Word: tombs
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...only monuments in the world where you can drive up and park your car. Even in Disneyland you have to park a mile away." Last year alone 1,969,493 visitors came to look at -- and touch and breathe on -- Egypt's treasures. Just six people breathing inside a tomb for an hour can raise the humidity by 5 percentage points. And higher humidity provides a hospitable environment for bacteria, algae and fungi that grow on paintings. Sighs Hassan: "Three thousand people a day visit King Tut's tomb. They sweat. I can't prevent that, but it is destroying...
Deir al-Bahri. A 3,400-year-old tomb-and-temple complex near Luxor, it is threatened by landslides from a nearby mountain. The most likely remedy is a + chain-link fence to protect the monument from falling rocks. Meanwhile, the Polish Center of Archaeology in Cairo has been doing restoration work on parts of the temple. One project: using gypsum to patch up and refinish a statue of the god Osiris...
...even if major salvage projects could be launched immediately for all these sites, many more are in urgent need of attention. In the tomb of Seti I, dating from about 1300 B.C., paintings and reliefs are falling off the walls and ceilings. At the Greco-Roman Temple of Sobek and Horus at Kom Ombo, salt buildup has eroded reliefs and inscriptions carved into the temple's walls and pillars. Even in the Temple of Horus at Edfu (3rd century B.C. to 2nd century B.C.), one of the best-preserved temples, inscriptions are endangered by dampness...
...have been spirited away by scholars and souvenir hunters. Such removals have become rare, but most visitors still have little interest in preservation. A few foreign groups, however, have made major contributions. The University of Chicago's Oriental Institute has been documenting and helping to preserve the temples and tombs at Luxor since the late 1920s. And perhaps the model project is the spectacular effort to restore Nefertari's tomb. The 32-century-old mausoleum, discovered in 1904, has been officially closed since the early 1950s because of its fragile condition. Beginning in 1986, the Getty Institute, in partnership with...
First, an international team assessed the damage to the tomb and surveyed the local geology and climate. Next, restorers pasted mulberry-bark paper and cotton gauze over the most precarious wall paintings to ensure that they would not collapse. Eventually, the covering was removed, and the paintings were fortified with acrylics and cleaned. To prevent water damage from recurring, the Getty researchers may install waterproof insulation. It has taken nearly two years to treat 60% of the tomb; the project may be completed...