Travel and Places  

5 Fascinating Egyptian Museums To Add To Your Bucketlist

By Chinelo Eze

20 February 2022   |   11:00 am

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For a span of the 20th century, the ideal museum for exhibition was the Egyptian Museum in the hub of Cairo along the Nile. This was mainly so because among the abundant nuggets inside were the glimmering death mask of Tutankhamun and all the different antiques excavated in the boy king’s tomb by archaeologist Howard…

The Mask of Tutankhamun

For a span of the 20th century, the ideal museum for exhibition was the Egyptian Museum in the hub of Cairo along the Nile.

This was mainly so because among the abundant nuggets inside were the glimmering death mask of Tutankhamun and all the different antiques excavated in the boy king’s tomb by archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922.

However, Egypt’s fortunes are not just located in a single museum but have far more treasures to display.

In recent decades, a fuss of museum-building up and down the Nile has enabled the Middle Eastern country to show off extra artistic and cultural origin than ever before.

Gradually, the Ministry of Antiquities is moving many of the Egyptian Museum’s valuable trophies from congested downtown Cairo to a growing new suburban called the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM).

Placed in Giza, the GEM will exhibit the whole King Tut variety for the first time and connect to the nearby pyramids via a landscaped causeway spangled with vast sculptures from Egypt’s historical past.

Drawing inspiration from the famous house museums of Europe and North America, Egypt is also revamping a number of its legacy residences into museum areas.

Here are great museums where you can see some of Egypt’s ancient artefacts:

Egyptian Museum

Since the Egyptian Museum debuted in 1902, the rare pink palace dominating Cairo’s Tahrir Square has been the world’s exclusive showcase of ancient Egyptian artefacts, and it will remain so until the GEM finally opens.

The tremendous assortment, which consists of more than 120,000 items, runs an extensive range from royal mummies to colossal sculptures and papyrus scrolls, intricate jewellery, and even children’s toys from ages ago.

Mummified images. Photo Mr.M by Marko Tadic

Grand Egyptian Museum

For almost 20 years, the Grand Egyptian Museum has been under construction, but it will finally open in November 2022.

The huge complex caps the Giza Plateau on the outskirts of Cairo and is linked to the pyramids by a two-kilometre landscape causeway.

Amounting to more than half a billion dollars, the world’s massive museum committed to a single historical civilisation is to hold further than 100,000 antiques and exhibit the entire Tutankhamen compilation for the first time.

Statues of Rahotep and Nofret. Photo Journeytoegypt

Museum Of Mummification

Although this is a small collection on display, it is an intriguing collection on the Corniche boulevard in Luxor. It exhibits the numerous means and equipment that were used in the mummification procedure. Also on display are a few illustrations of the art, comprising animals and an ancient high priest.

The Luxor museum. Photo Journeytoegypt

Luxor Museum

In 1975, this museum was unveiled as Egypt’s first modern museum. The Luxor exhibition is situated along the Nile beside the towering Temple of Luxor. Instead of an archaeological clutter like its equivalent in Cairo, the Luxor Museum highlights solely its most priceless articles.

On display is a life-sized sculpture of Amenhotep III, an attempted reconstruction of a remarkable Akhenaten temple, the mummies of pharaohs Ramses I and Ahmose I and the crocodile god Sobek.

The Islamic Art Museum, Cairo. Photo Monuments of Egypt NAV3D

Museum Of Islamic Art

The world’s sole biggest collection of Islamic art and antiques, the collections cut across the whole Islamic world, from the Indian subcontinent to West China Iberia and Morocco.

Housed in this museum are a silk and silver horse saddle that dates to the Ottoman Empire, a detailed copper table from Mamluk Egypt, and unique copies of the Koran.

Additionally, the museum secures over 100,000 wooden, textile, metal, ceramic, plaster, and glass artefacts from the Middle East and beyond.