Cairo-January 21, 2023

After great achievements in the world of discoveries and restoration

During the past year, a number of Egyptian archaeologists won the best archaeologists and restorers award from the Zahi Hawas Egyptology Center, where they were honored at a ceremony at the Opera House in the presence of Egyptian Minister of Tourism and antiquities Ahmed Issa.

The award was won by the project team for the restoration of the manuscript of the Psalms of the Prophet David in the Coptic Museum, which is the oldest complete copy of the book of Psalms and was found during the Eighties inside a cemetery in Beni Suef governorate dating back to the fourth century AD, and was placed under the mummy of a child in poor condition, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and antiquities.

Sherine Leon, director general of the restoration department at the Coptic Museum, said about the honor: "a pleasant surprise for the team, it was a difficult and at the same time interesting journey for two years in order to restore the manuscript to its first version before it was damaged over many centuries due to its importance as it is considered one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century.

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"The manuscript was displayed for the first time inside the Coptic Museum in 2006 until I submitted an official request in 2019 to form a committee of specialists headed by Dr. Hamdi Abdel Moneim, director of the restoration of the Museum of Islamic art, to determine its condition and the extent of its need for restoration.‏

The supervisor of the project to restore the manuscript of David's Psalms continues: "the manuscript was untidy, consisting of 151 Psalms on 244 pages made of expensive Ghazal parchment, during the examination it was found to be severely dehydrated, which exposes it to breakage, as well as the adhesion of the leaves to each other, shrinkage of a large number of them, and corrosion of other parts such as the edges and heel of the manuscript. ‏

Leon confirms that the work team immediately engaged in a delicate task to restore the Psalms of David without the help of foreign experts, noting that the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and antiquities provided the materials required to work on the manuscript, and the first step was with the softening of the papers by scientific methods inside the restoration laboratory of the Coptic Museum to get rid of the drought condition". ‏

The Director General of the restoration Department of the Coptic Museum recalled the following steps to restore the Psalms of David:

- We treated adhesions caused by the leakage of enzymes from the child's head found in the cemetery on the manuscript.‏

- We have supplemented the damaged parts of the pages with a type of Japanese paper that is recognized in the world of restoration because it is suitable for the parchment used in the manuscript.‏

- We worked on rearranging the pages again after using experts in the ancient Coptic language such as Dr. Malak Nashi.‏

- The team plunged into the restoration of the book cover and returned some of the shrunken pages to their natural sizes before they were damaged.‏

Lyon explained that the Psalms are in very good condition after the completion of the restoration operations and there is only recording and documenting the experience left after its success, noting that the manuscript will be ready for display again inside the Coptic Museum next March with an interactive screen available for the public to learn the details of the copy in a clear and distinctive way.