Find is the “second most important archaeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamun” nearly a century ago.
Sporting white coats, gloves and face masks, the men sprayed sanitisers across the vast museum halls, home to thousands of precious relics spanning Egypt's prehistoric era through the Roman period.
Egypt's antiquities minister says the coffin was in a fragile state of conservation, ever since its discovery.
The artefact was sold to an unknown buyer for $5.97 million at Christie's auction house last week. After the sale, Egypt's national prosecutors asked Interpol "to issue a circular to trace" such artefacts over alleged missing paperwork.
The statue - a brown quartzite head depicting King Tut - is scheduled to be auctioned off in July, and could generate more than $5 million, according to Christie's.
Two Egyptian discoveries were unveiled by a French-led mission in the northern area of Al Asasef.
Egypt's antiquities ministry says funerary items have been also been found but it is not yet known whom the two tombs belong to. The tombs were discovered in the 1990s but excavation work did not start till recently.
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