glue.

http://io9.com/king-tuts-burial-mask-has-been-irreversibly-damaged-1681085211

[newtogolf]

At least they didn't use Elmers.

[billchao]

At least they didn't use Elmers.

They should have. It probably would have been pretty easy to clean.

[flopster]

Hack job

[Abu3baid]

Idiots.. They were probably the experts too.. Ugh.. I can't wait to give my Egyptian friend a hard time about his mates ;)

[scorpion12]

Man, that sucks. At least it's still visible... awhile back there was that al fresco painting that was irreversibly destroyed by a nun that tried to restore it. Same thing... only worse. Maybe. It depends on your perspective and religious beliefs I guess... it can be seen at the link below... or just search for nun destroys painting.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2192629/Pensioner-destroyed-19th-century-religious-artwork-insists-permission-restore-painting--isnt-finished.html

[billchao]

Man, that sucks. At least it's still visible... awhile back there was that al fresco painting that was irreversibly destroyed by a nun that tried to restore it. Same thing... only worse. Maybe. It depends on your perspective and religious beliefs I guess... it can be seen at the link below... or just search for nun destroys painting. [URL=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2192629/Pensioner-destroyed-19th-century-religious-artwork-insists-permission-restore-painting--isnt-finished.html]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2192629/Pensioner-destroyed-19th-century-religious-artwork-insists-permission-restore-painting--isnt-finished.html[/URL]

It's not really the same thing. Ecce Homo[/i] is/was a painting on the wall of an obscure cathedral by an obscure artist. Sure, Cecelia Gimenez butchered it, but it also brought the painting into light and generated tourist revenue. King Tut's burial mask is a world renown icon. It's the most prominent artifact of Ancient Egypt. A more apt art analogy would be if someone accidently scratched the [i]Mona Lisa[/i] and then tried to paint over the scratch.

[Zeph]

You can't call yourself a curator if you do something like this.

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