Saturday, 5th of May- The Fourth Grand Egyptian Museum International Tutankhamun Conference has taken place at Le Meridien Pyramids Hotel under the supervision of Dr. Tarek Tawfik, the General Supervisor of the Grand Egyptian Museum. The Conference started with a welcome speech given by the Minister of Antiquities, Dr Khaled Alanani, followed by the welcome word by Dr Fayza Haikal. The Conference continued for three days, where Egyptian and Foreign curators and conservators gave presentations of their latest researches regarding King Tutankhamun’s collections.

The arrival of the final Chariot to GEM-CC
Loading the chariot and the accessories into the unpacking area
Loading the chariot and the accessories into the unpacking area
The Fourth Grand Egyptian Museum International Tutankhamun’s Conference Gift to the guests
The beginning of the Conference
Dr Tawfik’s speech
Dr Tawfik’s speech at the end of the Conference
Mr Eissa’s presentation regarding the GEM-JC project
Dr Tawfik and Mr Eissa
GEM-JC project members
Dr Tawfik escorting the guests to GEM-CC labs
Dr Hussein Kamal with the guests at the wood lab
the guests at GEM-CC

This year’s Tutankhamun Conference was unlike any other year. As the first day of the Conference began with the transportation of the King’s last chariot which had been exhibited at the Military Museum at the Castle and was transported to the Grand Egyptian Museum, Conservation Center (GEM-CC). The Egyptian transportation team had applied the same safety measures of transportation as the ones they used jointly with the Japanese transportation team during many past transportations. Also, the transportation was streamed live on the National Egyptian Television with the presence of Dr Khaled Alanani, so that all Egyptians would witness such a great event.

On the third day of the conference, conservators from GEM-CC gave presentations regarding the conservation work of King Tutankhamun’s collection. Before the conference came to an end, Mr Eissa Zidan, the general director of first aid, packing and transportation at the Grand Egyptian Museum, gave a presentation about the Grand Egyptian Museum: Joint Conservation Project called “The safe journey of king Tutankhamun’s  chariots to the GEM: documentation, first aid and transportation” in which he explained to the audience the objectives of our project and the effect of the cooperation between the Egyptian conservators and transporters and Japanese experts. He also showed what has been achieved so far as well as the expected outputs of the project. In the end, Dr Tarek Tawfik gave the audience a brief about what was discussed throughout the conference.

After the conference, Dr Tawfik escorted the guests to the GEM-CC, where he showed them all the conservation work done at the organic, wood and heavy artifacts laboratories. The guests looked so satisfied with the conference, and very excited for the first-phase opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum.