Viggen Posted January 22, 2015 Report Share Posted January 22, 2015 ...lost for words.... The blue and gold braided beard on the burial mask of famed pharaoh Tutankhamun was hastily glued back on with epoxy, damaging the relic after it was knocked during cleaning, conservators at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo said Wednesday. more at CBC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onasander Posted January 22, 2015 Report Share Posted January 22, 2015 Stupid yes, but umm... that's hardly irreversible. Magnifying Glass, tweezers, and dental picks. As to the scratching, most people won't see it, and it's going to need an inevitable pwriodic touchup, we expect this artifact to be around, well.... forever. Alot more damage will come to it over 500,000 years, no matter how fancy our future tech gets. I'm just astounded it could break off. Solid metal gold doesn't do this. It's as if the beard was cast separate and welded on after, and that gave in... or it's largely rotted wood inside with gold added over.... this gives us a chance to look at some of it's insides. Clearly shoddy construction, not a single uniform pure gold mask. Gold just doesn't snap like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indianasmith Posted January 22, 2015 Report Share Posted January 22, 2015 You know that, when they finally got down to Tutankhamen's actual mummy, Carter and his team found that the mummy had not been properly dried out before being placed in the sarcophagus. The glues and unguents used in the process were still semiliquid, and they pooled around the mummy, dried out, and cemented poor Tut to the bottom of his coffin! Archeology in the 1920's was less painstaking than it is today - rather than find a compound to soften the congealed unguents, they simply tore the body out of the casket in three pieces! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onasander Posted January 23, 2015 Report Share Posted January 23, 2015 (edited) Okay, I've looked it up: http://m.wikihow.com/Remove-Epoxy Epoxy responds to heat, and turns liquid. So.... I'm assuming Gold (if it is actual solid gold) melts at a much higher temperature.... Take some old fashion metallic dental picks, and a dexterous, experienced paleontologists, and heat the picks in boiling water, and gently scrap it. Take all the time you need. It will eventually melt off. You just gotta make sure the melting point for any part once contact is eventually made with the mask itself has a higher melting point. If not, just grind it really, really fine as close to the breaks as possible.... or at least till no one notices it anymore. Then duct tape the sucker back on. Edited January 23, 2015 by Onasander Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDawg Posted March 11, 2015 Report Share Posted March 11, 2015 I think that people should stop playing around the dang thing, and then this wouldn't happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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