Egyptian Museum

The museum opened in 1902 in a purpose-built neoclassical hall and it has never really stopped being full: the collection runs to well over a hundred thousand objects and the galleries were laid out when a fraction of that was expected. The Tutankhamun treasures that made its name have moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum, and the royal mummies have gone to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, which changes what a visit is for. What remains is the density of the thing, room after room of statuary, coffins, stelae and everyday objects arranged more by chronology than by argument, with handwritten labels from a century ago sitting beside modern ones. The building itself is part of the interest, its central atrium stacked with colossal figures and its upper galleries running on wooden floors. It rewards a slow, unhurried walk rather than a checklist.

History

Egypt's government set up a first museum in 1835 near the Ezbekieh Garden, but its collection dwindled after Muhammad Ali's death, and in 1855 Khedive Abbas I gave what was left to Archduke Maximilian of Austria; it is now in Vienna. Auguste Mariette founded a new museum at Boulaq in 1858, in a riverside warehouse damaged by the Nile flood of 1878, and in 1889 the overcrowded collection was moved to a palace at Giza offered by Khedive Ismail. In 1902 it moved again to the present building on Tahrir Square, designed by the French architect Marcel Dourgnon and built by the Italian firm of Giuseppe Garozzo and Francesco Zaffrani; the foundation stone was laid on 1 April 1897 in the presence of Khedive Abbas Hilmi II, and the German architect Hermann Grabe completed it. With over 170,000 items it holds the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities in the world (Wikipedia, Egyptian Museum).

What's there

• The colossal statuary hall - the atrium stacked with royal figures.
• Old Kingdom masterpieces - including the seated Khafre and the Rahotep and Nofret pair.
• The Amarna gallery - the strange elongated art of Akhenaten's reign.
• Handwritten labels from 1902 - the museum as its own historical object.

When to go

October to April for the walk across Tahrir; the museum is not air-conditioned throughout and summer afternoons are heavy. Open daily, later on some evenings. Three hours is a reasonable first visit, and going early avoids the tour-group waves that arrive mid-morning.

What to expect

It is crowded, dusty and poorly signed in places, and the lighting in some galleries is genuinely bad. The star objects that most visitors come for are no longer here, so check what has moved before you plan. Photography rules change; buy the photo ticket if you want to shoot. There is little seating and no good cafe.

Nearby

Tahrir Square and downtown Khedivial Cairo are at the door; Coptic Cairo is a short metro ride south.

Key facts