A step up for the Louvre’s mastaba chapel
29 June 2021
During the winter of 2016–2017, the Louvre launched a major online fundraising campaign to conserve and reconstruct the tomb chapel of Akhethotep, a high official of the Egyptian Old Kingdom. The reconstruction is now complete and visitors to the Louvre can admire this ancient Egyptian masterpiece once again. Here’s the story of this exceptional conservation project.
After lengthy research and excavation at the archaeological site of Saqqara, south of Cairo, a team from the Louvre found the mastaba (funerary structure) that had originally contained the chapel now in the Louvre. The mastaba is a monumental block 32 metres long, 16 metres wide and over 6 metres high. The team’s discoveries have impacted the design of the museum display, which now presents the mastaba chapel at a height of several metres, as it must have appeared to the deceased’s family.
YouTube content is currently blocked. Please change your cookie settings to enable this content.
‘It will completely change the way we see the chapel, as we’re now very close to the architectural reality’, enthused Vincent Rondot, the Louvre’s head of Egyptian antiquities.
In the Egypt of the pyramids, a monumental tomb was a privilege reserved for high-ranking officials such as Akhethotep, a high dignitary of the Old Kingdom and a member of the pharaoh’s inner circle. His 4,000 year-old funerary chapel is a star exhibit of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre, where it arrived in 1903 after its purchase from Egypt. Just as the deceased’s family once did, visitors can enter the chapel of the mastaba, made of large limestone blocks richly decorated with images and inscriptions. The low-relief carvings on the inner walls show nature in bloom, farm life, banquets, dancing, processions of offering bearers, etc.
'Les ancêtres vous saluent. Adieu'
This ambitious and challenging project entailed dismantling the chapel block by block. Each block was then cleaned, restored, photographed and digitised. There was a surprise in store for the restoration team: their predecessors, who had reconstructed the chapel in 1932, had hidden little pieces of folded paper between the blocks, bearing their signatures and the phrase ‘Greetings from the ancestors. Farewell’.
A stone base was added to restore the monument to its original height, which means that the relief decoration can be seen as originally intended, at the right height and in the correct proportions. The project was completed in the spring of 2021, and visitors are welcome back!
Photo credits
© Musée du Louvre / Christian Décamps
The Portrait of King Charles I of England, by Anthony van Dyck, returns to the gallery walls after over a year of conservation treatment. Blaise Ducos, Executive Curator of Flemish and Dutch Paintings, discusses this masterpiece.
5 February 2025
Tuileries Garden Benches Sponsorship Campaign
The Louvre is launching a long-running operation in benefit of the historical benches that have been present in the Tuileries Garden since the 19th century. This campaign aims to support an ambitious project to restore and recreate the iconic benches of the largest garden in Paris, in order to improve the visitor experience.
24 December 2024
The conservation treatment of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, funded by the 2018 'Become a Patron!' campaign, began in November 2022 and will be completed before the summer of 2024. This restoration aims to return the monument to its former glory.
5 October 2023