Tourism Ministry participates in 22nd Egyptology and Papyrology Conference in Italy

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Egypt participated in the 22nd Conference on Egyptology and Papyrology in Italy. The event was organized by the International Papyrology Institute and the Italian Institute of Egyptian Civilization in Syracuse, and it took place between September 27 to October 3. The ministry participated in the conference by presenting a research paper. Moamen Othman, the Head of the Museums Sector at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, was responsible for this task. The research paper focused on the examination of previous restoration processes of the Old Kingdom archives using the Gebelein Papyrus as a case study. This document is shared between the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Turin Museum. The paper looked at the historicity of the Gebelein papyri, their discovery site, and treatments since discovery. It also evaluated the restoration work done on the papyrus after its transfer to Italy and restoration at the Turin Museum in the 1930s, and its subsequent return to Egypt by archaeologist Ahmed Fakhry in 1950. The Gebelein papyri are considered amongst the oldest known collections of administrative papyri and trace their origin back to the Old Kingdom. Egyptologist Posener-Kriéger attributes their original creation to the Fourth Dynasty in the first half of the third millennium BC. The Gebelein papyri are critical historical documents containing details of local administration activities, mathematical operations, lists of worker names involved in temple construction, their job descriptions, and the salary in the form of food items they received.