The Grand Egyptian Museum next to the pyramids of Giza has finally opened its lavish doors.
A significant development in the cultural life of Egypt
The first thing that its many visitors saw was the colossal 3,200-year-old statue of Pharaoh Ramses II, one of the first acquisitions of the new museum in 2018. The six-story grand staircase offers views of the pyramids, as well as monuments and artefacts from statues of pharaohs to sarcophagi and mummies. When the construction of the museum will finally be completed, it will house more than 100,000 exhibits, including treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb.
However, no less interesting is the long list of Egyptian treasures that the museum will not be able to display. For example, those searching for even a mention of the Rosetta stone, a dark rock on which a decree issued by the Egyptian king Ptolemy V Epiphanes in 196 BC was carved in ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek, are doing so in vain. The same text in different languages gave scientists the first key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. However, to see this stone, you will have to visit the British Museum in London.
In the Cairo suburbs it is also impossible to find the granite statue of Ankhwa, a ship builder, from Saqqara, carved during the Third Dynasty of Egypt around 2650 BC – it is also in the British Museum. Perhaps some will want to see the famous statue of Amun in the form of a ram protecting King Taharqa (683 BC), but it is also in the British Museum. And if someone wants to gaze upon the three black granite statues of the goddess Sekhmet (1400 BC), the gilded outer sarcophagi from the tomb of Henuthemet in Thebes (1250 BC) or the black alabaster obelisk of King Nectanebo II (350 BC),........