The
accident occurred at the site where the ancient boat is being removed from its
burial pit. Written By/ Nevine El-Aref.
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The crane used in lifting up the beams from the pit
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A
team of archaeologists and restorers were dispatched on Monday to the Giza Plateau
to inspect work achieved at Khufu’s second boat project, and to investigate the
condition of a damaged beam.
Since
2010, a Japanese-Egyptian team has been working to lift, restore and
reconstruct the ancient boat, 4,500 years after it was buried as part of King
Khufu's funeral rites. So far, 745 pieces of the 1,264 pieces of the whole boat
have been removed from the excavation pit.
Ayman
Ashmawi, the head of the Ancient Egyptian Department at the Ministry of
Antiquities, told Ahram Online that the boat beam was damaged by accident when
a crane malfunctioned, leading it to come into direct contact with a beam
within the pit.
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the crane lifting up a beam inside the pit
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"A
very small part of the beam was subjected to a very mild deterioration which
does not have any impact on the beam itself and could be easily restored during
the restoration work carried out by the efficient and skillful
Japanese-Egyptian team," Ashmawi asserted, adding that his observation and
the team escorted him during his inspection tour confirm the report submitted
by the project team.
Ashmawi
told Ahram Online that a committee from the Projects Department at the ministry
is to be assigned to re-inspect the beam in order to make another report. He
also said that the whole case is now under an administrative investigation in
order to find out if there was any employee failure related to the incident.
Eissa
Zidan, director-general of first aid restoration at the project, explained that
the pit houses around 1,264 wooden beams in 13 different layers. The majority
of the beams are in a very bad conservation condition while a minority are
almost fully decomposed.
A
total of 732 excavated pieces have so far been restored, Zidan said, and a
collection of 560 pieces have been transported to the Grand Egyptian Museum
overlooking Giza plateau.
There
are plans to lift and restore all the beams in an attempt to reconstruct the
boat and put it on display beside the first boat discovered in 1954 by Egyptian
historian Kamal El-Malakh and restored by well-known restorer Ahmed Youssef.
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