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75-Egyptian_Museum-Cairo-Nov7_2018

Nov.7, 2018: The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or Museum of Cairo, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display, the remainder in storerooms.

 

The museum’s exhibits span from the beginning of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt (approximately 2700 BC) through the Greco-Roman period.The building consists of two floors. On the ground floor, you can follow the history of Egypt from the Old Kingdom up through the Greco-Roman period by turning left at the entrance and looping around the museum. This provides a good background for most of Egypt’s ancient history.

 

Upstairs the museum is organized thematically with a large portion of the area taken up the exhibit of the contents of Tutankhamun’s tomb, including his famous funerary mask. Also upstairs is the room dedicated to the beautiful jewelry discovered in the Royal Tombs of Tanis. Another highlight of the museum, the Royal Mummy Room, requires the purchase of a separate ticket. Inside you can see the mummies of some of Egypt’s most famous pharaohs, including Ramesses II, Seti I, and Egypt’s only queen, Hatshepsut.

 

The museum has so much to offer that it can be overwhelming. It suffers from the fact that much of the contents have not been relabeled or reorganized since they were first arranged in their cases over a century ago. The result is that some sections provide very little context for the artifacts and labels are shown in a variety of languages- French, English, Greek, German, and Arabic. The difficulty of navigating the exhibits is a common complaint by visitors and a good reason to have a guide with you.

 

New Grand Egyptian Museum: At the edge of the ancient pyramids of Giza, some 5,000 construction workers labor around the clock to finish the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum. Expected to open by the end of this year, the 5.2-million-square-foot structure will become the world's largest museum devoted to a single civilization. Costing more than $1 billion, the museum will re-house and restore some of the country's most precious relics. Its expansive, glass-fronted building offers sweeping panoramas of the Giza plateau and Great Pyramids, which stand just two kilometers away.

 

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Uploaded on November 30, 2018
Taken on November 7, 2018