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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 July 1999 Issue No. 439 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 July 1999 Issue No. 439
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Focus Interview Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Ancient gods resurrected
By Nevine El-Aref
After almost a year of painstaking restorative work, the monumental statue of ancient gods Amun and Mut is again on display.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) in collaboration with the American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE) unveiled the statue this week. This was its first showing since the four-metre high seated statue was destroyed in the Middle Ages.
Gaballa Ali Gaballa, secretary-general of the SCA, said that the restoration of the statue was a very difficult project. A total of 78 pieces were reassembled to restore the limestone statue of Amun, the empire god, and Mut, the goddess of motherhood in nature.
Gaballa said that the pieces were gradually gathered from six different locations in Luxor and Cairo. All the fragments were carefully cleaned with a mixture of white spirit and water. Some pieces, which were covered in sulphate, were treated with a chemical mixture containing ammonium carbonate.
"Assembling the statue was like a puzzle," said Houring Sourouzian, director of the restoration project. She said that plans of successive museum curators in Cairo to rebuild the statue had been foiled because some of its key pieces were missing. "It took years of sifting through boxes in the cellars of museums in Cairo and Luxor until we finally found the missing pieces in 1994. We have now accounted for about 80 per cent of the decorated surface."
As a result of the long storage, the statue suffered from heavy soiling while all the pieces were originally black and dusty. So all surfaces of the stone fragments were cleaned and protected by applying a thin coating of micro-crystalline wax. Once cleaned, the fragments were studied and collected together in groups.
"It is a magnificent work of restoration," said Farouk Hosni, the minister of culture. He said the restoration was the result of a successful six-year partnership between the SCA and the ARCE to preserve and restore major cultural pieces.
"We are very proud to have participated to bring this impressive work to light," said Daniel Kurtzer, the American Ambassador in Egypt. The Amun and Mut project cost LE 250,000.
It has taken almost 12 months, but the famous statue of ancient gods Amun and his wife Mut has been restored and is on display in the Egyptian Museum
Photos: Mohamed Mossad
Gaballa said, "Some pieces of the statue still remain missing, so the traditional method of filling in empty areas was not possible because such additions would be highly speculative." He explained that the statue's restorers used modern methods of reconstruction without using plaster to fill in any areas.
The bulk of missing material belonged to the back and base of the statue. So the fragments have been supported by a frame-like structure which preserved the original dimensions of the statue.
This method of statue reassembly and presentation is used by some of the world's leading museums. But this was the first time it was adopted in Egypt.
The statue comes from the Karnak Temple in Luxor. It was dedicated by King Horemheb at the end of the 18th Dynasty and situated in the columned hall to the north of the obelisk of Hatshepsut.
The sculpture was broken up in the Middle Ages by stone robbers who quarried away blocks from the statue's back slab and base and hollowed a basin in the back of the throne.
Since then, numerous pieces of the statue have been found during excavations over different periods of time. They were subsequently sent to different storerooms where they were dispersed and forgotten.
Gaballa said that the head of the goddess Mut was excavated in 1870 by Auguste Marriette. Thirty years later Amun's head and parts of his torso and throne were found. Attempts at the turn of the century to reassemble it were abandoned. Only the head of Mut, originally incorrectly identified as Queen Tiye, was put on display in the Egyptian Museum. The rest of the fragments were kept in the museum's basement or left in the storerooms in Karnak.
In 1994, some fragments were re-identified. Gradually, through extensive research and painstaking archaeological investigative work, other pieces were found until all the fragments were gathered for study, conservation and reassembly in September 1998 at the Egyptian Museum.
