4th International Tutankhamun Conference to be inaugurated on May 5

CAIRO – 3 May 2018: Minister of Antiquities Khaled al-Anani will inaugurate on Saturday May 5, the fourth International Tutankhamun Conference, organized by the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) at Le Méridien Pyramids Hotel.

As part of the conference, the GEM will receive the last historic chariot of King Tutankhamun which will be moved from the Military Museum in Saladin Citadel.

The Grand Egyptian Museum has been organizing the conference since 2015 to discuss the best methods to restore and preserve Tutankamun’s funerary collection, ensure its safe transportation from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square to the GEM, and to come up with the best display techniques to present the Golden King’s collection at new permanent exhibition halls at the GEM.

On October 3, 2017, the Grand Egyptian Museum team packaged the second historic chariot and bed of Tutankhamun to transport them to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), located two kilometers from the Giza Pyramids.

The repair team used modern materials and methods in the process of packing and moving the bed. They used precise air lifters that facilitated moving the bed from the base area without exerting any mechanical stress on it. Previous studies on the internal structure and wooden joints of the king's bed have been implemented using an X-ray device, which greatly helped to identify the weak points in the bed and determine the amount of intervention needed to maintain it during the transfer process.

The treasures of King Tutankhamun were exhibited in the Egyptian Museum located in Tahrir Square since their discovery inside King Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of Kings on the western bank of Luxor in 1922.

In earlier statements, Minister of Antiquities Anani said that 50 percent of the work needed to build the new museum has been finalized and that the first phase will be inaugurated in 2019. The first phase will include a room for Tutankhamun’s relics.

The museum is expected to be one of the largest museums in the world.

Some 42,000 out of 100,000 artifacts were moved to the Grand Museum which plans to hire international companies for service management, Anani stated during a press conference in the Cabinet.