The iconic blue-and-gold braided beard of Egypt's famed King Tutankhamun burial mask was knocked down and glued back on during a cleaning last year.
The burial mask is part of the Cairo's most visited museum. The museum announced that the beard was inappropriately glued back onto the burial mask with epoxy.
Accounts on the incident from three of the museum's conservators, who spoke with The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity, differed. The only static detail of the story was that an authoritative figure demanded that the mask be fixed right away and that an inappropriate adhesive was used.
"Unfortunately he used a very irreversible material - epoxy has a very high property for attaching and is used on metal or stone but I think it wasn't suitable for an outstanding object like Tutankhamun's golden mask," one conservator told AP. "The mask should have been taken to the conservation lab but they were in a rush to get it displayed quickly again and used this quick drying, irreversible material."
Because of the epoxy adhesive, a layer of transparent yellow is visible between the face and the beard. Before last year's incident the face and beard were directly attached.
Another museum conservator, who was present at the time of the repair, told AP a spatula was used to remove excess epoxy that dried on the face while his colleagues were fixing the mask. He and the first conservator both said the tool scratched the mask.
"From the photos circulating among restorers I can see that the mask has been repaired, but you can't tell with what," Egyptologist Tom Hardwick told AP. "Everything of that age needs a bit more attention, so such a repair will be highly scrutinized."
