CAIRO, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- An international review committee has rejected the plan to restore granite casing to the Pyramid of Menkaure, announced Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities on Thursday.
"The Menkaure Pyramid Review Committee (MPRC) has unanimously objected to the re-installation of the granite casing blocks, scattered around the base of the pyramid since thousands of years ago," the ministry said in a press release.
The committee, comprising archeologists and engineers from Egypt, the U.S., the Czech Republic, and Germany, was assigned by the ministry to review the controversial project at the Giza plateau.
In the report, the committee underlined "the importance of maintaining the pyramid's current state without alterations, given its exceptional universal and archaeological value."
The controversial pyramid restoration project was announced by the ministry's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) in late January, saying it would be carried out over three years by an Egyptian-Japanese archaeological mission from the SCA and Japan's Waseda University.
The idea was rejected by some Egyptian archeologists and experts, saying it might ruin the originality, identity, and historical value of the 4,500-year-old Pyramid of Menkaure.
The MPRC said that "it would be impossible to ascertain the exact original position of any of the casing blocks, therefore, it is impossible to return any of them to their original location on the pyramid."