TAA i.3.23.51
Page 9 of Carter's typescript notes on shrines.
The whole text or part of the text is fully struck through on this page but is not indicated in the transcription. On this page, strikethrough formatting is reserved for the author’s edits and deletions within the main body of the text, which would otherwise be difficult to distinguish.
© Griffith Institute,
University of Oxford
9
and each section needed temporary treatment to allow of hand-
ling with the least risk of damage. I t will give some idea
of the difficulties of that operation when it is known that
those/<the> sections, taking the most conservative estimate, weighed
from one cwt. to half a ton. Their wood planking although
quite sound had shrunk during the period it was in the tomb;
this shrinkage had caused the gesso and the gold overlay to buckle
and come away from the basic wood; the ornamented surfaces
were thus too delicate to admit of any but the most careful
handling for, when touched, they tended to crush and fall
away. All such interstices had eventually to be filled in
with a high temperature paraffin wax to consolidate them fit
for transport. They absorbed ove<r> a half a ton of wax, and
the task of / consolidation including packing took two long
seasons of heavy and irksome work before they could be trans-
ported to the Cairo Museum. There they have been re-erected
and, I am happy to say, in almost as perfect condition as
when they were placed in the tomb.