Tomb savers: Conservationists unveil work on Tutankhamun grave

After almost a decade, a team of international experts on Thursday revealed the results of their painstaking work to preserve the tomb of Egypt’s legendary Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Nearly a victim of his own fame, long years of mass tourism had left their mark on the boy king’s burial place near Luxor on the east bank of the Nile River. “A hundred years of visits, after being sealed for 3,000 years… can you imagine the impact on the grave?” said Neville Agnew, head of the project led by the Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute. “Visitors, humidity, dust…” lamented the scientist during the unveiling ceremony at the tomb, discovered in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings. Called to the rescue in 2009, Agnew has led a 25-member team — including archaeologists, architects, engineers and microbiologists — to preserve the tomb and fend off the ravages of time and tourism.