Egyptian Museum
My family and I welcomed in the New Year at the Steigenberger Hotel El Tahrir:
The Egyptian Museum was only a short walk from the hotel, though getting across a traffic-clogged street bereft of crosswalks was a bit of a challenge:
Until it's replaced by the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza (supposedly) later this year, the Egyptian Museum remains the most important collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts in the world. Opened in 1902, it seems as if the museum hasn't changed much since then - there are no interactive touchscreen displays, for example, just objects displayed in glass cases, often with typed display cards. To walk inside the Egyptian Museum is like taking a step back in time in more ways than one:
Upon entering we made our upstairs to the Tutankhamun Galleries to see some of the treasures of the young pharaoh, whose untouched tomb was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922. While photography is permitted in most parts of the museum, it's forbidden in the room displaying the boy king's death mask:
Other items, fortunately, can be photographed, such as the gilded wooden shrines:
There are so many items in the museum that it's difficult to take it all in (not to mention the details all down):
Statue of King Tutankhamun:
Graeco-Roman mummy portraits, placed over the faces of the embalmed dead:
Animal mummies:
The Royal Mummies Halls require a separate admission ticket, and photography is also not allowed in this section. Lying in individual glass cases in two separate rooms, the mummies are a reminder that these were human beings, and small ones at that. Among the preserved rulers are Ramses II...:
and Queen Tiye, with her long, flowing hair:
After the Tutankhanum Galleries and the Royal Mummies Halls, the Old Kingdom Room on the first floor is probably of greatest interest. The black statue of Khafre:
Seated Scribe, made of limestone:
The only surviving representation of Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, stands a tiny 8 centimeters (3.1 inches) tall:
Seneb, a high-ranking court official, his wife Senetites and their two children. The kids were placed in front of Seneb to cover their father's short legs (he was a dwarf):
The panel of Meidum geese was covered in plastic due to painting going on in the room:
The statues of Rahotep and Nofret, in remarkable condition for being 4600 years old:
The colossal statues of Amenhotep II and Queen Tiye:
The last room we visited before leaving the museum was the Amarna Room, featuring artworks commissioned by Akhenaten for the capital he had constructed at Tell Al Amarna:
The most impressive piece is the unfinished head of Nefertiti:
One could easily spend the whole day inside the Egyptian Museum, though you would have to be seriously interested in Egyptology to do so. A full morning was sufficient for us. We returned to our hotel for lunch, where I looked through the pair of books I picked up in the museum gift shop:
After lunch, we were driven to the airport for our domestic flight to Luxor, though our departure would be delayed by over an hour:
We arrived in Luxor, checked into our hotel and had a late dinner in the first-floor restaurant:
Much of what we had seen on the first day of 2020 in the Egyptian Museum would come to life (sort of) during the next couple of days in Luxor...
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