Cairo’s Egyptian Museum
The Egyptian Museum: Cairo is the capital of Egypt and a great place to learn about the Pharaonic, Islamic, and Coptic cultures. The Saladin Citadel, the mosques, and the Islamic Quarter are all great places to see the beauty of Islamic architecture.
In the Coptic Quarter, you can find out more about how La Sagrada Familia came to be and see how the churches looked in the past. “The Pyramids of Giza of Cheops, Khafre, and Menkaure” are the first thing people see when they visit Cairo.
The Egyptian Museum is the second most-visited place in Cairo that has to do with ancient Egypt. The Cairo Museum is another name for it.
How the Egyptian Museum came to be
In 1835, the first museum was built to keep treasures and monuments from being stolen by locals or people from other countries. This museum in Esbakeya park was small. After that, he was sent to the Saladin Citadel. When the Emperor of Austria, Maximilian, went to Egypt in 1855, the governor of Egypt, Abbas Pacha, gave him a collection that is now in the museum.
Augusto Mariette built a new one in the Bolaq neighbourhood in 1858, but it was destroyed by a big flood. Then he moved to Ismael Pacha’s palace. The new “Egyptian Museum” was designed by Marcel Dourgon in 1897.
In April 1897, the dynasty of Abbas Helmi II celebrated the laying of the first stone. Ismael Pacha’s palace statues were moved to the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo in 1902.
How the Egyptian Museum was made
He put up 73 designs for the Egyptian Museum, but the one that was chosen was by the French architect Marcel Dourgon. It was the first museum ever to be built with the purpose of being a museum (no building became a museum). The outside was more like a neoclassical building than an ancient Egyptian one, but the rooms inside looked like Egyptian temples.
In 2006, the Museum had its most important repair. In 2016, 267 paintings from the Museum were used to bring it back to its original shape. The Museum has 50 rooms spread out over two floors. The rooms are in order of when they were built.
When the Egyptian Museum was built
It is in downtown Cairo on Tahrir Square. The Museum has more than 120,000 items from ancient Egypt. There are two floors in the Museum;
Downstairs, there are papyrus sheets from the last 2,000 years that have writing in Greek, Latin, Arabic, and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. There are also Greek, Roman, and Islamic gold, bronze, and silver coins from different times. Many things from the new, middle, and old empires can be found here (found in the tombs of pharaohs).
More than 5,000 items were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. On the second floor, there is a room with Tutankhamun’s things and his gold mask. There is also a room for the new empire’s mummies and things found in the Valley of the Kings.
The Egyptian Museum’s Displays
1- The Mask of Tutankhamun and his Sarcophagus are two of the most important pieces of ancient Egyptian art. Gold, glass, and valuable stones are used to make the mask. Gold is used to make the sarcophagus. They were among the things that were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
2- The statues of Amenhotep II and his wife are connected. They are 36 m tall and come from the XVIIth dynasty. In the first room, they are in the middle of the room. Along with them are three small statues that look like their daughters.
2- Narmer paddle: This is a small plate with many symbols that show how Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt were brought together.
3- Statue of Pharaoh Jasejemuy. He was the last pharaoh of the second dynasty of Egypt’s unified empire.
4- The King Cheops statue was made during Dynasty IV. The back of the statue’s head and the fact that she is sitting on a throne are signs of the god Horus.
How the Museum Works
The mausoleum of Auguste Mariette was moved to the garden of the Egyptian Museum, which has a lot of Egyptian artefacts. At the time the Egyptian Museum was built, there were 12,000 ancient Egyptian artefacts. However, as more artefacts were found, the number grew to 120,000.
It is found in the basement of the Egyptian Museum with 600 artefacts that haven’t been properly logged. At the moment, there are more than 150,000 ancient monuments, so the Great Egyptian Museum is being built to hold all of the monuments that are currently on display and in warehouses.
Egypt is a great place to visit.
Check out our trips in Cairo if you want to see the sights in Cairo. If you want a magical vacation, you can look at our Egypt travel packages. If you want to see Upper Egypt, you can choose your dream trip from our Nile cruises.
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