The new museum dedicated to the archaeological wonders of ancient Egypt should finally open between April and September 2021, after years of delays and postponements, and by the time we reach Cairo we will have the pleasure of being among the first to be able to visit it.
The structure of the new Great Egyptian Museum covers an area of about 500,000 square meters and will be the largest archaeological museum in the world and the mega museum of Giza will become one of the major tourist attractions in the country with an expected 5 million visitors in the first months and 7 million a year at full capacity.
Compared to the current Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, a definitive leap from the 19th to the 21st century will be noted; the old museum was a treasure warehouse, the new one will be a $ 1 billion state-of-the-art glass and concrete exhibit space that guides guests on a journey similar to Howard Carter’s when he discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb a century ago .
The museum’s location, outside of central Cairo, on the Giza plateau on the edge of the western desert, gives great views of the famous pyramids and adds even more atmosphere.
The Great Egyptian Museum is built on a slope and straddles the 162-foot drop between the Nile valley, where the entrance will be, and the Giza plateau, where the main galleries are located.
There will be sculpture gardens in the museum park, while a huge statue of Ramses II will welcome you in the main atrium from where the Grand Staircase starts, leading from the valley level to the plateau, stairway that will be flanked by 87 statues of kings and gods.
The main galleries lead to the left from the staircase and are divided into four eras: pre-dynastic (up to 3100 BC) and Old Kingdom (the builders of pyramids), Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom (Tutankhamun, Ramses) and Greco-Roman.
The chronological galleries are then organized according to themes, unlike the old museum: Beliefs and Eternity (religion), Royalty and Power (rulers) and Society.
At the end of the museum tour, visitors are led to the tall windows that look towards the pyramids, the grand finale of a chronological show that celebrates one of the greatest civilizations in the world.
The gallery dedicated to the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun will be a central point of the new museum, 7,000 square meters will be dedicated to the boy king, with the 5,400 objects recovered from his tomb, discovered by Howard Carter in 1922, exhibited together for the first time, including his three coffins and the funerary mask.
A large gold-plated coffin was removed from Tutankhamun’s tomb in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings in July for the first time since its discovery and transported to Cairo for vital restoration work prior to the exhibition.
The old museum, which occupies a 1902 building, will be completely renovated and will house other archaeological collections as well as educational paths for schools.
Find out more about our stop in Egypt and the wonders we will visit.
