Water leak at Louvre museum damages hundreds of Egyptian antiquities department books

A water leak last month damaged hundreds of books in the Egyptian antiquities department in Paris’ famed Louvre museum, reports on Sunday revealed, raising concerns about the state of the world's most visited museum’s internal management, weeks after a daring jewel heist exposed security flaws.

Around 400 rare books were affected after pipes containing contaminated water had burst, specialist website La Tribune de l'Art said on Sunday.

Among the damaged books are manuscripts and early scholarly works, some dating back more than two centuries.

The leak also affected adjacent offices, rendering them temporarily unusable. The water had reached the basement, where it came into contact with an electrical cabinet, in an incident that could have led to a major fire.

Speaking to French news channel BFMTV, Le Louvre's deputy administrator, Francis Steinbock, said the water pipe leak concerned one of the three rooms of the library of the Egyptian antiquities department.

"We have identified between 300 and 400 works; the count is ongoing," he said, adding the books lost were "those consulted by Egyptologists but no precious books".

He acknowledged the problem had been known for years and said repairs were scheduled for September 2026.

La Tribune de l'Art said, however, that the museum’s administration for years "ignored requests from the Egyptian antiquities department for urgent budget allocations to protect the collections from the risk of pipe bursts, or for outsourcing their relocation to a safer, empty storage facility".

Proposals to purchase specialised furniture for preserving valuable books were also refused, the website said.

Like many museums in the West, le Louvre houses vast collections of Egyptian artefacts, spanning numerous civilisations.

Over the years, this has triggered anger from Egyptians and has resulted in large-scale campaigns urging for the repatria,tion of artefacts, including the Rosetta Stone.

In November, Egypt opened the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), said to be the world’s largest museum dedicated to a single civilisation, and displayed artefacts such as the tomb of Tutankhamun.

The museum, located in Giza, is projected to draw eight million visitors annually.

(Reuters contributed to this report)