In 1913 the Metropolitan Museum purchased the partly ruined tomb of Perneb (ca. 2381–2323 B.C.), an official in the royal household buried at Saqqara during the late Fifth Dynasty (Figure 1). Dismantled and transported to New York, the tomb was placed in the first gallery north of the Great Hall, where it has greeted visitors to the Museum's extensive collection of Egyptian art since 1916. During the Old Kingdom in particular, mastabas, as limestone structures of this type are called, were placed over the shafts and subterranean burial chambers of well-born Egyptians. While the interior of the rectangular monument was mostly packed with rubble, there were several chambers used by visiting family members to make offerings and perform other rituals for the deceased. In addition to a courtyard with a recessed doorway, three interior spaces from Perneb's tomb are preserved in the Museum: an entrance chamber, a vestibule with a passageway, and the main offering chamber (Figure 2). Also accessible from the courtyard is a side chapel containing a slot in its rear wall. In ancient times this opening allowed passage of the fragrance of incense and the sound of chanting into another chamber, known as the serdab, containing stone or wooden images of Perneb. In the Museum's reconstruction the slot was lowered so that visitors could see into the statue chamber.

A false door and elaborately painted reliefs depicting offering bearers and other scenes of funerary ritual, as well as hieroglyphic inscriptions, decorate the walls of the main chamber (Figure 3), while in the vestibule and passageway registers were laid out but never carved, presumably due to the unexpectedly early death of Perneb. The limestone blocks had been only relatively crudely finished, and required extensive pointing with plaster to create a continuous surface for carving in what was otherwise a dry-masonry construction. The decoration was first sketched out in red and then carved, after which a fine plaster ground was used to disguise defects in the stone and the pointing before they were painted. Standard inorganic pigments in an organic binder were applied to all carved surfaces, as well as the gray background. The lower courses of stone in the main chamber, which had not been carved and were covered only with a deteriorated layer of plaster, remain in Egypt, and in the Museum's reconstruction were replaced by modern, featureless plastered walls.

With the recent renovation of the three Egyptian Wing galleries adjacent to the Great Hall, the need arose to carry out a thorough assessment of the tomb's condition, and to reevaluate its presentation to the public. Since 1916, various restoration campaigns had been undertaken in efforts to clean and consolidate both carved surfaces and undecorated blocks, and during recent decades the painted reliefs that decorate the main chamber, its vestibule, and the entryway were protected by fixed glass panels. The glass was reflective, had a greenish cast, and was mounted in a waist-high metal framework, giving viewers the impression of looking into a vitrine and obscuring the original composition and proportions of the carved walls. The reliefs were also inaccessible for examination and treatment.

Considering the structure as a whole, Dorothea Arnold, of the Museum's Department of Egyptian Art, wished to recreate a sense of the mastaba's original scale, so that modern viewers would have a similar experience of these intimate spaces as the relatives and priests who came in the years after Perneb's death. Although it appeared to be a monumental facade with a doorway flanked by relief carvings depicting the tomb owner, what greeted visitors to the Egyptian Galleries is actually the entrance to the vestibule from the small interior courtyard, which in ancient times had been built up against a neighboring mastaba constructed some years earlier for an official called Shepsesre, who may have been Perneb's father. When erected inside the crowded cemetery at Saqqara near the Old Kingdom capital at Memphis, the interior of Perneb's tomb had been accessible only from the narrow entranceway to the north.

Study of curatorial archives and Sherman Fairchild Center files offered an interesting impression of some early treatments. For example, the oldest documentation, dating from the time of the installation, describes the application of multiple coats of "Lithol," a material of unknown composition, probably only to undecorated stones. It was removed in 1935 with an "alcoholic potash" made from "three grams of potassium hydroxide in one hundred milliliters of denatured alcohol heated to boiling," and then a "wax preservative" consisting of ceresin and carnauba in xylene was applied. Unrecorded treatments were carried out as well, evidence of which was noted when the glass barriers were deinstalled. "Treatments revisited" is an important trend in current conservation research—appearing, for example, as the theme in the Summer 2002 issue of the Journal of the American Institute of Conservation—and this line of inquiry is particularly relevant with respect to Egyptian antiquities, which almost invariably suffer from the effects of prior treatments that over time have become the cause of further deterioration. Paradoxically, conservators often recognize that without these early treatments, regardless of how misguided they were or how troublesome they may now seem, many of the objects under consideration, being inherently unstable due to the saline environment to which they were exposed during burial, would not have survived at all.

Treatment of the reliefs focused on the stabilization of the carved surfaces and surviving paint layers, as well as removal of old restorations and other visual distractions. Paraloid^® B-72 was used to consolidate areas of crumbling stone, friable ancient plaster, and flaking paint. As wet cleaning of the fragile surfaces was not possible, soft brushes and a low-suction vacuum were used to remove loose dust and grime. Months of exacting labor were required to mechanically remove uneven and discolored plaster restorations of the carved pointing between the blocks, which together with surface damages that exposed bright white limestone were perhaps the greatest distraction to the viewer. The old restorations were replaced, and the fresh plaster fills were recessed to just below the original surface with a vinyl spackling compound. Careful inpainting of these fills and disfiguring surface damages promoted visual reintegration of the individual blocks so that on each wall the sense of a unified, comprehensive iconographic program predominates (Figure 4). Some discolorations caused by earlier consolidation treatments could be safely reduced with solvents, but most were disguised by retouching with acrylic paints. The lower courses, now made to resemble a weathered plaster surface, also help to establish an interior space that recreates the tomb environment.

A glass barrier with discreet framing elements designed to protect the reliefs, while allowing visitors and scholars the opportunity to view them, will be installed in May 2004. The nonreflective glass will extend from floor to ceiling without visual obstacles, and the proximity of the glass to the tomb walls and the absence of railings will permit the carvings to be observed at close range, while the design makes it possible to access the reliefs for periodic assessment and cleaning.

To successfully evoke the ancient architectural landscape, Dr. Arnold challenged the expertise and skills of conservators, designers, craftsmen, architects, and the Museum's facilities managers. A new limestone wall that follows the line of the back of Shepsesre's mastaba now defines the original perimeter of the courtyard, reestablishing Perneb's tomb as a self-contained, intimate structure (Figure 5). The massive limestone blocks chosen for their similarity to the casing stones of Shepsesre's mastaba were quarried and dressed in Egypt and assembled in the Museum by master stonemasons. No longer "monumental" in character, Perneb's tomb is now more welcoming, affording museum visitors an unconventional but more authentic experience of ancient Egyptian funerary architecture of the Old Kingdom and a very close look at a group of well-preserved painted reliefs that retain much of their original coloration.

Ann Heywood is Conservator in the Sherman Fairchild Center, where she is responsible for the study and treatment of Egyptian Art. She received her M.A. in art history and a Certificate in Conservation in 1987 from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. She has worked on archaeological excavations in Greece and Turkey, and is currently the site conservator for the Museum's Egyptian Expedition to Lisht and Dahshur.

Since 2000, Leslie Gat, Associate Conservator, has worked on several projects at the Sherman Fairchild Center. After receiving an M.A. in art history and a Certificate in Conservation at The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, in 1988, she worked at The Brooklyn Museum. In 1992 she established a private practice serving small institutions and private collectors. She is currently a guest lecturer at the Institute of Fine Arts Conservation Center.