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Mostafa Wazir, secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, posted the video on Facebook on Friday. Pictured here are workers digging in front of the Pyramid of Menkaure, the smallest of the three famous pyramids at Giza, revealing part of its granite base previously buried under sand. They place new granite blocks at the base of the pyramid.

Experts, who were angered by the restoration work being revealed a short time later, reacted to the video. They criticize the project’s goals for “nonsense”.

Impossible! The only thing missing was adding tiles to Menkaure’s pyramid! When will we stop the nonsense of Egyptian heritage management? All international principles regarding reconstruction prohibit such interventions.
– wrote Egyptologist Monica Hanna, urging archaeologists to stop.

Others are ironic that it is possible to cover the pyramid with “wallpaper” rather than “tiles”.

The joint Egyptian-Japanese effort, which Mostafa Wazira called “the project of the century,” focuses on repairing the pyramid’s granite shell. Once such a shell covered the entire structure, but over time it was dismantled, as some scientists say, to be used for other purposes and construction. Today, only seven rows of the granite crust remain. for the next three years The project aims to return the pyramid’s shell to its original heightHe uses some of his fallen blocks stacked around his base.

Not all experts follow such a harsh line of criticism. Egyptologist Salima Ikram from the American University in Cairo said: The project may work if only the original stones are used, but it is unclear whether this will be the case. At least many of the casing stones have long since disappeared.

No matter what steps are taken, the restoration of ancient artifacts will always be a sensitive issue for both archaeologists and the public. Some internet users likened this project to “fixing the Leaning Tower of Pisa”; But they need to know that this is exactly what Italian engineers have already done to prevent the tower from falling.

Indeed, many ancient structures around the world, from the Great Wall of China to Notre Dame, have undergone some form of restoration or repair. Almost all of them evoked a negative reaction to the same eternal question: How far should our efforts to preserve the past go?

So far, the backlash against the pyramid restoration project has been strong enough to force authorities to suspend work. The Telegraph reported that Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities has established a commission to examine the project, and that the commission’s decision will determine whether the project goes ahead.