Press Release -December 20, 2017 (Wed)
“Another Transportation of Tutankhamun’s Chariot and Textiles completed”
The Grand Egyptian Museum Joint Conservation Project (GEM-JC Project), a joint project run by Grand Egyptian Museum, Ministry of Antiquities and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), had completed the transportation of another chariot and 2 textile items of Tutankhamun from the Egyptian Museum of Archaeology in Cairo to the Grand Egyptian Museum Conservation Center (GEM-CC) in Giza on December 19 (Tuesday).
In this project, Egyptian and Japanese experts jointly implement technical cooperation for conservation of 72 target artifacts which will be transported to and exhibited in the Grand Egyptian Museum. These items were selected according to their importance for the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum and suitableness for technical cooperation. The project’s overall goal is that Grand Egyptian Museum Conservation Center to conduct conservation and research activities as a central institution for conserving cultural heritage in Egypt and to ensure the proper preservation of artifacts in future exhibition in the Grand Egyptian Museum. This project had begun in November 2016, the Japan International Cooperation Center (JICE) and Tokyo University of the Arts (TUA) formed a joint venture (joint enterprise) and dispatched about 40 Japanese experts.
The chariot which was transported on Dec. 19 is one of the 6 chariots discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun, and it is planned that all 6 chariots will be exhibited together after opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum. The two textile items are woven clothes (tunics) also found in the tomb Tutankhamun, but as result of natural decay of organic material, the objects suffer from very fragile and brittle condition which needed great care in their transportation.
Therefore, considering the utmost safety of both people and artifacts, the transportation team from Grand Egyptian Museum Conservation Center elaborated detailed plan for every execution phases of packing and transportation procedures including selection of route, as well as vehicle arrangement such as trucks and forklift etc., and technical advice were provided by experts of the Nippon Express Co., Ltd. Further, to ensure the safety of the artifacts, patented anti-vibration pallet of the company was used, and the vibration and influence on the artifacts were monitored during the transportation.
In the future, we will conduct scientific investigations for diagnosis and analysis, formulate plans and conduct conservation treatments.
