Dr. Khalid Al-Anani, Minister of Antiquities, and Dr. Elena Pischikova, head of the Egyptian-American joint mission for the South Asasif Conservation Project inaugurated a temporary antiquities exhibition at the Luxor Museum yesterday evening. The exhibition displayed the products of the mission under the title of “A journey across time.”
Joining them in the inauguration was Dr. Mostafa Waziri, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and Dr. Ayman Ashmawy, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector. The exhibition included a collection of artefacts that were the result of the mission’s operations, including thirty-nine ushabti statues, which were restored by the mission’s restoration team and assembled among the 101 ushabti fragments found in the burial chamber of the tomb of “Karabaskn”, Mayor of Tiba during the 25th Dynasty.
In addition to this is a painting of the Lady of the House, Artiro, dating to the 26th Dynasty. The Painting was found broken into 21 limestone pieces, which depicted Artiro worshiping the Aten.
Dr. Pischikova stated that the exhibition aims to revive the history of South Assasif’s cemetery through the different time periods of the last millennium.
It is important to note that the Egyptian-American joint mission for the South Asasif Conservation Project has operated under the the auspices of the Ministry of Antiquities since the year 2006, and has thus far succeeded in restoring the Late Period tombs that had been utterly devastated in the South Assasif cemetery, including that of Karabaskin (TT 391), Karakhamun (TT 223), and Artero (TT390).
The project has also uncovered thousands of pieces of collapsed tomb decoration and has reconstructed the second pillared hall as well as part of the first pillared hall in the tomb of Karakhamun. A Ptolemaic canopy box discovered in Karakhamun’s tomb was part of the exhibition’s display.