After two decades and an estimated cost of $1bn, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) opened its doors to the public on Tuesday, days after the official opening ceremony on Saturday.
Known as the world’s largest archaeological site for a single civilization, the museum is located 2km (1.2 miles) from the Pyramids of Giza and 8km (5 miles) from the capital, Cairo.
The complex is spread over nearly 500,000sq m (5,381,900sq ft) and will house more than 100,000 ancient artifacts from the 30 dynasties of ancient Egypt.
Some of the highlights include the 3,200-year-old, 11.36-meter (37-foot) statue of King Ramses II, the entire collection of Tutankhamun’s treasures, and the 4,500-year-old boat, the Khufu, the Great Building of the Great Ginov Redoija, the Khufu is one of the world’s oldest intact ships.
Design of the Grand Egyptian Museum
The museum is called the “Fourth Pyramid” of the Giza Plateau, which is home to three pyramids that are about 4,500 years old: the Great Pyramid of Giza (built for Pharaoh Khufu), the Pyramid of Khafre (built for Pharaoh Khafre) and the Pyramid of Menkabure (for Pyramid Menkaure).
Visitors can view the pyramid from inside the museum, which is designed in the shape of a chamfered triangle, echoing the geometry of the pyramids. The north and south walls of the museum are aligned with the Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Menkaure.
The design, by Irish architecture firm Heneghan Peng, uses sand-colored concrete and translucent alabaster stone, while the museum’s main facade is made of frosted glass panels.
The complex was announced in 1992, but construction did not begin until 2005 and was delayed by political turmoil following the 2011 Arab Spring and the COVID-19 pandemic. Some parts of the museum had a soft launch in 2024.
The museum complex includes the main building, a conference center, a courtyard, the Nile Valley Park, the Khufu Boat Museum, and a conservation center.
A look inside the museum
Upon entering the museum, visitors are greeted by a 3,200-year-old statue of King Ramses II, weighing around 83 tons.
From 1954 to 2006, the statue stood in Ramses Square opposite Cairo’s main train station before being relocated to a new location near the museum. To facilitate movement, the statue was transported upright and in one piece on a specially designed 128-wheeled vehicle, covering a distance of 30km (19 mi) and requiring a temporary road closure.
Beyond the entrance is a six-story grand staircase, which contains about 60 works of art, including statues honoring deities, sarcophagi holding the dead, columns displaying ancient architectural artistry, and stelae inscribed with important texts.
The museum has 12 main permanent exhibition halls, which opened last year, and are organized both by period (from prehistory to the Greco-Roman period) and theme (including society, monarchy and faith).
Tutankhamun Gallery
Among the museum’s most prominent and largest exhibition spaces is the Tutankhamun Gallery, a 7,500-square-meter (80,000 sq-ft) space that houses more than 5,000 artifacts excavated from the tomb of Tutankhamun, the boy king who reigned for about the ninth year and became king at the age of 90. About 3,400 years ago.
Despite his short reign, which ended with his unexpected death at the age of 18 or 19, Tutankhamun remains one of the most famous pharaohs, largely due to the discovery of his nearly intact tomb in 1922 in the Valley of the Kings, west of the Nile opposite the city of Luxor.
Visitors can see his golden mask, throne, sarcophagus, chariot and jewels, all presented to recreate the atmosphere of his royal burial chamber.
One of the largest museums in the world
The Grand Egyptian Museum has about 45,000 square meters (484,000 sq ft) of exhibition space, making it the sixth largest museum in the world by exhibition area.
The Louvre in Paris topped the list with 72,735 square meters, followed by the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia (66,842 square meters), the National Museum of China in Beijing (65,000 square meters), the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Museum 2 (05 square meters) in Madrid, Spain (47,700 square meters).
Tourism is a major source of foreign exchange for Egypt. In 2024, a record 15.7 million tourists visited Egypt, and the travel and tourism sector accounted for approximately 8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, according to official figures.
