King Tut’s tomb to get a facelift

CAIRO – Restoration work will begin on the tomb of Egypt’s most famous pharaoh, King Tutankhamen, Egypt’s antiquities department said yesterday.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) has partnered with the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) to work on the conservation and management of the tomb and its wall paintings.’I am happy that Getty will look at the tomb and preserve its beautiful scenes,’ SCA Secretary General Zahi Hawass was quoted as saying.’I am even more thrilled to invite the GCI to restore his tomb and return the glory of the boy king,’ Hawass said.The tomb of the pharaoh, who died under mysterious circumstances at about the age of 25, was unearthed by British archaeologists in the Valley of the Kings in 1922, causing an international sensation.’The SCA-CGI project will include scientific analysis of the problems afflicting the wall paintings,’ Tim Whalen, director of CGI was quoted as saying in the statement.’But that is only one aspect of the project. The ultimate goal of our work with our Egyptian colleagues is to develop a long-term conservation and maintenance plan for this tomb that can serve as a model for preservation of similar sites.’- Nampa-AFP