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Mummy Conservation Underway At UPenn Museum

By John McDevitt

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Penn Museum in University City unwraps a lab exhibit where mummy conservation is going on.

The exhibit is called "In the Artifact Lab: Conserving Egyptian Mummies." Conservators work behind glass and during certain times open a window to talk with visitors about what is being done.

"One of the big things that we do is make sure that all of these artifacts are sufficiently stable; that they can be looked at by researchers without falling to bits or being further damaged. So we make storage mounts for them. We stable any loose pieces. We also clean them - some of them have been in storage for decades," says Lynn Grant (photo), head of conservation.

An Egyptian Sarcophagus, three mummies and a couple of mummified heads are among things being worked on in the exhibit.

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