The Egyptian Museum

• Gerneral Info:

The story of the establishment of the museum began after the world’s attention to the Egyptian monuments after the deciphering of the Rosetta stone by the French scientist Champlion. The first nucleus of the museum was a small house in the old Azbekiya area, where the king Mohammed Aly ordered the registration of the Egyptian monuments and transfers the valuable antiquities to the museum of Azbekiya in 1848. After Mohammed’s Aly death, the monuments were stolen again, and his successors present some of them as gifts which led to the dilution of the museum’s holdings. IN 1858 Mariette was appointed as the first head of Antiquities Authority. Mariette saw that there must be an administration and museum of antiquities, he chose Boulaq region to create a museum of Egyptian antiquities. In 1863, khedive Ismael adopt the construction of a museum project for Egyptian antiquities but was not implemented. In 1878 there was a high rise in the nile flood, causing the flooding of the Boulaq museum and lost of some of its contents. In 1881 the museum reopened and in the same year Mariette died, Maspero take over as director of antiquities and museum. In 1891 when the collection of the Boulaq museum were increased, they were transferred to Saraya Giza. When the scientist (De Morgan) came as head of the Egyptian antiquities authority, he reorganized these collections in the new museum known as the Giza museum. From 1897 to 1899 came (Loret) instead of (De Morgen). But Maspero returned to manage the museum from 1899 till 1914; in 1902 he transferred the antiquities to the current building of the museum in Tahrir square. The museum had a brief guide created by Maspero dating back to 1883, but he made a great guide to the new museum which was printed from 1915 until now with some modifications from time to time. Mr. Mahmoud Hamza was the first Egyptian director to be the director of the Egyptian museum. He was appointed in 1950.

• Contents of the museum:-

The museum is of two main floors, it currently contains 160 thousand pieces archeological of different ages. In the lower floor shows the large stone monuments where a chorological arrangement has been placed, starting from the entrance then to left according to the clockwise direction, we find some of the monuments of the pre-historic, early dynasties and monuments of the old, middle and modern kingdoms. While the upper floor shows statues of idols, the royal mummies and a completed collection of the tomb of Tut Ankh Amoun, Valley of the Kings. The museum has a library of books of antiquities, history, civilizations and ancient religions in different languages.

• The museum’s most important collection:-

• Collection of pottery vessels (prehistoric times).
• Na-Armar portrait (monotheism times).
• Statue of Kha Skhm (Dynasty 2).
• Statue of Zoser (Dynasty 3).
• Statues of Khufu, Kha If ra and Mankawraa (Dynasty 4).
• Statue of the dwarf Snep (Dynasty 6).
• Statues of Hatshepsut & Thutmose III.
• Collection of Tut Ankh Amoun.