The Grand Egyptian Museum (The New Museum) Opening

The Grand Egyptian Museum (The New Museum) Opening

The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), also known as the Giza Museum, is a planned museum of artifacts of ancient Egypt. Described as the largest archaeological museum in the world, the new museum is under construction and is scheduled to be partially open in the end of 2018, exhibiting the full Tutankhamun collection with many pieces to be displayed for the first time and the Solar Boat that is now housed beside the pyramids.

The new museum permanent exhibition space will contain 24,000m², almost 4 football fields in size. The site will contain a children’s museum, conference and education facilities, a large conservation center and extensive gardens as well.

The site for the Grand Egyptian Museum is located at the edge of the first desert plateau on 117 acres of land approximately two kilometers from the Giza pyramids and is part of a new master plan for the plateau. The plan will have a passage between the museum and the Giza plateau to facilitate the movement of tourists between the two attractions.


Recently, the restoration and conservation labs were functioning in the new musuem; 200 restorers were working around the clock to finish restoring artifacts on time for the opening. In addition, 43, 257 artifacts had been moved to the GEM, 4,549 of which being from the Tutankhamun collection.

The archeological landmarks around the Grand Egyptian museum:

The Memphite Necropolis is an ancient Egyptian necropolis located in the city of Memphis, the first capital of ancient Egypt. It includes many sites like; GizaSaqqara, Abusir and Dahshur. it has been designated as a World HeritageSite  by UNISCO in 1979. Most of the pyramids of the Old Kingdom were built here, along with many mastabas and other tombs.


These pyramids  served as tombs for kings and queens, but they were also places of ongoing religious activity. After a ruler died, his or her body was carefully treated and wrapped to preserve it as a mummy. According to ancient Egyptian belief, the pyramid, where the mummy was placed, provided a place for the deceased king to pass into the afterlife.

 The internal layout of pyramids changed over time, but the entrance was typically in the center of the north face. From here a passage ran downward, sometimes levelling out, to the king’s burial chamber. In addition to the burial chamber, there were storage chambers within the pyramid. These chambers held objects used in burial rituals as well as items for the deceased to use in the afterlife. Some of these items were valuable, and in later years people robbed many of the pyramids and stole the objects

In temples nearby, priests performed rituals to nourish the ka of the deceased king, which was believed to stay with the body after death.

Purpose of Establishing The New Musuem:

  1. Establishing the biggest museum in the world, holding 100000 master pieces of ancient Egyptian antiques from the begging of history till the end of Graeco-Roman time, which is the project of the century in Egypt.
  2.  Connecting the grand museum with pyramids and necropolis around, tourists will be more understood to aspects of kingship and eternity of the ancient Egyptian civilization.
  3. Making a sustainable tourism in the historical landmarks around the museum.
  4.  Through using the advanced technology of exhibition for the antiques, we can present the way of life in ancient Egypt and their artifacts, for instance videos of the original places of discoveries, making papyrus, sculptures, etc.
  5. Egyptian government aims to connect the Grand museum with the Great pyramids by interesting ways of transportation such as Chairlifts (telefric) and electric vehicles next to the traditional ones as tramway (taftf) and folklore ones of camels and horse carriages.


The new musem designThe new museum at night