Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh al-Damaty transferred the director of restoration at the Egyptian Museum, Ilham Abdel Rahman, to the Royal Coaches Museum in Bulaq against the backdrop of the botched restoration of the mask of King Tutankhamun.
The minister also referred all the responsible officials to investigation.
Ahmed Sharaf, head of the ministry’s museums department, told the MENA on Tuesday that Saeed Abdel Hamid, the head of the restoration department of the Coptic Museum, will temporarily replace Abdel Rahman.
Sharaf denied what Nour Abdel Samad, the head of the documentation department, had alleged about the mask of King Tutankhamun being an imitation because the original was stolen during the January revolution, stressing that he will take legal action against the official for tarnishing the reputation of the Egyptian archaeologists and harming tourism and national security.
Abdel Samad had also said that the mask was smuggled to Chile and received by the head of the Jewish community there, and that the imitation was sculptured in gold by Mahmoud Mabrouk, the former head of the museums department who was fired after 38 gold pieces were stolen from the museum in 2004.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
