{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "bskyPostRef": {
    "cid": "bafyreibr2uqxemhsxdwi7lbhopi3kx6xdmjn7wsm6tzmticlaaqzr4tgr4",
    "uri": "at://did:plc:oznbnvgr7dmvddiyvr7dih52/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgn25227p6p2"
  },
  "coverImage": {
    "$type": "blob",
    "ref": {
      "$link": "bafkreih5ntcybxpbd6h6y4iagzoiuya7x4c3a2hyhx5m6bqt2gaey43f2y"
    },
    "mimeType": "image/webp",
    "size": 94478
  },
  "path": "/science/archaeology-breakthrough-ancient-egyptians-tipp-ex",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-09T12:54:59.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.gbnews.com",
  "tags": [
    "Swimmer discovers Crusader's sword lodged in seabed off Holy Land in extraordinary chance find",
    "Archaeologists lift 80-tonne stones from seabed linked to one of seven wonders of ancient world",
    "Grave belonging to lost Viking king may have been found on English coast",
    "The GB News Editorial Charter"
  ],
  "textContent": "\n\n\n\nAncient Egyptians have been found to have used a 3,000 year-old \"Tipp-Ex\" like correction fluid to fix artistic errors on papyrus documents and artworks, new research has suggested.\n\nResearchers at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum made the discovery as staff prepared one of the best-preserved Egyptian scrolls for public display, noticing a dense white substance applied along both sides of a jackal figure painted on the artefact.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nThis particular scroll is a Book of the Dead, a funerary text intended to assist the deceased in navigating the afterlife.\n\nThe finding suggests that long before modern office workers reached for Tipp-Ex to cover typing mistakes, Egyptian artists had developed a comparable solution for correcting their work on precious papyrus manuscripts.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nTRENDING\n\nStories\n\nVideos\n\nYour Say\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nThe scroll was created for Ramose, a royal scribe, and has been dated to between 1290 and 1278BC.\n\nArchaeologists unearthed the document in 1922 at a tomb in Sedment, Egypt, where it lay fragmented into hundreds of pieces requiring painstaking reassembly.\n\nThe jackal depicted on the scroll appears to have been deemed too plump by someone overseeing the work more than three millennia ago.\n\n\"Paint was used to alter the outline of the black figure, making it slimmer,\" the researchers observed.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nAnalysis revealed white pigment had been carefully applied above the animal's back, beneath its belly, and around its legs to create a more slender silhouette.\n\nThe jackal is shown in the traditional Egyptian side-on perspective typical of the period's artistic conventions.\n\nThe technique of infrared reflectography, which penetrates multiple paint layers, enabled researchers to make this discovery.\n\n### LATEST ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES:\n\n\n\n\n  * Swimmer discovers Crusader's sword lodged in seabed off Holy Land in extraordinary chance find\n  * Archaeologists lift 80-tonne stones from seabed linked to one of seven wonders of ancient world\n  * Grave belonging to lost Viking king may have been found on English coast\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nHelen Strudwick, senior Egyptologist at the museum and curator of the Made in Ancient Egypt exhibition running until April 12, explained the analytical process.\n\n\"We have been using different analytical techniques to work out what this white paint is made of,\" she said.\n\n\"The results indicate that it is a mixture of huntite and calcite.\"\n\nExamination with a 3D digital microscope also detected traces of orpiment, a yellow pigment, likely added to help the correction blend with the original pale cream colour of fresh papyrus.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n\"It's as if someone saw the original way the jackal was painted and said 'It's too fat make it thinner', so the artist has made a kind of ancient Egyptian Tipp-Ex to fix it,\" Ms Strudwick noted.\n\nShe has subsequently identified similar correction techniques on other ancient Egyptian manuscripts, including the Book of the Dead of Nakht held at the British Museum, and the Yuya papyrus housed in Cairo's Egyptian Museum.\n\n\"When I've pointed it out to curators, they've been astonished,\" she said, \"it's the kind of thing you don't notice at first\".\n\nThe complete scroll originally measured approximately 20 metres in length, comprising numerous papyrus sheets joined together.\n\nHaving been stored away from damaging light for most of the past century, the document remains in remarkably good condition, with portions now on display in the exhibition.\n\nThe jackal figure accompanying Ramose most likely represents Wepwawet, a deity known as the \"opener of the ways\" who guided both armies and the deceased through Duat, the underworld.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n**Our Standards:The GB News Editorial Charter **",
  "title": "Ancient Egyptians used 3,000-year-old 'Tipp-Ex' mix to fix mistakes on papyrus artwork"
}