A test opening for the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo

While waiting for the official opening, unknown to date, the Grand Egyptian Museum opened twelve of its galleries on October 16, 2024. This test opening marks an additional stage in the slow opening of the museum which is said to be the most expensive in the world 1 billion dollars (950 M€), under construction since 2015. The museum expects four thousand visitors per day from October.

The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) has opened around ten exhibition rooms which will allow their visitors to discover the treasures of Egypt, from prehistory to the Roman era. They will have access to amulets, sarcophagi, mummies and statues of the pharaohs classified in chronological order and by dynasty. The statues on display represent members of the royal family, high-ranking officials and religious dignitaries. The famous forty-meter solar boat, which took King Khufu to the kingdom of the dead, will also be part of the exhibits. Artifacts in the various galleries range from the Third Intermediate Period (ca. 1070-664 BC) to the Old Kingdom (2649 to 2130 BC). One of the galleries highlights the history of ancient Egypt through a virtual reality device.

The “Tutankhamun” galleries, with the pharaoh’s funerary outfit of more than 5,600 pieces, will remain closed until the official opening. Tutankhamun’s treasure is currently in the collections of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Architect’s view of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

© Heneghan Peng Architects

Even if the official opening is still not on the table, the museum has been opening in stages for several years. The great hall with the colossal statue of Ramses II, as well as the conference center and the shopping complex, have been open to the public since 2023, and occasional visits have been organized in the museum rooms since 2022. The test openings allow the teams of the museum to prepare the official opening by anticipating the crowds in the different galleries, reports The Guardian.

Located near the pyramids of Giza, on a site of forty-seven hectares, the 500,000 m² museum has the largest collection of antiquities from a single civilization. Of the 130,000 objects held by the GEM, some of which come from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, fifty thousand will be on permanent display. The GEM houses a Children’s Museum, a space dedicated to the educational transmission of the history of Egypt for young people.

The cause of the postponement of the opening, initially planned for 2015, would be due to “new equipment and elements that the Egyptian authorities wished to add”explains Amr El Kady, president and CEO of Egypt Tourism Authority, for The tourist echo. The Covid pandemic, associated with the economic and political instability of the country since 2011, would also have contributed to the slowdown of the museum project.

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