Mentioned in the 1990s, the construction of the great Egyptian museum of Cairo (GEM) located on the Giza plateau not started until 2012. Since then, the opening of the museum, initially scheduled for 2015, has been postponed several once due to financing problems (the budget has exceeded a billion dollars), the country’s political instability and the health crisis. Since 2023, the rooms have opened up a dropper.
The final date of full opening – July 3, 2025 – was announced by the director of the great Egyptian museum, Ahmed Ghoneim. The inauguration will have the highlight of the opening of the galleries devoted to the famous Pharaoh of the 18th Tutankhâmon dynasty (around 1345/1327 BC))
In the galleries of Tutankhâmon, visitors will be able to appreciate nearly 4,500 funeral pieces discovered in 1922 in the valleys of the Kings in Lurxor by the British archaeologist Howard Carter (1874-1939). Among these pieces is in particular the funeral mask of Tounkhamon, masterpiece of the Egyptian goldsmith in solid gold, silver and copper, adorned with many precious stones including quartz for the eyes.
The opening ceremony of the great Egyptian Museum in Cairo (GEM), which will take place “Global scale”should extend over several days, announced Ahmed Ghoneim in an interview in ONTV. Egyptian authorities expect an attendance of 15,000 visitors per day.
Designed by the architectural firm Heneghan Peng, the great Egyptian museum in Cairo. extends over nearly 500,000 m2 and has the largest collection of antiquities from a single civilization. The main building accommodates a total of 100,000 objects, of which 50,000 are permanently exposed. The latter, which had mostly had never been exhibited, come from the reserves of the old Cairo museum from Place Tahrir or storage spaces of Egyptian archaeological sites. The exhibition space designed by the German office Atelier Bruckner offers an area of 60,000 m2. It is divided into five distinct zones retracing, through different themes, the history of ancient Egypt from prehistory to Greek and Roman antiquity.
