Tutankhamun’s Polychrome Wooden Shawabtis: Preliminary Investigation for Pigments and Gilding Characterization and Indirect Dating of Previous Restorations by the Combined Use of Imaging and Spectroscopic Techniques

Abstract

To the best of our knowledge, such a detailed study on polychrome wooden shawabtis of King Tutankhamun (18th Dynasty in ancient Egypt) has not been reported in the literature, so the purpose of our study is to noninvasively identify the polychrome layers and previously applied materials for a number of wooden shawabtis that belong to King Tutankhamun through a protocol based on imaging techniques integrated with single-spot spectroscopic techniques. In the first step, imaging techniques (visible, ultraviolet induced visible luminescence, ultraviolet reflected, visible-induced infrared luminescence, infrared reflected, and infrared false color) and optical microscopy were applied to gather information and provide evidence on the distribution of original and previously applied materials on the polychrome surfaces. In the second step of our work, we analyzed the selected areas with single-spot analyses (handheld X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and visible reflectance spectroscopy) and X-ray diffraction analysis. The materials of the previous restoration interventions were studied by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The application of a protocol based on imaging techniques integrated with data obtained from single-spot spectroscopic techniques allowed the characterization of a remarkable number of polychrome layers and some previous restoration materials and mapping of their distribution on the original surface, which provides not only essential data for the follow-up treatment and conservation works but also offers important information for the study of polychrome wooden shawabtis of other periods in ancient Egypt.

The High Potential of Micro-Magnetic Resonance Imaging for the Identification of Archaeological Reeds: The Case Study of Tutankhamun

“…The box was closed in 1933 and stored in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo until 2017. In 2018, it was moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum, where its contents were subjected to scientific analyses [17,18].…”

Investigation of Egyptian Blue on a Fragmentary Egyptian Head Using ER-FTIR Spectroscopy and VIL Imaging

“…The imaging of Egyptian blue using VIL was developed by Verri in 2016 [25,26]. Since then, several case studies have been published that illustrate the identification and mapping of Egyptian blue on heritage objects using VIL imaging [27][28][29][30][31][32]. This technique allows mapping of Egyptian blue, even when it is not readily visible on the object due to surface patinas or coatings, or because most of the pigment has worn away.…”