The director of Egypt’s Grand Egyptian Museum has denied media reports that two wooden sticks from the pharaonic era were damaged in transport to the museum.

Both sticks -- one dating back to the Middle Kingdom era and the other said to have belonged to the boy king Tutankhamun -- arrived safely, Tarek Tawfiq told Ahram Online.

Earlier on Wednesday, several newspapers reported that two sticks had been broken while being transported from from the Egyptian Museum near Tahrir Square to the Grand Egyptian Museum overlooking the Giza plateau.

The Middle Kingdom stick has been displayed in five pieces since its discovery, as recorded in Tahrir Museum archaeological documents under number 476, said Tawfiq.

The second stick was recently wrongly restored at the Tahrir museum, he added. But the Grand Egyptian Museum restoration lab has re-restored it.

Sometimes, after unprofessional restoration work with a potentially harmful material, the Grand Egyptian Museum has to conduct re-restoration “according to the adequate scientific method and with state-of-the-art equipment”, he said.

In January, the Tahrir museum admitted to having hastily fixed the beard of a Tutankhamun mask back on using the wrong glue.

Tutankhamun's stick