Grand Egyptian Museum opening after years of delays
By Eileen Ogintz
CAIRO, Egypt — Look for the smiling faces.
We are at the massive Grand Egyptian Museum that, after many years delay, will officially open to the public July 3. It will be the largest museum of antiquities in the world with some 55,000 pieces already moved from the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities.
The new state of the art museum will contain some 5,664 pieces—everything found in King Tut’s tomb that caused a worldwide sensation when it was discovered in 1922 by British archeologist Howard Carter and his benefactor Lord Carnarvon. The new gallery will be spread over two acres.
Meanwhile, there is plenty to see—mummies, scores of gigantic statues, and pillars, gods and goddesses, all varieties of jewelry and anything and everything ancient Egyptians believed they would need in the afterlife-plates, jars of alabaster, chairs, ornate boxes that held organs, gold jewelry.., carvings of sacred falcons, cobras (said to protect the royals in the afterlife… list goes on and on. It is overwhelming. There is a children’s museum not yet open.
This museum that cost 1,7 billion dollars is expected to draw some 15 million visitors a year, most from outside Egypt said our guide and Abercrombie & Kent tour director Essam Zeid, a dual American and Egyptian citizen with a degree in Egyptology with decades of experience. “This is my passion,” he told us. A shout out to the other A&K staff, including Karim Ibrahim, who are unfailingly helpful.
Our group—ranging in age from two high school girls traveling with their parents and grandmother from New York to those spry seniors in their 80s—started our nine-day tour of Egypt today.
“I was always fascinated after seeing King Tut exhibit in New York in 1978,” said the girls’ grandmother, who is from Pennsylvania. “You can see as many pictures as you want but seeing it in person is entirely different.”
This morning at the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, we saw the last 23 treasures from King Tut’s tomb that haven’t yet been moved. “we’ve learned everything about Ancient Egypt from King Tut’s tomb,” Zeid said. There are gold finger and toe sleeves that were placed over the Boy King’s fingers and toes (he was still a teen when he died) gold necklaces, amulets that were on his mummified thighs, many amulets to help his voyage to the afterlife, earrings he likely wore, even a lock of his grandmother’s hair in small nesting coffins his inner most coffin made of gold weighing more than 242 pounds and perhaps the most famous artifact—the Golden funeral mask. Zeid noted that when the new exhibit opens, there will be toys he would have played with as a boy.
One of the teens was most struck by seeing the fabulous gold funeral mask; the other by the mummies, including one dating back 10,000 years, the oldest in the world.
Who knew? We learn that women put henna in their hair because it was a repellent for lice while men shaved their heads. They didn’t have beards, but kings were depicted with beards on a string—as was Queen Hatshepsut whose rule was marked by peace, prosperity, and significant architectural achievements. Sadly, after her death, her stepson Thutmose III ordered her inscriptions and images removed from monuments and temples.
As far as the happy faces go, we learned that in the new kingdom (1400 BC) times were good, so the statues were shown smiling; in the middle kingdom (2000 BC) they were shown with sad faces because those were times of trouble for Egypt. In the old kingdom (3200 BC) the statues were carved with serious faces because the people were just trying to build the country.
“Sometimes It was hard to tell which was which,” opined one of the teens.
Another fun fact: You will know you are looking at a king’s statue if you see a bee and a goose. Bees represented royalty, with Egyptians believing honeybees were formed from the tears of the sun god that became bees when they fell from the sky to earth. Ancient Egyptians believed the goose was a messenger between heaven and Earth and was sacred.
Cairo is a huge city—some 22.6 million people, making it the second largest city in the world after Mexico City. Traffic is a nightmare and so was the airport. But those in our group opined that while friends and family questioned the logic of coming to the Middle East right now, we all feel safe. In fact, compared to Jordan where there seemed barely any tourists, Cairo is bustling, attracting some 10 million visitors a year.
We stayed at Mena House, now a Marriott Hotel, in sight of the Pyramids that originally was originally a royal hunting lodge. The Palace was built In 1869 with the opening of the Suez Canal and later served as a haunt for wealthy travelers and in 1943, a summit known as the First Cairo Conference between China, Britain and the United States attended by Chairman Chiang Kai-shek, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt to outline the Allied position against Japan during World War II and to discuss post-war Asia.
In 1977, Mena House was the site of pre-Camp David peace talks between Egypt and Israel and through the years celebrities and royals have stayed here—everyone from Agatha Christie and Charlie Chaplin to Lionel Messi to Will Smith and King Charles III.
Today there is a pool, a spa, 40 acres of gardens and water features, four restaurants (The Moghul Room serves excellent and authentic Indian cuisine (while you can see the reflection of Great Pyramids on the pool outside.
As we enter the new Grand Egyptian Museum, there are pyramid shapes in the architecture everywhere and a giant 60-foot-tall statue of King Ramses II. The museum actually was built around the statue that was moved from Ramses Square and dates back to 1280 BC. It is carved from one piece of red granite and weighs some 83 tons. Amazing! When it was moved in 2018, there was a marching band and mounted military guard to accompany it.
Can you find the goose and the bee?