The famous gold burial mask of King Tutankhamun began a painstaking restoration on Tuesday, nearly one year after museum staff in Cairo, Egypt, reattached the broken-off beard with epoxy.
One of Egypt's most iconic antiquities, the mask was part of a treasure trove uncovered in 1922 by British archeologists Howard Carter and George Herbert, who discovered King Tut's nearly intact tomb, setting off a blitz of worldwide news coverage.
At left, a statue of the young Egyptian pharaoh, King Tutankhamun, seen Jan. 14, 1927, along with other tomb treasures.
The 3,300-year-old burial pharaonic mask is perhaps the most well-known ancient artifact in the world, attracting thousands of tourists to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo each year.
But scandal struck in late 2014, when the beard was accidentally dislodged during what the museum called a routine cleaning.
What happened in the frenzied moments after the beard separated has never fully been nailed down, with competing narratives muddling the series of unfortunate events.
What is clear, however, is that it went from bad to worse.
One of three museum conservators who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity said the orders from down to fix the boo-boo fast.
Experts say the resulting fiasco was a solution that took minutes, when it should have been carried out carefully over the course of several days.
"Unfortunately, he used a very irreversible material — epoxy has a very high property for attaching and is used on metal or stone but I think it wasn't suitable for an outstanding object like Tutankhamun's golden mask," the conservator told the AP.
Another museum conservator said a colleague then used a spatula in an attempt to scrape off epoxy that had dried on the face of the mask, leaving scratches in the process. Confirmation of the damage sparked outrage and calls for a full scale investigation and possible criminal charges.
German restorer Christian Eckmann examines the beard of the golden mask of King Tutankhamun.
An Egyptian-German team will now be tasked with restoring the damaged artifact.
A team of experts showed off the mask in a laboratory Tuesday, detailing how the beard will be carefully removed and the epoxy scraped off. A scientific committee will determine the method for reattaching the beard, the AP reported.
Christian Eckmann, the lead restoration specialist, said the process could take up to two months.
