The eight museum officials who damaged the prized burial mask of King Tutankhamun are now facing trial for their actions. The incident had resulted in visible damage to the mask due to careless handling and a hurried attempt to cover up the mistake.
New York Times reports that the initial incident happened during August 2014, when the mask's beard was knocked off the case while workers were repairing the light fixture above the display. This embarrassing saga was further exacerbated when tourists started filming and taking pictures of the employees attempting to reattach the beard using metal tools and an insoluble epoxy resin that left a visible ring of glue on the mask, which was further damages when the employees tried to "hide" the evidence by scraping off the excess glue, leaving scratches on the solid gold burial mask.
Smithsonian elaborates on the incident, revealing that the museum director, Mahmoud al-Halwagy, initially insisted that the rushed repair job did not damage the artifact. But by January 2015, the ring of glue was still visible to visitors, and scratches still lined the area of the botched repair. German restoration experts were called to mitigate the damage, and after eight weeks, the joint Egyptian-German restoration team successfully removed the epoxy and reattached the beard. Traces of damage still remain however, as scratches from the initial botched repair are still present on the mask's surface, but is assured not to be immediately visible to visitors.
In another report from New York Times cited that the administrative prosecution authority of Egypt, which primarily investigates legal violations involving public servants, accused eight officials involved in the incident of "gross negligence and blatant violation of scientific and professional rules." The list of the accused includes the former director of the museum and a former head of restoration for museum's artifacts. The accused officials have been suspended from their jobs and will possibly be fired sometime in the future. While they will also face heavy fines for the damage to the mask, they will not be sent to prison.
Monica Hanna, an archaeologist and member of Egypt's Heritage Take Force, blames the museum's declining standards for the incident. "There's been a shift in the people working there," she said. "The experienced people have retired, and the new ones do not have adequate training." The 104-year-old museum hosts the world's largest collection of mummies, but over the recent years, the artifacts have been treated with increasing neglect.
The mask was fully repaired by professionals by October of last year and was returned to public display at the Egyptian Museum on December. The restoration methods used were primarily old-fashioned, using wooden tools and beeswax to mitigate and prevent further possible damage from using sharp metal tools.
