The Grand Egyptian Museum Joint Conservation Project (GEM-JC Project) team has transported the last Chariot and Bed from the Egyptian Museum, El Tahrir to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) on April 22,2018.
The GEM-JC team members were commuting to the Tahrir Museum to document the Chariot and the Bed before beginning transportation. After the documentation ended, the team continued with the condition check phase, in which they found some traces of insects inside the showcase of the bed at El Tahrir Museum. This will be carefully isolated and monitored by the fumigation team before once it reaches the Grand Egyptian Museum Conservation Center (GEM-CC). Then, if it seems necessary, we will conduct the fumigation.
Followed by the previous steps, the transportation team started preparing for the packing of the Bed and Chariot. First, they worked along with the conservators to do first aid on the Bed and Chariot, followed by their packing. However, since the stairs of the Tahrir Museum are narrow, the transportation team had to find a safe way to take the Chariot down to the first floor before finally managing to take it to the first floor and pack it in the box while working along with the Japanese Transportation members from Nippon Express.
The GEM-JC Project is a joint project run by the GEM, Ministry of Antiquities and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). In this project, Egyptian and Japanese experts jointly implement technical cooperation for conservation of 72 target artifacts which will be transported to and exhibited in the GEM. These items were selected according to their importance for the opening of the GEM and suitableness for technical cooperation. The project’s overall goal is that the GEM-CC to conduct conservation and research activities as a central institution for conserving cultural heritage in Egypt and to ensure the proper conservation of artifacts in future exhibition in the GEM. This project began in November 2016, and the Japan International Cooperation Center (JICE) and Tokyo University of the Arts (TUA) formed a joint venture (joint enterprise) and dispatched about 40 Japanese experts.
