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Restorers in the crypt: "Almost hit the blow"
Photo:
Mario Verin
"Take care of my grandparents," shouts Mohamed Sleem with the severity of a teacher.
"Mr. Mohamed", as he is called here, watches over a tomb complex in the ancient Egyptian necropolis el-Chocha.
The grandparents he speaks of are the remains of people who were laid to rest here more than 3000 years ago.
Mr. Mohamed calls out his warning to Egyptologists, archaeologists, art historians and conservators who are approaching monuments from ancient times.
Christina Verbeek is one of them.
The Cologne restorer stands in the rock grave with the number TT 49 wearing protective goggles and a respirator.
The walls of the tomb are covered with a thick layer of oily soot.
On a bench next to her, Verbeek has placed a device that is unique in the world in this form: a portable, twelve-kilogram laser that she can hang over her shoulders like a backpack.
Attached to it is a hose almost two meters long, with the end of which the restorer fires precise laser salvos at the soot-black wall.
At the point where the laser hits, the soot particles dissolve in a small cloud of smoke.
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