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7464

EVALUATION OF BIOTECHNOLOGY IN THE CONSERVATION OF WALL PAINTINGS IN THE MORTUARY TEMPLE OF RAMSES III.

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Last updated: 22 Jan 2023

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Abstract

Egypt has a lot of ancient tombs and tempels, which were decorated with different kinds of wall
paintings. Structure of these wall pintings consists of support, plaster and paint layers. The mortuary
temple of Ramses III the king of 20th Dynasty who ruled Egypt for 31 years (1183-1153 B.C). It’s
located of on the west bank of Luxor, Upper Egypt; The temple itself is made of sandstone and
contains more than 75,000 square feet of wall decoration and reliefs.Paintings deterioration is
primarily due to physiochemical, natural and human factors. The most detrimental factors are bat
patches, old varnish and organic waste of birds. All these leed to the gradual disappearance of
paintings. Modern technology of conservation is focused on application of new materials for cleaning
of wall paintings. Here we report on the use of enzymes for cleaning surface of wall paintings.
Analytical techniques such as PIXE, µPIXE, XRD, FTIR and Optical Microscopy were used to
evaluate the enzymatic cleaning processes of wall paintings and to identify the chemical composition
of blue, red, yellow and white pigments. PIXE and XRD results indicated that there is no change in
the chemical composition of the materials and pigments. FTIR and OM results confirmed the stability
of organic medium before and after enzymatic cleaning of different kind of patches.

DOI

10.21608/ejars.2012.7464

Keywords

biotechnology, conservation, wall paintings, Enzymes, PIXE, FTIR

Authors

First Name

Abd El Aal

Last Name

Sh.

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Affiliation

Lecturer, Conservation dept., Faculty of Archaeology, Fayoum University, Egypt.

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Volume

2

Article Issue

2

Related Issue

1435

Issue Date

2012-12-01

Receive Date

2012-06-28

Publish Date

2012-12-01

Page Start

79

Page End

89

Print ISSN

2090-4932

Online ISSN

2090-4940

Link

https://ejars.journals.ekb.eg/article_7464.html

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https://ejars.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=7464

Order

2

Type

Original Article

Type Code

575

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Journal of Archaeological and Restoration Studies

Publication Link

https://ejars.journals.ekb.eg/

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Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023