After two decades and an estimated cost of $1bn, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) opened its doors to the public on Tuesday, just a few days after the official opening ceremony on Saturday.
Regarded as the world’s largest archaeological facility for a single civilisation, the museum is located 2km (1.2 miles) from the pyramids of Giza and 8km (5 miles) from the capital, Cairo.
The complex spans nearly 500,000sq metres (5,381,900sq ft) and will house more than 100,000 ancient artefacts from the 30 dynasties of ancient Egypt.
Some of the main attractions include the 3,200-year-old, 11.36-metre (37ft) statue of King Ramses II, the complete collection of Tutankhamun’s treasures and a 4,500-year-old boat, one of the oldest intact ships in the world, belonging to Khufu, the pharaoh renowned for building the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The Grand Egyptian Museum’s design
The museum has been called the “fourth pyramid” of the Giza Plateau, which is home to three pyramids 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 Menkaure (built for Pharaoh Menkaure).
Visitors can view the pyramids from inside the museum, which is designed in the shape of a chamfered triangle, echoing the geometry of the pyramids. The museum’s north and south walls are aligned with the Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Menkaure.
The design, created by the Irish architecture firm Heneghan Peng, uses sand-coloured 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 after the 2011 Arab Spring and the COVID-19 pandemic. Some areas of the museum had a soft launch in 2024.
The Grand Egyptian Museum, also known as the Giza Museum, is located just 2km (1.2 miles) from the pyramids of Giza [Getty Images]
The museum complex includes the main building, a conference centre, a courtyard, a Nile Valley park, the Khufu Boat Museum and a conservation centre.
Exterior view of the Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza pyramid complex [File: Getty Images]
A look inside the museum
Upon entering the museum, visitors are greeted by the 3,200-year-old statue of King Ramses II, which weighs about 83 tonnes.
From 1954 to 2006, the statue stood in Ramses Square in front of Cairo’s main train station before being relocated to its new location near the museum. To facilitate the move, the statue was transported upright and in one piece on a specially designed 128-wheel vehicle, covering a distance of 30km (19 miles) and necessitating temporary road closures.
Beyond the entrance is the six-storey grand staircase, lined with about 60 artefacts, including statues that honour deities, sarcophagi that hold the deceased, columns showcasing ancient architectural artistry,, and stelae inscribed with significant texts.
Visitors walk past ancient Egyptian statues along the grand staircase at the Grand Egyptian Museum during partial trial operation on October 15, 2024 [Sayed Hassan/Getty Images]
The museum boasts 12 main permanent exhibition halls, which opened last year and are organised by both era (ranging from prehistory through the Greco-Roman period) and theme (including society, kingship and belief).
The Tutankhamun gallery
Among the museum’s most prominent and largest exhibition spaces is the Tutankhamun Gallery, a 7,500sq-metre (80,000sq-ft) space that features more than 5,000 artefacts unearthed from the tomb of Tutankhamun, the boy king who ascended to the throne at about nine years old and ruled during the Eighteenth Dynasty nearly 3,400 years ago.
Despite his brief reign, which ended with his unexpected death at about 18 or 19 years old, Tutankhamun is one of the most famous pharaohs, largely due to the discovery of his nearly intact tomb in 1922 in the Valley of the Kings on the west side of the Nile opposite the city of Luxor.
Visitors can see his golden mask, throne, sarcophagus, chariots and jewellery, all presented to re-create the atmosphere of his royal burial chamber.
One of the world’s largest museums
The Grand Egyptian Museum has about 45,000sq metres (484,000sq ft) of exhibition space, making it the sixth largest museum in the world by display area.
The Louvre in Paris tops the list with 72,735sq metres, followed by the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia (66,842sq metres), the National Museum of China in Beijing (65,000sq metres), the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (58,820sq metres) and the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain (47,700sq metres).
Tourism is a major source of foreign currency for Egypt. In 2024, a record 15.7 million tourists visited Egypt, and the travel and tourism sector contributed roughly 8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, according to official figures.
An exhibit in the Grand Egyptian Museum [File: Mohamed Elshahed/Anadolu via Getty Images]
