Robert Fuchs: Unrolling a papyrus - Investigations of an 3500 years old painted Book of the Dead: The possible invention of the third dimension in old Egyptian painting.

In 2009 we received a Book of the Dead for restoration from a private owner. The papyrus dated from the 18th Dynasty (Hatschepsut/Tutmosis III ca. 1450 BC) and was made for a clerk of the pharaoh named Jmn-m-h3t.

The first part (4,5m) of the papyrus was already unrolled before it was bought, forty years ago. But the unrolling process was rather rough that the papyrus was broken into many fragments. The Egyptian dealer sold some of these fragments to different persons so that nowadays parts can be found in up to 8 different collections. The second part existed still as a roll but with two considerable buckling which gave cause to fear the worst when trying to open the roll. For this reason both parts were brought to our workshop. The first, already unrolled part was restored by a group of our students in 2009. The tears which had been improperly repaired before the sale were closed again with the appropriate material. Until the restoration the fragments were kept between two sheets of paper. They had to be mounted and brought into the right order. With the help of Dr. Irmtraud Munro, University of Bonn, the fragments could be rearranged and mounted onto an acid-free honeycomb panel. Tinted conservation paper was chosen as background to give the impression of a more or less complete roll.

The untouched remainder of the roll was opened in July 2010. First the roll was conditioned in a high humid chamber. Then under a climate tent with 97%rH and a temperature of over 25°C (summertime) it was possible to form the roll and to place a knitting needle into the middle of it. With this help the papyrus could be unrolled slowly over more than four hours. The papyrus could be flattened and dried with the aid of weights and card boards. The whole process was filmed and everybody under the sweaty tent was very excited when all painted colourful vignettes gradually came to light after 3500 years. We obtained another 3,2m of the papyrus. This part was so well preserved that it seemed to be freshly made.

After the unrolling the technical analysis of paint layers and pigments could be made. For this purpose the papyrus and its fragments were mounted into a jacket of Victrex (amorphous for x-rays) to avoid damages during the manipulations during the different analyses.

The pigment analysis showed some surprises. The skin of the clerk was painted in two layers of different pigments and in a way that a three-dimensional impression can be deduced. In other places pigments proved to be mixed, which was very uncommon at that time. The paintings show the virtuosity of an exceptional Egyptian painter, who seems to have anticipated the aesthetic ideas of perspective painting.