Return its granite to the Pyramid of Mycarinos? The project sparked intense controversy in Egypt

The project will last for three years, announced the Chief of Mission in charge of the project.

For some, it is “Project of the Century”For others “an absurdity”. A new plan to renovate the Pyramid of Mycarinos, on the Giza plateau, is shaking up all of Egypt. In a video released Friday, the head of Egypt’s antiquities department, Mustafa Waziri, shows workers arranging granite blocks at the base of the building, the lowest of Giza’s three pyramids.

When it was built, the Pyramid of Mycarinos was covered with granite, but over time it lost part of its covering. The current project aims to restore this layer of granite to restore the pyramid to its original appearance. This “Renovation” will go “three years” and will be “Egypt’s Gift to the World in the 21st Century”Welcoming the head of the Egyptian-Japanese mission in charge of the project, Mustafa Waziri, ensured that he “Will allow us to see, for the first time, the Pyramid of Mycarinos as it was built by the ancient Egyptians.”

The preservation of Egyptian heritage, an eternal debate

But, under the video shared on the social network, dozens of horrified critics lost their temper. “Impossible!”Responds, visibly outraged, Egyptologist Monica Hanna on Facebook. “All that was missing was tiling the pyramids of Mycarinos! When will we stop the absurdity in the management of Egyptian heritage?”She writes again. “All international principles on renovation prohibit such interventions, all archaeologists must mobilize immediately.”

The question of heritage preservation in Egypt – a country that counts on tourism for 10% of its GDP and where the Cheops Pyramid, the only one of the Seven Wonders of Antiquity still visible today – is often debated. A topic of lively debate. The recent destruction of entire sections of historic Cairo has strongly mobilized a civil society almost barred from political activity, and much of the fight against the regime is now focused in the area of ​​town planning and heritage.

The debate has recently focused on the Abu al-Abbas al-Morsi Mosque, a 15th-century mosque in the northern city of Alexandria. The governorate has just announced that it is launching an investigation after the contractor in charge of the renovation work decided to repaint the ornate, sculpted and colorful ceiling of Egypt’s second largest mosque in white.