Tomb of Nefertari

When the 3,200-year-old tomb of Queen Nefertari was opened by Ernesto Schiaparelli in 1904, he saw damaged wall paintings—a result of the way the paintings were created. The damage accelerated in the following decades with most of the subsequent painting loss a result of human carelessness and vandalism. By the 1980s at least a fifth of the wall paintings had been lost. The Tomb of Nefertari project sought to conserve the wall paintings and address the long-term maintenance of the tomb.

• An exhibition in 1992 on the conservation of the wall paintings of the Tomb of Nefertari, co-organized with the J. Paul Getty Museum, documented the recently completed conservation of the tomb.
• A diagnostic methodology developed during the project can be applied to wall paintings at other sites.

The Getty Conservation Institute's first field project focused on the 3,200-year-old tomb of Queen Nefertari in the Valley of the Queens, near Luxor, Egypt in collaboration with the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, a multidisciplinary, international group of experts. An intensive six-year campaign began in 1986 including condition assessment, analysis, emergency treatment, and conservation of the extraordinary wall paintings in the tomb. Training for conservators from Egypt and other countries was part of the project.