King Tut’s beard is back, no damage caused by glue mishap

The ornate beard that Egyptian museum workers accidentally knocked off King Tut’s mask and hastily tried to glue back on has now been fully restored, National Geographic reported Thursday.

The mask was back on display in downtown Cairo’s Egyptian Museum starting Thursday after a nine-week restoration process ensured the beard was once again firmly attached to its proper place on the boy king’s chin.

The damage was not as dire as previous reports had feared, according to the magazine. This apparently wasn’t the first time Tut’s beard fell off, experts noted, and the epoxy did not cause any permanent damage.

Furthermore, Antiquities Minister Mamdouh al-Damaty claimed the restoration process led to some unexpected discoveries, National Geographic said.

“The process has uncovered two surprises: The first is that the beard has an internal tube that connects it to the mask's face, and the second is that the 1946 reattachment of the beard was done using soft solder," he stated.

The mask was restored by a joint Egyptian and German team, and the German Foreign Office donated 50,000 euros to the task. National Geographic reported the restoration team used ancient techniques to restore the mask, such as applying beeswax as an adhesive — an organic material that won’t damage the metal, and that would have been used for this purpose in ancient times.

Images showing a translucent layer of dried glue on the beard circulated in January 2015, provoking an international media frenzy as many speculated that the beloved artefact could have been permanently damaged.

Museum workers had allegedly knocked the mask over while cleaning its display in August 2014, then attempted to quickly stick Tut’s dislodged beard back in place using glue.

King Tut’s golden mask is one of the most famous of Egypt’s antiquities. More than 3,000 years old, it was discovered in 1922 by English archaeologists when they first located King Tutankhamun's tomb.