A water leak at the Louvre Museum in Paris damaged hundreds of documents from the Library of Egyptian Antiquities, the Parisian museum told AFP on Sunday. The institution has faced a series of criticism since historic jewelry worth more than $100 million (543 million reais) was stolen from the museum on October 19. The four members of the gang who carried out the robbery have been arrested, but the fate of the jewels and the masterminds of the crime has not yet been discovered.
Between 300 and 400 documents were affected, said Francis Steinbock, deputy director general of the museum. The Louvre is the most visited museum in the world. In 2024, it welcomed 8.7 million visitors, 69% of whom were foreigners.
According to Steinbock, these are “Egyptology journals” and “scientific documentation” used by researchers. These bound works date from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.
“No work in the permanent collection has been damaged,” he added, specifying that at this level, “there are no irreparable and definitive losses in these collections.” According to him, the documents concerned are “very useful and frequently consulted”, but they are not unique in the world.
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Thieves used a crane to break into the museum and made off with the relics.
Damaged works “will be dried,” then sent for restoration and put back on the shelves, Steinbock said. According to the museum, the water leak was discovered Nov. 26 in the hydraulic system that powers the library’s heating and ventilation equipment.
The cause was the accidental opening of a valve in this system, leading to a leak in a pipe located in the ceiling of one of the rooms. As the hydraulic system is “completely obsolete,” it has been out of service for several months and its replacement is expected to begin in September 2026, Steinbock said, as part of a major renovation that will span several months. An internal investigation will determine the exact cause of the leak.
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