By Jessica Betz Abel and Julia Commander

Greeting everyone – there’s a lot to update on from our Conservation Lab Annex (CLA) but for this post, we’re going to focus on the recent progress of Kaipure’s Funerary Chapel. It has been a while since we posted about Kaipure, in fact the last time we posted was almost exactly three years ago. As a quick reminder, two of the walls (the south and east) from the chapel were most recently on display in the Lower Egyptian Galleries, but they were disassembled and deinstalled in 2015 as a precautionary measure due to nearby construction. This also allowed us to proceed with much needed treatment of the flaking limestone and paint as well as designing a new support system in anticipation the entire chapel being reassembled in the new Ancient Egypt and Nubia Galleries. The complete chapel has not been on display in over 25 years!

Here at CLA we are working on building one of the smaller walls as a proof of concept for our engineering team. The south wall is the smallest section and so that is where we decided to start. But before we could begin, we had to locate all the blocks and bring them down from the rafters. 

With all the blocks needed for the south wall, we started by erecting the bottom course of stones. Once those were in place and shored up with temporary wood and foam pegs, we laid the first stretcher course on top.

In antiquity stones would have been assembled using a mortar, however, using a mortar in an indoor gallery setting is not necessary or practical. Mortars require quite a bit of water for application and that could potentially mobilize any lingering salts in the limestone which could compromise the structural integrity of the stone. Mortar is also much less reversible than many of our other options, not to mention the mess it would create during installation. Instead, we have been investigating interfaces of various materials that would replace the need for mortar or adhesive at all. For Kaipure, we have narrowed down our options to Silicone Rubber and Sorbothane. Both materials have good viscoelastic properties, reduce point loading, distributing the weight of the stones, and providing a grippy material between each course to lock the stones together.

In addition to the interfaces, we are currently working with our project engineers to design an armature on which each wall can be assembled. The armature will provide the stability and support that many of the individual stones need. In order to not cause any further damage to the stone, we are opting to use the existing holes which were drilled into the backs and sides of the stones during a previous installation. Though we are still very much in the early stages of design we are excited by the prospect of seeing the entire chapel reunited in a few short years!