Photo of King Tut’s Mask/ from FÄhrtenleser -Wikimedia Commons
Eight museum employees will be charged with negligence and violation of the professional rules of the workplace after a botched reattachment of the beard on King Tutankhamun’s mask, Egyptian authorities said.
The Administrative Prosecutors said “The officials dealt recklessly with a piece of an artifact that is 3,300 years old, produced by one of the oldest civilizations in the world.”
Prosecutors also stated the eight people who will be charged are six restorers and two former heads of the restoration section at the museum.
The mask is now fixed. After the failed attempt, the museum brought in experts who fixed the mask.
It is scary to me that museum workers are being prosecuted. I’d like to think no one would botch a job like that on purpose. And it’s hard to believe the workers would not take that job seriously. Maybe they didn’t have the expertise to do it?
Without knowing any specifics, it’s hard to say whether there is justification. Sometimes people just don’t do a job perfectly and that’s okay. Othertimes they show up drunk and stoned and do botch what they do. If the latter is the case, I’d say they have a case.