Egyptian Museum of Antiquities in Cairo

Situated bang opposite the infamous Tahrir Square, the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities stands tall – a massive structure that easily catches your eye in spite of all the hubbub and noise and chaos of modernity around it. This museum is soon going to be replaced by the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) currently under construction.

I am a little sad about it, as I loved the majesty of this historical building (dated 1902), but I can understand that it is just not big enough to house all the treasures of ancient Egypt within its two storeys.

The Egyptian museum was our next stop after seeing the pyramids in Giza. We came here to see some of the treasures of ancient Egypt most notably those found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.

The first thing we saw when we entered was the replica of the Rosetta stone.

The original Rosetta Stone is in the British museum, and they haven’t returned it to Egypt in spite of numerous requests. Instead, they created a replica and gave it to Egypt. I don’t know about you, but this makes me feel a little ragey.

If you’re wondering what is the significance of the Rosetta stone, it’s this (taken from wikipedia):

The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele, found in 1799, inscribed with three versions of a decree issued at Memphis, Egypt in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic script and Demotic script, respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek. As the decree has only minor differences between the three versions, the Rosetta Stone proved to be the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs.

It’s because of this stone, that the glories and mysteries of the ancient Egyptian civilization was unveiled to us.

Apart from the Rosetta stone, there are numerous statues and sculptures from various epochs of Egyptian history in the ground floor of the museum.

The museum was pretty strange – it barely seemed curated, and felt more like a storage house full of ancient treasures than a museum. Then again, if you’re housing artifacts that are five thousand years old, people are going to be impressed regardless of how you display them.

Have I mentioned yet that Egypt is really, really old? I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around how ancient some of the artifacts I was looking at were.

We just walked around in awe amazed at how well the statues were preserved. Even the colors remained so rich after centuries.

Here is a statue of a priest. His eyes were so lifelike, when the tour guide shone a torch on his face, the eyes seemed to glow as though he were still alive.

Can you believe the colors on this couple below? It definitely doesn’t look a few thousand years old!

Here is a bust of a queen in the corridor. She looked so stunning, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Sadly, I don’t know who she is. Our tour guide didn’t think her important enough to stop for, and after taking the shot, I had to run quickly to catch up with the rest of my group.

Here is a statue of Khufu or Cheops, creator of the Great Pyramid. This is the only remaining likeness of him and it’s about 5 cm tall.

Hard to believe that such a tiny insignificant looking guy built that huge pyramid!

The next floor is almost fully devoted to the treasures taken from Tutankhamun’s tomb. There was so much gold everywhere, my eyes were quite dazzled.

Tutankhamun was a boy king who died at 19 and was buried with incomprehensible amounts of treasure, most of which are on display. The reason he’s so famous is because his tomb is the only one recovered intact without getting plundered by grave robbers.

We saw his solid gold mask, decorated with turquoise, lapis and coral, also his gold mummy belt, cases and jewelry. These priceless items are in a separate room of the museum and no photography is allowed. You’ll just have to trust me that they take your breath away.

Here’s a video that talks about Tutankhamun’s life, his burial, and his treasures. It’s just about 5 mins long, and really worth watching.

Apart from Tut’s treasures, there are two mummy rooms, which were really interesting to see. The main mummies room contains the Royal Mummies, here you can see the mummies of many great Egyptian rulers, including Ramses II, the builder of the temples at Abu Simbel and also the newly discovered mummy of Queen Hatshepsut. It was a strange feeling thinking that the figures portrayed by those large granite statues lay before me in a shrunken shrouded state. Their bodies lay prostrated, their emaciated features staring to the heavens. What I remember most is their hair, the rest of the body shrivels but the hair stays the same as it did the day they died when they were wrapped in their shrouds and entombed in their coffins.

I wandered out of the Mummies room pleased to leave the silence behind me. The mummies of animals dominate the second mummies room. Both rooms were fascinating. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take photos here, and so again you just have to take my word for it.

Tips to getting the most out of your museum visit

• Get a guide – We went with a guide and found him invaluable. Like I said before, the museum is vast and you could easily spend a whole day here and not come close to seeing everything. Labeling of the exhibits isn’t so great and there is a general lack of signposting and maps. To find the museums most incredible treasures, and often they aren’t the most spectacular, you need a guide.
• Pay for the camera – You have to pay extra for bringing your camera into the museum. I don’t remember exactly, but I think I paid 50 Egyptian pounds (approx 200 Indian rupees and 3 USD). I was a little hesitant to pay as I was still not comfortable fully with the conversion, but I was glad I did. The museum is spectacular and you are going to want to take photos.
• Pay extra for the mummy room – I don’t remember again how much it was, but whatever, really worth it.
• Plan to spend an afternoon here – Our original idea was to spend about an hour here, and then go visit the Coptic churches in Cairo. Nope, not happening. Two hours is more like it, and maybe extra.

Last thoughts

I am not a museum person, I generally find them boring and dry. But the Egyptian museum was beyond fascinating. However, and I repeat this again – Go with a guide. You don’t need a guide to visit the Pyramids or Abu Simbel, but you would be lost without one in the Egyptian museum.

Still to come

I am sorry for the delay in these Egypt posts. I’ve been crazy busy since I got back. Also, the more the time passes, the harder these posts are to write. I have already forgotten so many details! I still need to blog about the river cruise we took from Aswan to Luxor, the temples in Egypt, and our experience hot air ballooning over Luxor. Also shopping! Tons of things still pending. Watch this space for more Egypt updates.

If you have any questions on our trip or itinerary, leave a message in the comments or email me, I”ll get back with details. I am yet to respond to some of the emails I have received. My apologies for that. I will be catching up on all communication soon!