Cleaners knock off King Tut's beard, glue it back on

Doing restoration work is no easy task, especially when you're working on something as important as King Tut's remains. Unfortunately, one group of cleaners found that out the hard way when they knocked off King Tut's beard.

When the cleaners realized their mistake, they quickly glued the pharoah's blue and gold braided beard back on with epoxy, but the damage had been done.

Conservators at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo apparently gave The Associated Press different accounts of when the incident occurred. They disagreed on whether the beard removal was an accident, or whether it was removed because it had been coming loose. However, the three conservators all agreed that the cleaners used an "inappropriate adhesive" to restore the beard.

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One conservator told AP that there is now "a layer of transparent yellow" between Tutankhamun's face and beard. And another curator said that a spatula had been used in an attempt to remove excess epoxy from King Tut's golden mask, leaving scratches. An investigation into the incident is underway. —Meghan DeMaria

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