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mIt took more than 30 years to build the ore, the huge Grand Egyptian Museum will be officially ready Open your doors to the public In a grand ceremony on Saturday.
Will be a $1 billion project The largest museum on the planet Dedicated to a single civilization, it boasts 500,000 square meters of space – a size larger than Vatican City and equivalent to about 70 football pitches.
Holding over 50,000 artefacts, its collection exceeds The Louvre’s comparatively modest 35,000, egyptian The government hopes this will provide a much-needed supercharge country’s tourism industry,
The museum is one of the mega-projects championed by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, who since taking office in 2014 launched a massive investment in infrastructure aimed at reviving an economy weakened by decades of stagnation and the unrest that followed the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
Located next to the Pyramids of Giza, the museum features a massive, triangular glass facade in the style of the nearby pyramids, designed by Irish firm Heneghan Peng Architects.
Below, we’ll take a look at some of the highlights ahead of the grand opening.
King Tutankhamun Hall
King tutankhamunThe collection of 5,000 pieces will be displayed in its entirety for the first time since British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the pharaoh’s lost tomb in Luxor in 1922.
One of the only rulers in history to be worshiped as a deity during their lifetime, the Sanctuary of the Golden Pharaoh is one of the most anticipated main attractions and is spread over two halls spread over 7,000 square metres.
It consists of six war chariots, which will be united to be displayed together for the first time. Four wooden temples gilded with gold and a previously unseen leather shield along with mummified fetuses will also be displayed. The three funerary beds were painstakingly restored in the museum’s purpose-built conservation centre.
These have been redesigned to reflect the pharaoh’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, where his body lies. His gold-covered coffin and burial mask made of gold, quartzite, lapis lazuli and colored glass will also be on display.
King Khufu’s solar boat
Another centerpiece of the museum is the 4,600-year-old solar boat of King Khufu, the pharaoh who is credited with building the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The 140-foot wooden boat, discovered in the 1950s, was buried next to the Great Pyramid for Khufu – or Cheops, as he was also known – for use in the afterlife.
In 2021, it was transported from its display site to the Grand Egyptian Museum by Pyramids on a remote-controlled vehicle imported from Belgium.
Statue of Ramesses II
In the museum’s entrance courtyard stands the granite colossus of one of Egypt’s most famous pharaohs, Ramesses the Great.
The 3,200-year-old, 36-foot-tall statue was moved to a museum after standing for decades in the middle of a traffic-choked intersection in front of Cairo’s main railway station.
The museum will also house the world’s first hanging obelisk, one of 10 built by Ramesses II. The 52-foot, 87-ton structure will be supported by four pillars so that visitors can see the carved cartouches at its base.
Grand staircase
A six-story staircase decorated with ancient statues of the pharaohs leads from the courtyard to the main galleries of the museum. There are also several coffins along the walkway.
At the top of the staircase, there is a huge open space with a view of Khafre’s pyramid.
Visitors can move around the entire museum on foot or using eco-friendly electric vehicles.
twelve galleries
The museum includes 258,000 square feet of permanent exhibition space, a children’s museum and conference and educational facilities, and a commercial area as well as a large conservation center.
The galleries opened to the public last year and display thousands of years of artefacts, ranging from prehistoric times to the Roman era, arranged by era and theme.
Many of the building’s 50,000 artifacts were moved from the Egyptian Museum, a packed, centuries-old building in downtown Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Others were recently discovered from ancient cemeteries, including the Saqqara Necropolis, another complex of pyramids and tombs about 14 miles south of the museum.
They are equipped with state-of-the-art technology featuring multimedia presentations to help explain the ancient civilization to younger generations, said Ahmed Ghoneim, the museum’s CEO.
“We are using that language Gen Z “Gen Z doesn’t use the labels we read as older people, but uses technology.”
It took more than 30 years to create a history of thousands of years.
The museum has a long and complex history, it was first launched as an idea by President Hosni Mubarak in 1992.
Its foundation stone was laid in 2002 with construction starting later in 2005. It was put on hold after the Arab Spring in 2011, and then postponed again due to the COVID pandemic. Its launch was recently delayed due to Israel’s war in Gaza on the Egyptian border.
Egypt’s tourism industry was affected by the Arab Spring and the political turmoil that followed. The slow recovery from the Covid pandemic has further hit the country, which attracted 15.7 million tourists last year. It aims to attract 30 million by 2032.
A metro station is currently being constructed at the entrance of the building, the recently constructed Sphinx International Airport is 40 minutes away.