Amun and Mut with Dr. Gaballa at the Cairo Museum
SCA News
Amun & Mut, Karnak Famous Deities for the First Time in 2000 Years
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Horemheb (1320 - 1306 BC), at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, dedicated a statue group representing the deity Mut and Amun seated on a throne to the Karnak temple. The statue location was in the hypostyle hall to the north of Hatchepsut Obelisk. Stone robbers in the Middle Ages quarried away blocks of stones from the base and the back of the deity group, and a basin was hollowed at the back of the throne. The sculpture thus denuded was a great problem to restorers as many fragments were spread apart everywhere. The head of the famous deity Mut was excavated in 1870 and thirty years later Amun's head, parts of the torso and parts of the throne were found. Despite the good intentions to reassemble the statuary by the beginning of the century, the project was suspended for long. Only Mut's head was displayed wrongly as queen Tiye's head, while the different pieces of the statue discovered through different periods were stored in different places, and thus dispersed all over and they lied forgotten. The basement of the Cairo Museum and the Karnak storerooms hosted some important fragments that were neglected for long. It required efforts to correlate between the dispersed body fragments and the deities' heads. |
Studies were led at the same time in order to reassemble around 250 dispersed pieces. This work started in 1994, but in September 1998, the restorers in charge took care that the fragments were measured, drawn, photographed and recorded. They had to eliminate all the dirt from each fragment that had to be cleaned thoroughly and protected by applying a thin coating of microcrystalline wax. They would then after cleaning these important pieces study each carefully and bring them into groupings as unfortunately a great percentage of the statuary was missing.
| Restorers had to face again a new methodology to apply, as the traditional method applied required to filling the empty areas, which was not possible as it would be inappropriate in this specific case. They then decided to set a frame-like structure within the original dimensions of the statuary, such structure allows the individual pieces to be supported with minimal intervention. This new method has been applied by some of the leaders international Museums. |
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Egypt has applied for the first time the new method of assembly and presentation. This work started as from September 1998 to June 1999. "It is actually displayed at a prominent place in Cairo Museum and we are proud of that important achievement " announces Dr. Gaballah, Secretary General to the SCA. " It has been a successful partnership between the Supreme Council of Antiquities and The American Research Centre in Egypt. It is the first statue restored under a USAID grant for the restoration and preservation of Egyptian monuments," added Dr. Gaballah who is happy of such achievement and encourages for more preservations and restorations of the monuments as this is one of the most important tasks of the SCA.
Naglaa El Zahlawi
