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• The walls of ancient Egyptian tombs can teach us much about the lives of the pharaohs and their entourages.
• Tomb paintings showed the deceased and their immediate family members involved in religious activities, the burial itself, or feasting at banquets and hunting in the Nile marshes.
• The paints and pigments used by the ancient Egyptians were made from minerals and as such, have specific chemical markers.
• By using portable X-ray fluorescence, scientists can use these chemical markers in the pigments to create a map of damaged areas.

Physics and Egyptology

• The fields of archaeology and Egyptology have a long history of using tools and techniques developed by other disciplines.
• Developed in the early 20th century by physicist Henry Moseley, XRF and pXRF measure secondary X-rays given off by a material when bombarded with primary X-rays.

Reconstructing ancient art

• The process is not useful only for reconstructing damaged sections, it also has the potential to illuminate elements of artistic technique.
• Scientific analysis is increasingly being incorporated into most facets of Egyptological research from material analysis of pigments, ceramics, metals and wood, to spectroscopic analysis of ancient Egyptian papyrus.
• These techniques not only allow minimally or non-invasive investigations which help to preserve artefacts and prevent further damage, they also illuminate crucial details about the technological and artistic achievements of the ancient Egyptians.