From the news today: Beard of Egypt's King Tut hastily glued back on with epoxy
Now tell me if this sounds familiar to you:
The conservator said that the mask now shows a gap between the face and the beard, whereas before it was directly attached: "Now you can see a layer of transparent yellow."
Another museum conservator, who was present at the time of the repair, said that epoxy had dried on the face of the boy king's mask and that a colleague used a spatula to remove it, leaving scratches. The first conservator, who inspects the artifact regularly, confirmed the scratches and said it was clear that they had been made by a tool used to scrape off the epoxy.
You know, I always feel bad when I try to fix a cracked neck post or something and make a huge mess of it, but now I can at least take some small comfort in the knowledge that professionals make the same mistakes.
Next thing we know, museum conservators will be hot-gluing on trim (my all-purpose solution)...
ReplyDeletegiggles...
ReplyDeleteLOL! It's terrible that this historic artefact is handled this way, but indeed, I won't feel so bad about my failed doll repair efforts anymore :-D.
ReplyDeleteOh God! Am I a terrible person for laughing at this?
ReplyDeletePuts a whole new perspective on doll repair, doesn't it? LOL!
ReplyDelete@Smaller Places Well, I always thought those pyramids looked a bit grey and boring.
ReplyDelete@Anon mte!
@Night Owl & BlackKitty Oh, it's terrible and I'm sure we're terrible people for laughing, but it IS pretty funny nonetheless...
@Phyllis Yes, apparently it's excellent practice for handling priceless artifacts!
I'm giggling with everyone else. I mean it's awful to think of an artefact being handled that way but at the same time it's so funny and you can just imagine it happening - and getting worse and worse as people tried to fix the first bad repair. At least, our dolls are not priceless artefacts, at least not yet.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say it like that it sounds like something out of Fawlty Towers, lol!
DeleteIf nothing else, I guess it shows people will be people and mess up no matter what the circumstances are. Reassuring and scary at the same time.