January 5, 2016 Tuesday

The mask of Tutankhamun - level 3

This is the mask of Tutankhamun, Egypt’s famous boy king. The beard broke off in 2014 when museum workers were changing the lights in its display case and accidentally touched the mask. It had been glued back together but needed further repair work after images surfaced online, showing a line of glue around its chin. It was unveiled after nine weeks of restoration work.

Egyptian Minister of Antiquities, Mamdouh Eldamaty, announced the beard had never been fixed since the mask was first excavated and brought to the Egyptian Museum with its beard unattached in 1924. It was reattached to the mask in 1941 with glue that had deteriorated over the past 70 years.

Eldamaty said they had discovered an additional gold tube inside the beard while restoring the artefact.

Difficult words: unveil (to show something to the public), antiquity (an object from the ancient past), announce (to say something officially), excavate (to dig out of the ground), deteriorate (to fall apart), artefact (a historically important object).