CAIRO: The damage caused by a botched repair of the mask of Tutankhamun that left dried glue on the priceless relic may be undone with careful treatment, a German conservator said on Saturday.

The golden funerary mask, one of the main tourist attractions at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, bears the sticky aftermath of what appears to have been overzealous use of glue to fix its beard in place.

The beard had fallen off accidently when the mask was removed from its case last year to repair the lighting in the case where it is displayed, officials said. “There is no actual endangering of the mask... the measures that have been taken are reversible,” Christian Eckmann, who specialises in conserving archaeological glass and metal objects, told reporters at a press conference at the museum.

Eckmann said that when the lighting in the display case was being repaired in August 2014, “the mask was touched and the beard fell... due to the glue which was used during the first restoration of the mask in 1941”.

Published in Dawn January 25th , 2015

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