RESTORATION WORKS

As in the last season we continued cleaning the walls of the Second Pillared Hall and had removed the bat guano from the majority of the walls by the end of the season. The work was carried out by a well-trained team of young Egyptian conservators. They also cleaned fragments from the decoration of the walls in the hope that we can replace some of them in the following seasons.

The part of the southern wall that was in danger of collapse was also cleaned to facilitate the planning for further reconstruction. The scene of the opening of the Harwa’s mouth was discovered during this process.

The walls of the passage leading to the Second Pillared Hall were completely cleaned. The conservation was extremely accurate on the southern wall where the death of Harwa is depicted. Also, we replaced a limestone block with part of the belt of Anubis, which had been discovered among the debris of the Second Pillared Hall.

The cleaning of this part of the tomb led to the recovery of traces of the original colours of the figures. The body of Harwa proved to be red, that of Anubis blue. This feature could possibly explain the absolute bichromy in the decoration of the tomb. The colours, as far as they are still visible, are exclusively red and blue. The first, the body of Harwa, recalls life; the second, the limbs of Anubis, recalls death. Through the use of colour, the tomb's decoration refers once again to the passage from life to death.

Another limestone block was reinserted into the northern wall of the passage, which was  cleaned along with the entrance to the First Pillared Hall.

The sandstone base discovered in the middle of the First Pillared Hall and the threshold of the door leading to the Second Pillared hall were also  consolidated and restored.

The findings from every season were restored and consolidated. Conservation was accurately performed on the complete limestone shabty discovered during the 1997 season. The two parts were reattached and the gaps were filled.

Top of the page