King Tutankhamun's shrine moved to Grand Egyptian Museum

CAIRO: Restorers and archaeologists from the Grand Egyptian Museum completed the transfer and re-installation of the second shrine of boy pharaoh Tutankhamun on Monday, according to local news reports.

The ancient king's second shrine - carved in gilded wood - will be added to the third and fourth ones that were previously moved to the museum and will be later placed at its permanent location at Tut's Gallery.   

The remaining first shrine is currently being restored and will be transferred later to the still-to-be-completed museum, the news reports said without specifying a date.

Atef Moftah, supervisor-general of the Grand Egyptian Museum, told the state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram that the process of disassembling and re-assembling the shrine took four hours, and involved dismantling the structure into 15 pieces. 

El-Tayeb Abbas, Egypt's deputy minister of tourism and antiquities for archaeological affairs, was quoted by the Egypt Independent as saying: "The museum's staff removed the protective layers from the walls of the shrine, which were used to preserve them during the transfer and cleaned all gilded surfaces."

The museum had recently received three shrines belonging to the young king, the last one being the biggest artefact from his treasured collection, Moftah added.

The shrines were discovered in November 1922 at Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings on the west bank of the River Nile at Luxor and then transferred to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Construction of the new Grand Egyptian Museum began earlier this year in Giza near Cairo. However, its opening has been postponed more than once due to the Covid-19 pandemic.