Grand Egyptian Museum … Egypt’s gift to the world

The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) is one of the mega national projects that is considered to be a great addition to Egyptian tourism and the international cultural and media tourism.

It reflects the extent of Egyptian international cooperation, as it is considered one of the largest civilizational and archaeological projects in the world, and the largest museum in the world dedicated to one civilization, which is the ancient Egyptian civilization.

The objective of the project

The mission of the museum is to preserve and restore cultural and historical heritage, and promote museum activities, such as the display of artifacts, and educational activities.

This museum will become one of the most important symbols of bilateral cooperation between Egypt and Japan as the Japan International Cooperation Agency “JICA” provided financial support through two official development aid loans totaling approximately $ 800 million.

JICA also provided technical cooperation to support the GEM Restoration Center concerned with the conservation, restoration, packaging and transportation of artifacts, the transfer of expertise related to the management and operation of the museum and exhibitions to support the preparations for the opening of the museum, and the excavations and restoration of the second Khufu ship known as the second solar boat, in the Pyramids region, which is expected to become one of the museum’s exhibits and one of the most important elements of attracting visitors.

Location &Area

The Grand Egyptian Museum is located a few miles west of Cairo, and just two kilometers from the Pyramids of Giza, and is built on an area of ​​117 acres.

The “Hengan Bing” Company won the museum’s architectural design competition, and “Atelier Buchner” company won the museum’s exhibition.

As for the construction works, “Orascom Construction Industries” won it with Besix Company.

The museum also includes a children’s museum, an educational center, a handicraft center, educational classes, a museum dedicated to the sun boats, and the first field of a hanging obelisk.

Because the museum is located in front of the pyramids of Giza, the facade was designed in the form of triangles, each range being divided into smaller triangles in a symbolic frame of the pyramids, according to a mathematical theory of a Polish scientist talking about the endless division of the shape of triangle.

The museum buildings are located on an area of ​​100 thousand square meters, including 45 thousand meters for the museum exhibition, and the remaining area includes a library specialized in Egyptology, a conference center, research center, laboratories for restoration, a three-dimensional cinema, places for serving visitors such as restaurants, shops selling reproductions and gifts, and a parking.

Museum contents

The museum includes many archaeological and cultural treasures that characterized Egypt, and the museum will be unique in its presentation, as it will display for the first time the full collection of King Tutankhamun’s acquisitions, which is a 5,000 unique artifacts, and will receive the statue of King Ramses II, which was moved in 2006 to its new final site In the lobby of the Grand Egyptian Museum.

The Grand Egyptian Museum, also, includes a special hall to display the coffins of ” Al-Assasif ” coming from Luxor, which were found by the Egyptian mission in October,2019 in Al-Assasif Archaeological Cemetery.

The museum will shad the light on the recent discovery’s archaeological, historical and artistic value which includes distinguished group of 30 colorful coffins for men, women and children, in a good condition as their colors are clear and patterns are complete. The mission revealed the coffins in their case as the ancient Egyptian left where they were closed coffins inside the mummies and grouped in a cache in two levels one above the other, the first level contains 18 coffins and the second level is to other 12 ones.

The Grand Egyptian Museum is to be the world’s largest museum of antiquities which gathers ancient and modern civilizations to receive 5 million visitors annually. Furthermore, the museum includes commercial and recreational services, a restoration center as well as the museum park, in which trees are planted being known to the ancient Egyptian.

The museum includes more than 100,000 artifacts from the Pharaonic, Greek and Roman eras, which will revive the tourism sector in Egypt. The museum costs a billion dollars, and more than 5 thousand people have worked in it; they are engineer, technician and workers in cooperation with international experiences in this field.

The Grand Egyptian Museum grants its visitors a different and exceptional experience that reflects the greatness of the Egyptian civilization in a modern style to be a model of mixing originality, modernity, history and modern science.

Moreover, the museum placed in a distinguished location in front of the pyramids of Giza where the tourist can take pictures of “Sylvie” with the pyramids while enjoying watching the King Tutankham Amon’s stuff.

The Sphinx Airport is 15 minutes from the museum site.

This will facilitate the movement of tourists to it and give them an opportunity to go to the various tourist cities after visiting the museum, such as Sharm El Sheikh or the new city of El Alamein. It will be also a good opportunity to provide various touristic programs and mix cultural tourism with other patterns, including beach tourism.

Discovery Channels Network is currently filming and producing three movies with the aim of promoting the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), which is scheduled to be opened in 2020, in coordination with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism.

The movies will be shown on the network’s various channels in many world countries before inauguration of the museum to the public in order to create a global attention about inauguration of this magnificent cultural edifice.

Some 249 artifacts were relocated from the Egyptian Museum at Tahrir Square and the archaeological area of Tal Basta in Zagazig, the most important of which is a triangular statue of pink granite, depicting King Ramses II, and on his side the God Ptah and the Goddess Hathor. The statue was unearthed during the excavation works of the Egyptian-German mission in Tal Basta area.

This 4-ton statute is one of the heavy pieces which will be displayed on the Grand Staircase of the museum. The statue was transported to the museum’s heavy antiquities restoration laboratory for examination and implementation of the necessary renovation works.

Also, a distinctive collection of colored limestone statues depicting the great statesmen and scribes of the ancient kingdom and a group of imaginary doors made of limestone and decorated with hieroglyphs and inscriptions as well as the cartridges of King Pepi were transferred to the Grand Egyptian Museum.

King Tutankhamun’s collection, more than 5,000 pieces, will be displayed for the first time in one place.

The museum’s lobby comprises King Ramses II statue, the column of his son King Merneptah, and the great staircase, which will comprise 87 royal statues, huge architectural elements, including statues for Kings Chephren, Mycerinus, Senusret, Akhenaten, and Amenhotep III.

The committees concerned with receiving, first restoration, packaging and transportation has carried out the first repairs of the critical pieces that need to be repaired prior to the packaging. A detailed report on each piece has been developed to state the damage .

The heavy pieces were also packaged on padded wooden bases. The small pieces are packaged inside 15 wooden boxes.

Regarding the international media level, the British newspaper, The Times described the museum as the greatest civilizational and cultural projects of the current century.

It has been chosen as the second most important 10 huge projects expected to have an important role in human civilization during the coming period.

The same phrase was stated by Stephen Gruenberg, a member of the design team for the interior halls of the project.

He expected that the museum will surpass the world’s museums, such as the Louvre, Berlin, the British Museum and others, in terms of its importance because it is a modern museum that embraces the masterpieces of the Egyptian civilization.

The announcement of the establishment of the Great Egyptian Museum also aroused the interest of cultural institutions, media websites and individuals around the world.

Throughout a month since the announcement of its establishment, about 5,000 e-mails have been received on the museum’s website inquiring about its contents and its construction. The number of websites that mentioned the museum exceeded a million websites in English only, which reflects its value and its global importance.

A large international celebration is being prepared for the museum’s inauguration