Grand and Egyptian: A tale of two great museums

GIZA, Egypt — Twenty years may sound like a long time for building a monument like the Grand Egyptian Museum, but if you visit, all you have to do is look out the window to spot a historical precedent.

The Great Pyramid of Giza, which is a mile and a half away, took about the same amount of time to build 4,500 years ago. Now it’s the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that’s still standing.

Will the billion-dollar Grand Egyptian Museum be seen as a wonder as well? Just three months after its soft opening, the GEM has established its status as a must-see jewel for fans of ancient Egypt. But if you want to see the greatest hits of Egyptian archaeology, one museum — even a museum with more than 5 million square feet of floor space and 100,000 artifacts destined for display — still isn’t enough.

Egypt offers scores of museums, including the quirky Crocodile Museum, next to the Kom Ombo on the Nile; and Cairo’s National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, home to 20 royal mummies and tens of thousands of artifacts going back to prehistoric times.

For the past century, the Egyptian Museum on Cairo’s Tahrir Square has been the repository of the country’s greatest archaeological treasures. But last October’s soft opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum raised the curtain on a new center stage for Egypt’s heritage. The edifice was designed by Heneghan Peng Architects and built over the course of nearly 20 years, with Japanese loans covering 75% of the $1 billion-plus construction cost.

The building design reflects a strong pyramid motif, starting with the design of the museum’s facade and its triangular entryway. Hieroglyphs representing the names of Egypt’s ancient royalty decorate the entrance. A “hanging obelisk” has been raised onto an immense stone table in front of the facade. If you walk beneath the table, you can make out the name of King Ramesses II carved onto the bottom of the 3,500-year-old obelisk — a signature that was never meant to be seen.

Once you walk inside the entrance, you’ll quickly spot the 36-foot-tall, 83-ton statue of Ramesses II that serves as the museum’s icon. A window in the ceiling is strategically placed to have the rising sun’s rays illuminate the statue’s face in October and February — just as they light up the inner sanctum of Ramesses’ temple at Abu Simbel.

Royal statues and other ancient artifacts are on display on the Grand Staircase leading up from the entrance hall. Once you climb up the steps — or ride an escalator to the top — you’re treated to a picture-window view of the pyramids.

From there, you can gradually descend through a series of 12 galleries, arranged in an open four-by-three grid. Each level touches on the themes of society, kingship and belief during a given historical period. The top level concentrates on Egypt’s earliest history, including the Old Kingdom. The next level down focuses on the Middle Kingdom, the third level covers the New Kingdom (including King Tut), and the fourth level looks at Egypt’s Greco-Roman period.

The layout lets you customize your visit. For example, if you just want to do a quick run-through of the kingly chronology, you can shortcut your way down the “Kingship” track from top to bottom.

Not everything in the museum is ancient: Interactive displays use 21st-century technology to explore facets of Egyptian culture going back 4,000 years or more. One highlight is a big-screen re-creation of Khnumhotep II’s tomb chapel, in which the painted figures come to life and walk around the walls.

Although there are a few statues of Tutankhamun, plus other artifacts from his reign, you can’t yet see the riches from the boy king’s tomb at the Grand Egyptian Museum. Officials haven’t transferred Tut’s golden mask, his solid-gold coffin and other precious artifacts from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to the GEM in Giza.

There are two reasons why the museum is still in its “trial run” phase as of January. One reason has to do with the longer-than-planned construction schedule. Finishing touches are still being made to the galleries that will house 5,000 items from Tut’s tomb. Also, the museum team is still wrapping up work on the hall where a 138-foot-long solar boat — built 4,500 years ago during the reign of Khufu, the pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid of Giza — will be put on display.

The political situation in the Middle East is also said to play a role in determining the timing for the grand opening. Reports from the region suggested that Egyptian officials were holding off on the big celebration due to the conflicts raging in the region.

“Egypt cannot hold a global celebration attended by kings and heads of state while the blood of our people in occupied Palestine and Lebanon is being shed mercilessly by an enemy devoid of all humanity,” archaeologist Zahi Hawass explained last October in a commentary published by the Egypt Independent. “Therefore, we stand united with our government in this wise decision.”

10 sights from the Grand Egyptian Museum

Click on the images to see the slideshow and read the captions.

A “hanging obelisk” stands in front of the Grand Egyptian Museum’s entrance.

A colossal statue of Ramesses II dominates the museum’s entrance hall.

The museum’s pyramid-shaped facade is decorated with hieroglyphs.

Statues of ancient kings and queens stand on the museum’s Grand Staircase.

A limestone panel shows Chief Steward Iniula, his wife Iuy and one of their daughters in front of an offering table.

The pyramids of Giza are not far from the museum.

Crowds walk around a statue of Prince Itysen of Egypt’s 4th Dynasty.

This statue of Metri, who was an overseer of scribes in the 6th Dynasty, has eyes that are made of quartz and rock crystal.

This troop of wooden statuettes was found in a local governor’s 4,000-year-old tomb.

A golden mask and a net were spread over the mummy of Hekaemsaf, who served as an overseer of the royal fleet.

The fact that the Grand Egyptian Museum isn’t yet ready for prime time means that the Egyptian Museum in Cairo’s Tahrir Square is still the place to see what’s arguably the most famous archaeological find small enough to fit inside a museum gallery: the golden funerary mask of King Tutankhamun.

The museum is exhibiting the mask, along with Tut’s 240-pound gold coffin and other glittering treasures from the tomb, in two exhibit rooms that attract the longest lines of visitors.

Still other artifacts — such as an ornately decorated ceremonial chair, a set of canopic jars and a shrine to the jackal god Anubis — are on display in glass cases on the upper floor of the museum’s main gallery.

Tutankhamun’s treasures make up only a small percentage of the museum’s artifacts. Other highlights include statues from the reign of Hatshepsut, Egypt’s best-known woman pharaoh; the coffin of Akhenaten, the heretic king who was Tut’s father; and furnishings from the tomb of Yuya and Tuya, which was regarded as one of the greatest discoveries in Egyptology until Tut’s tomb was found in 1922.

When the artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun are transferred to the Grand Egyptian Museum, will that knock the 123-year-old Egyptian Museum in Cairo off the must-see list? Some archaeology fans would see that as a positive rather than a negative.

“The King Tut treasures need to be in the new museum, if only to get rid of the crowds so this ‘old’ museum can be properly enjoyed!” one museumgoer wrote in a comment on a recent Instagram post.

The rise of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza won’t render the country’s other museums obsolete. There’s room enough in Cairo and its surroundings for two great museums — just as there’s room enough in the Washington, D.C., area for the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum as well as the Udvar-Hazy Center (where the Smithsonian has put the space shuttle Discovery on display).

Although the new GEM will soon bring together Egypt’s grandest treasures in a brand-spanking-new setting for the 21st century, the old-style Egyptian Museum is the place to go for the feeling you’d get from an Indiana Jones movie. Or the feeling that archaeologist Howard Carter got a little more than a century ago, when he peered into Tut’s ancient tomb … and reported seeing “wonderful things.”

10 sights from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo

Click on the images to see the slideshow and read the captions.

The Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square opened in 1902.

A statue of King Djoser, who built Saqqara’s Step Pyramid, sits in front of a decorative limestone-and-faience panel.

This statue of Hatshepsut, Egypt’s best-known female pharaoh, shows her wearing a false beard.

Statues of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye dominate the Egyptian Museum’s ground floor.

This unfinished bust of Nefertiti still has traces of black paint that the artist used as a guide for carving the statue.

This statue of Akhenaten has the elongated face and skull associated with depictions of the heretic king.

Tutankhamun’s burial mask was sculpted in solid gold. Photo by Roland Unger, CC BY-SA 3.0.

This “Village Mayor” statue of chief lector priest Ka-aper is one of few wooden statues that have survived to the present day.

This mannequin of Tutankhamun is thought to have served as a tailor’s dummy.

The lids of the canopic jars that contained Tutankhamun’s internal organs were modeled after the pharaoh’s head.

Update for Nov. 2: The Grand Egyptian Museum’s official opening was delayed until Nov. 1 due to concerns about the region’s security situation. Dignitaries from around 80 nations attended the opening festivities, which featured a dazzling light and music show outside the museum — and the riches of Tut’s tomb inside the museum.

Tickets to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo can be purchased online. Most tourists visit the museums as part of a package tour, which is how I saw the GEM and the Egyptian Museum.

The slideshow photo of Tutankhamun’s burial mask is by Roland Unger, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license. Other photos by Alan Boyle.