2025 Poster Session

Abstract

 

The purpose of cartonnage is to protect, , assist the soul's return to the body and decorate the mummy with symbolic funeral objects.

Cartonnage contains both inorganic and organic components which accelerates its deterioration; therefore, the restoration process demands considerable sensitivity and care.

It is an overhead mask of woman cartonnage from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (catalogue 33279), which dated back to the Greco-Roman Period. It suffers from weakness, fragility, the spread of cracks and separations, and the presence of dust and stains.

The study focused on the following restoration steps: 

Photography before the restoration work, then temporary consolidation using klucel J dissolved in alcohol with a 1% concentration using the spray method due to its weakness, followed by mechanical cleaning with suitable brushes and wooden sticks for dust, cleaning with organic solvents (alcohol - acetone) for stains , fixing the separate parts and injecting the cracks and weak parts with klucel J at a 3% concentration and fixation using a glass weight, assembling and strengthening the cartonnage parts with thin strips of Japanese paper and klucel J at a 3% concentration, photography after the restoration, and finally displaying it inside a display case at a 45-degree angle to be able to visible through Plexiglas.

 

Keywords: Cartonnage, Greco-Roman, klucel J, restoration, consolidation, Japanese paper.