Climate change and human activity erode precious antiquities in Egypt

100 years ago, when Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun’s gleaming tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, he lived in a mud-brick house surrounded by a desert so dry that the tombs, mummies and towering temples had been preserved for more than 3000 years.

Over the next century, thanks to the water brought by the Nile, Carter’s house was turned into a museum with a green palm garden. Thanks to the construction of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt in 1970 upstream and south of Luxor, the annual flooding of the river has subsided, allowing for more frequent planting. More and more farmers are using the waters of the Nile to flood expanding fields of alfalfa, sugar cane and vegetables.

All the water seeped into the stone foundations of the epic temples in Luxor and the mud bricks of the Carter House, mixed with the soil and salt on the stones, sucking water like a straw. Sandstone becomes sand and limestone cracks.

The Carter House reopened this month after a two-year restoration that stabilized the foundations and provided the interior with Carter-era furniture and artwork, with a new desert circle protecting its own water-scarce gardens. The famous Karnak and Medine Hab temples are now guarded by giant pumps that draw groundwater.

But the danger comes from above and below: local residents and archaeologists say torrential rains have become more frequent as the climate changes, eroding the stone and washing away ancient colors from the carvings.

In Luxor, changing weather for centuries is amplifying the damaging effects of human development around monuments. Some monuments in Egypt have been visibly damaged, while others, such as the 15th-century Citadel of Qaitbay, are threatened by rising sea levels, archaeologists say.

“Water and salt are the enemies of these monuments,” said Brett McLean, a senior epiphysicist at the University of Chicago’s Institute for Oriental Studies. “These monuments survived because they were dry.”

The most obvious human impact on the Luxor monuments is the number of people who visit them.Before coronavirus The pandemic began in 2020, with thousands of tourists passing by Tutankhamun’s tomb every day.

To balance tourism and conservation, the government commissioned the Getty Conservation Institute to install ventilation systems to reduce humidity from human sweat and respiration, among other restoration measures. The project opened in 2019.