Egypt’s Grand Museum opens, showing Tutankhamun’s tomb in its entirety for the first time

Near one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza – Egypt is officially opening what it intends to make a cultural highlight of the modern age.

The Great Egyptian Museum (GEM), described as the largest archaeological museum in the world, is filled with around 100,000 artefacts spanning around seven millennia of the country’s history from pre-dynastic times to the Greek and Roman eras.

Prominent Egyptologists say its creation boosts their quest to return key Egyptian antiquities held in other countries – including the famous Rosetta Stone on display at the British Museum.

A major part of GEM will be the entire contents of the intact tomb of the boy king Tutankhamun, exhibited together for the first time since it was found by British Egyptologist Howard Carter. These include Tutankhamun’s spectacular golden mask, throne and chariots.

“I had to think about how we could show it in a different way, because since the discovery of the tomb in 1922, about 1,800 pieces have been put on display out of a total of over 5,500 that were in the tomb,” says Dr. Tarek Tawfik, president of the International Association of Egyptologists and former head of GEM.

“I had the idea of ​​putting the entire tomb on display, which means nothing stays in storage, nothing stays in other museums, and you get the full experience as Howard Carter had it over a hundred years ago.”

The huge museum complex, costing around $1.2 billion (£910 million; €1.1 billion), is expected to attract up to 8 million visitors a year, giving a huge boost to Egyptian tourism, which has been hit by regional crises.

“We hope that the Grand Egyptian Museum will usher in a new golden era of Egyptology and cultural tourism,” says Ahmed Sediq, a guide and aspiring Egyptologist at the Pyramids of Giza Plateau.

Apart from the Tutankhamun exhibit and the new exhibit on Khufu’s spectacular 4,500-year-old funerary boat — one of the oldest and best-preserved vessels of antiquity — most of the site’s galleries have been open to the public since last year.

“I organized so many tours to the museum even though it was partially open,” Ahmed continues. “Now it will be at the height of its glory. When the Tutankhamun collection opens, then you can imagine the whole world will come back because this is an iconic pharaoh, the most famous king of all antiquity.”

“It’s something to see,” said Spanish tourist Raul, who is looking forward to the full opening on November 4. “We’re just waiting to go and see all the Egyptian artefacts,” says Sam from London, who is on a tour of Egypt. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Another British tourist said she had previously seen Tutankhamun exhibits on display at the neoclassical Egyptian Museum in busy Tahrir Square. “The old museum was quite chaotic and it was a bit confusing,” she commented. “I hope the Grand Museum will be a lot easier to see and I think you’ll just get more out of it.”

The new museum is colossal, covering 500,000 square meters (5.4 meters square feet) – roughly the size of 70 football fields. The exterior is covered with hieroglyphs and translucent alabaster cut into triangles with a pyramid-shaped entrance.

Among the GEM exhibits are a 3,200-year-old, 16-meter-long hanging obelisk of the mighty pharaoh Ramses II and his massive 11-meter-tall statue. The imposing statue was moved from near the Cairo train station in 2006, in a complex operation, in preparation for the new institution.

A giant staircase is lined with statues of other ancient kings and queens, and upstairs a huge window offers a perfectly framed view of the Pyramids of Giza.

The museum was first proposed in 1992, during the reign of President Hosni Mubarak, and construction began in 2005. It has now taken almost as long to complete as the Great Pyramid, according to estimates.

The project has been hit by financial crises, the Arab Spring of 2011 – which toppled Mubarak and led to years of turmoil – the Covid 19 pandemic and regional wars.

“This has been my dream. I’m really happy to see that this museum is finally open!” Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former longtime minister of tourism and antiquities, tells me. The veteran archaeologist says this shows that Egyptians are equal to foreign Egyptologists when it comes to excavations, preservation of monuments and curation of museums.

“Now I want two things: firstly, museums stop buying stolen artefacts and secondly, I need three items to return: the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum, the Zodiac from the Louvre and the Nefertiti bust from Berlin,” says Dr Hawass.

He created online petitions – attracting hundreds of thousands of signatures – calling for all three items to be repatriated.

The Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799, provided the key to deciphering the hieroglyphs; it was discovered by the French army and seized by the British as spoils of war. A French team carved the zodiac of Dendera, an ancient Egyptian sky map, from the Hathor temple in Upper Egypt in 1821. Egypt accuses German archaeologists of illegally taking the colorfully painted bust of Nefertiti, the wife of Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, out of the country more than a century ago.

“We need the three items to come as a good feeling from these three countries, as a gift, as Egypt gave the world many gifts,” says Dr. Hawass.

Another leading Egyptologist, Dr. Monica Hanna, names the same objects “taken under colonial pretexts” as those that should be repatriated. She adds: “GEM gives this message that Egypt has done its homework very well to officially claim the objects.”

The British Museum told the BBC it had received: “There have been no formal requests to return or borrow the Rosetta Stone from the Egyptian government.”

Egyptian Egyptologists express their excitement about the new museum becoming a center for academic research leading to new discoveries.

Already, Egyptian conservators based there have painstakingly restored items belonging to Tutankhamun, including his impressive armor made of textiles and leather. According to Egyptian law, such restorations can only be done by Egyptians.

“Colleagues from all over the world were in awe of the fantastic conservation work that was done,” says Dr Tarek Tawfiq, adding that the whole project is a source of great national pride. “Besides ancient Egyptian history, we also show modern Egypt because Egypt is the one who built this museum.”