MILAN, ITALY—ANSA reports that an Egyptian-Italian team led by Patrizia Piacentini of the State University of Milan has recovered a painting of a leopard’s face from a stucco-covered wooden sarcophagus lid in Aswan’s tomb number AGH02. Piacentini said the wooden lid was very fragile and full of sand, so her team members decided to detach the stucco cover from the wood in order to save the artwork. “It was a very delicate operation that had us holding our breath, we had tears in our eyes,” she said. Conservators Ilaria Perticucci and Rita Reale will restore the leopard painting in laboratories at Aswan. Piacentini’s team opened the tomb last year and found some 30 bodies that had been buried in the second century B.C. The tomb also contained a funerary bed, a stretcher for carrying mummies, and pottery. To read about the discovery of a tomb in Aswan with an unopened coffin, go to "The Unseen Mummy Chamber."
