Ancient Egyptian mummy at Fitzwilliam Museum saved by engineering and LEGO

David Knowles, Sophie Rowe and Andor Vince positioning the cartonnage in the purpose-built frame Credit: The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-ancient-egyptian-mummy-lego.html#jCp

The conservation of the cartonnage mummy case was undertaken with the assistance of the Department of Engineering, who helped construct clever frames to support the delicate case during conservation and a new display case with internal supports using LEGO. The mummy case was found in the Ramesseum at Thebes in 1896. The gilded wooden face had been torn out by robbers and the mummy removed. Cartonnage is a uniquely Egyptian material, often only a few millimetres thick, consisting of layers of plaster, linen and glue. It is remarkably rigid but also very sensitive to humidity. At some point Hor had been exposed to damp conditions and had sagged dramatically around the chest and face. This caused structural problems and also serious cracking and instability in the painted decoration. There had been some attempts at repair and restoration, most probably in the cartonnage’s early years in the Museum.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-ancient-egyptian-mummy-lego.html#jCp