It was inaugurated in Cairo on Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), the largest archaeological museum in the world and the largest institution dedicated to a single civilization, Ancient Egypt. After 30 years of waiting, the museum will be entirely open to the public from Tuesday: spread over approximately 486,000 square metres, that is, almost half a square kilometre, this extraordinary museum was built to host over one hundred thousand finds covering a period of 3,000 yearsstarting from prehistory around 7,000 BC
This space (for which an ad hoc airport was inaugurated in 2020) is not only gigantic, but has an extraordinary view of the pyramids: the GEM is in fact located in the middle of the Giza pyramid complex (about 45 minutes from the center of Cairo), which are also visible from the entrance and the large windows. Precisely for this reason, the Grand Egyptian Museum has also been defined as “Great Egyptian Museum in Giza”.
An event was organized for the inauguration spectacular ceremony with a light show with drones, visible in the images below, which projected images of deities, pharaohs and pyramids into the sky.
The idea for this large museum was first put forward in 1992 by Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak, as the centuries-old Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square in the capital was unable to handle the growing number of tourists. The project represented a huge financial undertaking for Egypt, which is why years of delays and the overall cost reached over 1 billion dollars (of which approximately 800 million from Japan, a long-time friend of Egypt). Some parts of the museum were already accessible to visitors, but the official inauguration on November 4th is the opportunity to also open the splendid Tutankhamun Gallery.
The museum galleries are organized to take visitors through a chronological journey. Each is also divided into three key themes: society, regency and beliefs. The museum also boasts many teaching resources technological such as interactive digital displays with data and timelines, animations depicting the lives of construction workers at Giza, and a day at the Greco-Roman market.
But what can’t you miss by visiting this museum?
We start from the series of sculptures that flank the large staircase, even before entering the galleries: statues of pharaohs, obelisks, columns and sarcophagi dot this space. The most stunning sculpture is that of Ramesses II, an 83-ton behemoth dating back 3,200 years located in the middle of the museum atrium.
In the galleries visitors will be able to admire examples of naosminiature temples that contained shrines with statuettes of ancient deities; Of shabtigroups of figurines intended to act as servants of the deceased, ei canopic jars (which many Italians learned about at the Egyptian Museum in Turin) used to preserve organs during the mummification process. Of course there are also manymummies, including that of a crocodile dating back 4,000 years.
And then there are papyri, objects of common use and above all the 5,600 funerary objects of Tutankhamunamong which its sparkling stand out golden maskthe golden throne decorated with a scene of him with his wife, his childhood toys and his recently restored coffin. Finally, the throne and canopy bed of Queen Hetepheres I are beautiful, dating back almost 5,000 years, and the wooden “solar boat” of his son, King Cheopsdating back 4,600 years ago: it is one of the best preserved boats of antiquity and according to scholars it would still be usable today.
