Tutankhamen: his grave is reborn after ten years of restoration

after ten years of work, the tomb of the great Egyptian pharaoh now has all its splendor / canvas

The bright colors of the tomb of Tutankhamun, the most famous pharaoh of Egypt, have regained its splendor and splendor thanks to a restoration project that has been extended for a decade and which has just come to life. to be presented to the public.

The restoration team found that the murals were in relatively stable conditions, beyond the peeling and loss of paint caused by inconsistencies in the materials.

The little tomb of the pharaoh child, one of the icons of the Valley of the Kings, is now in better condition than when archaeologist Howard Carter discovered it in 1922, according to archaeologists Egyptians and the team responsible for the project. "They performed the most impressive work ever done in a tomb in the world and they saved Tutankhamen, they saved the grave," said the famous Egyptologist Zahi Hawas.

The project, developed by the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) of the United States, aimed to improve the environmental conditions of the tomb in an attempt to protect it from the erosion of tourism, which forcefully returns to the royal necropolis excavated in the desert hills. from Luxor, in the south of Egypt. Archaeologist Neville Agnew, one of GCI's officials, explained that the state of the grave was not "as bad" at the beginning of the project because the state paintings was relatively stable.

The frescoes were damaged mainly by fungi that caused hundreds of small brown spots dotting the paintings, unique in a tomb of the Valley of the Kings, but the researchers are certain that they no longer represent a danger. "We think that the brown spots appeared because they were sealed too quickly.There was a lot of moisture and the mushrooms appeared.Today, the mushrooms are dead, they have never grown since that Carter opened the grave, we can compare the photographs, "said Agnew. The conservation project included the installation of a ventilation system and air filtration to dampen the humidity, as well as a new LED lighting system .