Word: tombs
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...SEVERAL QUEENS of the legendary Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II (1290-1223 B.C.), none outshone Nefertari. She was Ramses' favorite wife, and by all accounts his loveliest. For her death, Ramses commissioned a subterranean tomb in the Valley of the Queens near Thebes, where she was portrayed in lustrous wall paintings by the leading artists of the kingdom...
Nefertari's tomb, lost for three millenniums, was discovered in 1904. Its treasures had been looted, probably in antiquity, and its wall paintings had deteriorated. By 1940, in fact, the decay had become so severe that Egyptian authorities closed the tomb to the public. It seemed to have become yet another endangered landmark of ancient Egyptian civilization. But in 1986 the Egyptian Antiquities Organization and the Getty Conservation Institute of Santa Monica, Calif., embarked on a $4 million restoration project. The dramatic results were unveiled last week. Although access to the tomb will be limited for two years to scientists...
Corzo's scientific experts identified the two primary causes of damage to the tomb: humidity and humanity. They theorized that the deterioration before the tomb's discovery was the result of a flood that occurred between 100 B.C. and A.D. 100. The scientists' studies also showed that the presence of 17 people inside the tomb for a mere half an hour could raise the relative humidity from 30% to 50%, more than high enough to allow bacteria to grow...
...conservators in a year-long emergency campaign. They applied 10,000 strips of Japanese mulberry-bark paper to the walls and ceilings like Band-Aids, to keep plaster from crumbling and paint from flaking. Then began the painstaking work of restoration. The conservators swabbed every square inch of the tomb with distilled water, gently removing the accumulation of 3,000 years of dust and soot. In some areas, they chiseled the layers of plaster and paint from the wall, using the mulberry-bark strips as hinges, to clean the limestone walls of the cave and repair salt fractures...
...Bear's--10 Brookline St., Cambridge. 492-0082. Shudder to Think, Jawbox, Miranda Warning on March 12. Yo La Tenga and Womb to Tomb on March...