“Come with me to live the mood of accomplishment… of greatness,” says Amr Adib, rousing us as ever with his trademark enthusiasm on the occasion of the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum. He tells us the entire world is waiting for this miracle, this “terrific” and “unmatched” thing. Watch the video, and you’ll catch a spark of his fiery excitement.
Not that this is anything new for Adib, but the official discourse shares his tone of exaggeration. The museum’s website bears the slogan, “Egypt’s gift to the world.” The Cabinet too has embraced this same style in its preparation for the gifting ceremony. Even the invitations were sent as lavish velvet-lined gift boxes, inside of which lay a miniature golden replica of Tutankhamoun’s sarcophagus, and within it, the scroll of the invitation.
The opening is certainly a major and long-awaited event. Though its cornerstone was laid 23 years ago, the project has been stumbling for decades: delayed by the revolution, stalled by a lack of funds and, most recently, its opening postponed this summer due to “current regional developments” — namely Israel’s strikes on Tehran amid its genocidal war on Gaza — before finally being rescheduled to this fall, following the declaration of a ceasefire in Gaza that is scarcely being observed.
This “gift to the world” rhetoric is nothing new — the same tone was adopted during the promotion of the Suez Canal expansion. When the Bibliotheca Alexandrina opened in October 2002, the same year the cornerstone for the GEM was laid, the same note was struck. It seems this is the only chord we know how to play: we have an ancient history, our roots reach back to the old world civilizations — come see us, we’ll wrap the old gift anew and offer it as a dazzling present.
And so, not to ruin the gift, the media tells us to stay home to watch the greatness, Egypt’s gift to the world. Saturday has even been declared a national holiday and screens have been set up in city squares to broadcast the festivities. The show is being produced by Saadi Gohar (Mediahub), the same media company behind the 2021 parade that saw the royal mummies ceremonially transferred to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.
They’re promoting a show intended to draw world leaders to our doorstep, a three-day display of grandeur and dazzle. Inshallah all will go well. But what’s the story of this museum? What’s inside the gift box? Beyond all the gifts and pomp, what will remain after the party is over?
The museum will not be open to visitors until after the three-day celebration; its first public day artfully set to coincide with the 103rd anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, with the king’s full burial collection to be displayed, all together, for the first time at the GEM.
The project cost US$1.2 billion, largely funded through two Japanese loans in 2006 and 2016 totaling around $750 million, according to the museum’s director. The loans are to be repaid over 20 years, with a 10-year grace period. In other words, we’ll be paying off the first loan until next year, when we will begin on the second. The Egyptian government covered the remainder of the investment. (Here’s a detail that might interest some readers — or not — but it’s worth mentioning: the museum is an economic entity under the supervising minister’s administration. It can establish companies, generate profit, rent out its conference halls, run shops and restaurants and set ticket prices. In short, it’s designed for profit)
The GEM houses 57,000 artifacts, 30,000 of which have never been displayed before. Tickets cost LE200 for Egyptians and LE1,450 for foreign visitors.
And it is grand. The museum is built on 490,000 square meters. When I visited during the trial opening, five hours weren’t enough to see it all.
***
A colossal obelisk greets visitors at the entrance (experts say that if you peer inside, you can see the king’s cartouche — his signature and seal). Behind the obelisk and its cartouche you’ll find the building itself, designed by the Irish firm Heneghan Peng Architects.
According to the description on the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry’s website, “the rays of the sun extending from the peaks of the three pyramids at their confluence represent a conical mass that is the Grand Egyptian Museum.”
What we understand from this bit of promotional flourish is that the building has been designed to make the three pyramids and their surroundings a scenic backdrop for visitors, seen from an elevated perspective that allows them to enjoy a breathtaking, 5,000-year-old view, as though they had climbed the plateau without having the bother of trudging through sand or suffering the trials and tribulations of hiking.
In the entrance stands the statue of Ramses II, surrounded by a water feature reminiscent of the fountain in its old location, before it was moved here in 2006. When I asked museum staff about the reason, one replied with surprise that well, the statue had a fountain under it in Ramses Square. As if it were some kind of plant — why change what Ramses is used to?
Near Ramses, a sign marks the optimal spot to stand for a full-height photo of the colossal statue. After you take the picture, your ascent begins: dozens of steps rising along a slope named the Grand Staircase. Along eye level, a panorama of Egypt’s history unfolds — stunning statues, fragments of temple walls, column capitals and icons, about 70 monumental pieces in all. Some are restored, some newly discovered, others brought from other museums or archeological sites. All of this is accompanied by plaques shaped like stone slabs, matching the sense of an ancient architecture.
The climb, around the height of six floors, ends with a grand panorama: pyramids and desert. An honestly amazing view.
From here, you have two choices: to the left, through one gallery after another tracing Egypt’s historical eras; or to the right, to the two halls of Tutankhamun, which together hold the pharaoh’s entire collection, around 5,800 pieces. When the halls were designed, archaeologists decided that they would bring all the pieces out of storage. “Visitors will discover the tomb exactly as [British archeologist Howard] Carter did,” said the museum’s former Director General Tarek Tawfik. (So, now we’re all Carter?)
The exhibition design is spectacular. You can circle the artifacts, study their fine details, and linger over materials and shades of color. The fixtures look like tiny chandeliers, their silver-coated pendants catching and scattering the blue light into a soft glow that brings out the intricate textures — jeweler-level work.
And when visitors feel saturated, they can turn their overworked eyes to the view — the desert, the pyramids, the calm — recharge and continue their tour.
Unlike the cramped, congested halls of the Tahrir museum that was built in 1902, the GEM offers its visitors a calm, enjoyable experience. The staircase is broad, you take in the view, you sip coffee in a chic cafe and connect to the Wi-Fi, an expert will show you the best angle for a photo with the monuments. You can enjoy the GEM alone or with a guide (perhaps even the actor Mohamed Khamis). No heat, no hustlers — all of that has been banished from the experience to leave only a panoramic view free of clutter and chaos or anything that might jar the visitor’s sense of awe.
Over the years, several developments have worked in favor of the GEM experience: the opening of the Sphinx International Airport just 36 minutes away, the completion of the Tourist Road linking the Ring Road with the pyramids area and the museum, and the Armed Forces Engineering Authority’s 2017 takeover of the redevelopment of the Giza Plateau, which had been stalled since 2011. The entrance to the pyramids area was relocated from the long-closed Haram Street (shut for years due to metro construction) to the Fayoum Road, the Nazlet el-Semman area was “developed” and its occupants displaced, its unlicensed hotels shut down.
In 2018, Orascom Development Holding was granted management of the pyramids area, banning horsepeople and their animals from wandering around and confining them to designated zones — in short, clearing away everything that might spoil the touristic view.
Finally, a pedestrian bridge now links the pyramids directly to the museum. Visitors can watch electric cars ferry people back and forth between the museum and the pyramids.
But beyond this convergence of plans — which might suggest the whole operation is run with topnotch professionalism — there have also been delays and stumbles.
Thirty-three years before the museum’s opening, its site was first determined by a 1992 presidential decree allocating ownership of “93 feddans, 10 kirats and 22 sahms,” located between the Ghataty area and Giza’s western plateau, to the Culture Ministry, along with another “23 feddans, 13 kirats and 12 sahms” in the same area for public use — all designated “for the establishment of the new Egyptian museum and its cultural annexes.”
The decree listed the names of landowners to be compensated, including the heirs of Mohamed Oraby Khalil, the Arab Contractors training center, the General Authority for Roads and Bridges and the Egyptian General Company for Tourism and Hotels, with a compensation schedule signed by then-Culture Minister Farouk Hosni in April 1992.
Between choosing the site and laying the cornerstone, 10 years had passed. Then, talk about the project waned until 2006, when we got the loan from Japan, the same year the colossal statue of Ramses II — excavated in Mit Rahiba and subsequently restored, and the namesake of Egypt’s most iconic, bustling square — was moved from its perch outside Cairo’s main railway station to the Giza Plateau en route to GEM.
Then came the revolution. The project was sidelined for politics to come to the fore — a Mubarak-era project sent to the shadows. Only in August 2014 did it resurface, but in connection to a funding issue, with then-Antiquities Minister Mamdouh al-Damaty chalking up the delays in executing museum projects, including the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, to the lack of funding.
In a recent interview, former Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization had actually been completed before 2011. Yet it didn’t open until 2021, in time for the grand royal mummies’ procession.
If you’ve ever watched Hosni talking about it, you’ll hear him telling the anecdote of how the GEM began: an Italian once mocked the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, calling it “a warehouse.” Hosni, offended, snapped back that he would build the largest museum in the world.
To hear him tell it, Hosni — who is now a member of the GEM’s board of trustees — returned to Egypt and asked Mubarak to greenlight the project. The rest followed in sequence: land allocated in 1992, cornerstone laid in 2002, construction starting in 2005, then halted by the revolution and its aftermath, only to resume in 2015-2016.
There has been no official clarification on Hosni’s story — but the tale is bigger than the vanity of a former minister or a PR styling that prizes the wrapping over the gift within. The museum itself is truly worth the visit — and it is what remains after the party is over.
About the Author
