Graffiti News

A city commission ended beneath another coat of paint

A 66-metre mural depicting Pharaoh Tutankhamun and Queen Nefertiti was covered over in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, after its treatment of their skin prompted a public dispute. According to The Guardian’s report published on 2 October 2026 in collaboration with Egab, the Cairo governorate asked the volunteer group responsible to paint over the work. It disappeared hours before Chinese president Xi Jinping arrived for a state visit in September 2026.

The painting belonged to a programme of 40 murals commissioned to improve the city’s appearance for the visit. That starting point matters to anyone following public art: this was an officially commissioned image, made for a civic occasion. Its removal became part of the story of the commission itself, bringing the authority that requested the painting into the account of why it disappeared.

The volunteers described a colour and lighting problem

Rasmet Basma, the young volunteer group behind the mural, prepared the work in five days in late August 2026. Its founder, 22-year-old Ahmed Moussa, told The Guardian that the team generated designs with ChatGPT and then painted them onto the wall. The digital design was therefore one stage in a work physically executed by volunteers.

Moussa attributed the faces’ dark appearance at night to the way a gold-and-bronze colour interacted with shadow. He also acknowledged that the team had failed to consult archaeology and art specialists. His explanation concerns the volunteers’ choice of colour and their process; it should be read as his account of the disputed appearance.

Moussa said Cairo’s deputy governor and the district head had visited during production and responded positively before criticism gathered on social media. His account places the change in official response alongside the growing public reaction. For a mural commission, that sequence raises a practical question about when a design is reviewed and whose judgement informs that review.

The argument concerned ancient Egyptian identity

Some critics interpreted the depiction as support for Afrocentrism, described in The Guardian’s report as a political movement claiming that ancient Egyptian civilisation had a black African population and origin. Social media objections included accusations that Afrocentric groups were using the mural to suggest Egyptians accepted those claims. Those accusations were part of the reaction to the image.

Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former antiquities minister, supported the public criticism and argued that a site as significant as Tahrir Square required expert supervision. He rejected claims connecting ancient Egyptian civilisation with sub-Saharan Africa, citing late-period temple carvings in which, he said, Egyptian kings were differentiated from captives from several regions.

Monica Hanna, an Egyptologist and assistant professor of archaeology at the American University of Iraq–Baghdad, also rejected Afrocentric claims, while emphasising diversity within Egyptian society. She pointed to Nubian communities in the south and Mediterranean populations in the north, arguing against the idea of a single Egyptian skin colour. These are attributed positions in the dispute, rather than a historical verdict supplied by the mural.

The Guardian placed the controversy alongside debate over a Netflix documentary’s casting of Cleopatra in 2023 and an Egyptian Museum guide’s reported Afrocentric account of history in Cairo in June 2024. Those earlier episodes help explain why a new public image became a focus for an existing argument.

AI entered the debate through the design process

The use of ChatGPT brought questions about artistic judgement into the mural’s reception. Walid Mahmoud, an AI researcher and specialist in African anthropology, argued that such systems reproduce widely circulated online information without necessarily establishing its accuracy. He urged particular scrutiny when generated material concerns heritage and cultural identity.

Art critic Mostafa Eissa supported technology as an aid while insisting that artistic decisions remain human. He warned that replacing an artist’s skills with generated output could weaken a work’s originality. Together, these comments direct attention to how an image is selected and assessed before it reaches a public wall.

A mural’s removal belongs in its public record

For mural followers, the key practical detail is that this particular painting was covered over. Images of its painted state should be understood alongside that outcome; the Tahrir Square location alone does not make it a surviving work to seek out.

The case also offers a way to read commissioned public art: consider who requested it, how it was made, how audiences responded and who decided its fate. In this instance, city beautification, volunteer painting, AI-assisted design and public criticism all meet on the same wall. Keeping those elements together makes the work’s short public life legible without asking the image to settle the historical dispute surrounding it.

Source: The Guardian’s report on the Cairo mural, published on 2 October 2026 in collaboration with Egab.