The Grand Egyptian Museum, located at the foot of the Great Pyramids of Giza, which opened to the public in a test mode in October, has been recognized as one of the most beautiful museums of 2024. The Cairo treasure trove has been awarded the UNESCO Versailles Prize. This international award is given for outstanding architecture to such objects as airports, universities, museums, sports facilities, railway stations, hotels, and restaurants.
As Alaa Youssef, Egypt's Permanent Representative to UNESCO, stated at the certificate award ceremony, the museum's architectural design organically combines the history of Ancient Egypt with the surrounding landscape of the Giza pyramids. "The project reflects a modern artistic vision and incorporates advanced structural engineering methods, ensuring the project's environmental sustainability," he noted.
The Grand Egyptian Museum took over twenty years and a billion dollars to create. The official opening ceremony has not yet taken place due to the extremely tense situation in the region. The museum's main treasure - the collection of the pharaoh Tutankhamun - also remains carefully hidden from visitors.
Plans to open the world's largest museum dedicated to ancient Egyptian civilization near the pyramids were first announced in 2002. It took another ten years from conception to the beginning of implementation, and the foundation stone was laid in 2012. The active phase of construction began only in 2016 when Egypt was able to recover from all the revolutionary upheavals and political shocks. After three years, construction was essentially completed, but first the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, and then the complex geopolitical situation in the Middle East postponed the grand launch of this large-scale museum project indefinitely. Ultimately, the authorities decided to let tourists in, while postponing the opening ceremony with the participation of the President of Egypt to a more favorable time.
Since the end of 2022, the museum has been holding themed events and letting in small groups of visitors, and since October 16, it has been receiving about four thousand guests daily. However, only part of the exhibition is open to visitors: the grand staircase of the museum, which offers a panoramic view of the pyramids, the commercial zone and adjacent gardens, as well as 12 main halls, which exhibit sarcophagi, statues, bas-reliefs, sculptural compositions, and other artifacts covering centuries of ancient Egyptian civilization.
In the main lobby, visitors to the museum are greeted by an 11-meter statue of Pharaoh Ramses II, which many years ago was one of the first exhibits to be ceremoniously transported from the square of the capital's station across the entire city to Giza, for which several Cairo streets had to be closed and even some spans of elevated highways dismantled.
The museum's collection contains over 100,000 artifacts, many of which are being exhibited for the first time: the collection was gathered from all over the country, bringing together exhibits from different eras from all the country's museums, reserves, and storerooms.
One of the main attractions of the museum is intended to be the complete collection of Tutankhamun, including the mummy of the famous boy-pharaoh, the golden burial mask, the throne, and the golden sarcophagus - a total of 5,390 objects. Tutankhamun will be dedicated to several halls.
All artifacts transferred to the Grand Egyptian Museum from this collection have already been restored and are being prepared for display. However, several hundred exhibits, including the most famous ones, remain in the National Museum on Tahrir Square in the center of Cairo. They will be moved to Giza later.
In fact, the museum itself, with an area of 168 thousand square meters, occupies only 20% of the total area of the complex of 500 thousand square meters, the remaining 80% is restoration workshops, targeted educational and entertainment centers. The project provides for a 3D cinema designed for 500 viewers, a conference hall for 1,000 participants, two large open-air restaurants with a view of the pyramids, eight small cafes, 28 shops, and a boutique hotel with 30 rooms.
Architects, designers, and consultants from all over the world were involved in the project. An open international architectural competition was held under the auspices of UNESCO and the International Union of Architects. Specialists from Ireland, Great Britain, Egypt, the Netherlands, Austria, and Canada participated in the implementation of the project. Japan provided half of the total amount, which reaches $1 billion, in a concessional loan. According to plans, after the full launch of the museum, it will be able to receive up to 15 thousand people daily.
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