Egypt’s Antiquities minister Khaled el-Anany said that the country has begun work on the first-ever restoration on a gold covered stone coffin of Pharaoh Tutankhamun as it prepares to open a new museum in 2020.
El-Anany told a press conference that work on the coffin’s outermost part may take at least eight months due to the very fragile state of conservation as it was never restored since the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb.
The outermost part of the coffin consists of wood covered thinly with gold.
Tutankhamun’s coffin stayed in the 3,000-year-old tomb before it was transferred a new museum, the Grand Egyptian Museum, which is being constructed near the pyramids of Giza, near the capital Cairo.
Tutankhamun was buried in the Valley of Kings at Thebes and several treasures were placed in his tomb to assist him in his afterlife.
A 3,000-year-old head sculpture of Tutankhamun was sold by UK-based Christie’s auction house for nearly six million U.S. dollars in July, despite Cairo calling on the UK government to stop the sale.
Egyptian authorities said the relic was illegally smuggled out of Egypt and is still owned by the country.
The sale prompted Egyptian authorities to call for an emergency meeting to discuss the legal measures to be taken following the sale of the artefact.
