Cairo — Egypt’s authorities will host dozens of overseas leaders and dignitaries on Saturday because it holds an official opening ceremony for the Grand Egyptian Museum, a $1 billion undertaking a long time within the making that was stricken by a number of delays and a ballooning of the price range.
The GEM is without doubt one of the largest museums on this planet, and the biggest devoted to a single civilization: historical Egypt. Its subject material spans some 7,000 years, from prehistory to the top of the Greek and Roman eras round 400 A.D.
The preliminary value for the greater than 5-million-square-foot, triangular-themed construction a few mile from the enduring pyramids of Giza was estimated at $500 million, however the last price ticket was greater than double that. Costing over $1 billion, the undertaking was funded by way of Egyptian assets and worldwide cooperation.
In entrance of the primary entrance stands the imposing 53-foot-high Hanging Obelisk, the one such construction on this planet. The obelisk itself is about 3,500 years previous, nevertheless it sits suspended overhead on a contemporary construction with a glass flooring, so guests can peer up and consider its historical inscriptions from an angle by no means earlier than potential.
LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL/AFP through Getty Pictures 
Past is the Grand Staircase, with 108 steps bringing individuals up the equal of six flooring to the primary galleries, with colossal statues on view the entire means up.
The GEM has 12 major exhibition halls, protecting about 194,000 sq. ft.
The variety of artifacts on show has almost doubled preliminary expectations due to Egypt’s wealth of antiquities, with officers saying about 100,000 objects might be housed within the halls.
To place that in perspective, if a customer have been to spend one minute every artifact on show within the museum, it will take virtually 70 sleepless days to view your complete assortment.
The museum’s triangular structure radiates outward from its entrance towards the three foremost pyramids of Giza, aligning completely with their positions. Its partitions and sloping ceilings comply with the identical traces, rising towards the pyramids’ highest factors, however not exceeding the peak of the traditional buildings, out of respect for his or her builders.
Mohamed Elshahed/Anadolu through Getty Pictures 
The museum’s inside affords gorgeous panoramic views of the pyramids. The idea might sound easy, nevertheless it required a major reshaping of the native topography, together with the excavation and elimination of some 79 million cubic ft of sand, which took staff seven months.
King Ramses II was there first
Within the entrance courtyard of the GEM, stands an enormous, 3,200-year-old statue of King Ramses II. The statue was moved in 2006 from a busy sq. in central Cairo to a website close to the Nice Pyramids, the place it stood awaiting the brand new landmark museum’s development.
Mohamed Elshahed/Anadolu through Getty Pictures 
The 83-ton statue’s journey took 10 hours, processing slowly by way of the streets of Egypt underneath heavy safety as individuals watched on TV.
Later Ramses was moved to a brand new everlasting residence, about 400 yards away, and the museum was constructed round it.
King Tut’s full assortment
The GEM’s foremost attraction, it may very well be argued, is the whole assortment of the well-known King Tutankhamun, the golden boy.
All 5,398 objects from the tomb of the thirteenth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of historical Egypt, who dominated from round 1333 to 1323 B.C., might be displayed collectively in a single place for the primary time since they have been found by Howard Carter in 1922.
The brand new showroom is six occasions the dimensions of the one which beforehand housed a lot of the Tut assortment, on the previous Egyptian Museum in central Cairo.
King Khufu’s Boats
The GEM additionally boasts the King Khufu’s Boats Museum, exhibiting the 4,500-year-old the boats that have been designed for use within the journey to the afterlife.
The 2 royal boats have been found in 1954 close to the Pyramid of Khufu. It took specialists greater than 10 years to reassemble the primary boat. It’s now absolutely reconstructed and was moved to the museum in 2021. Guests of the museum may view the conservation work underway on the second.
Mohamed Abd El Ghany / REUTERS 
Students consider they have been both utilized in Khufu’s funeral procession or they have been meant for his journey with the solar god Re within the afterlife.
The lengthy street to the Grand Egyptian Museum
The thought for a grand museum on this website in Egypt dates again greater than 32 years. The federal government first allotted 117 acres for the undertaking on the location in 1992.
On the very starting of 2002, Egypt launched an enormous worldwide architectural competitors to discover a successful design for the museum. A complete of two,227 architects from 103 nations utilized to submit designs, and by August of that yr, 1,550 from 83 nations had submitted conceptual drawings.
A pair months later officers had whittled the choices all the way down to solely 20 designs to place ahead for a second stage. In July 2003, the prize – and the huge contract – was awarded to the Irish architectural agency Heneghan Peng.
AP Picture/Amr Nabil 
The plan was initially for the museum to open in 2010, however a collection of occasions together with monetary crises, political uprisings, the COVID-19 pandemic and regional wars delayed the curtain elevating.
A authorities spokesperson stated the opening ceremony would draw an unprecedented variety of world leaders, with as many as 40 heads of state, together with royalty, anticipated to attend, together with numerous different senior officers from world wide, although no names have been confirmed.
Egyptian officers hope the brand new museum will increase the nation’s tourism trade, and with it, the still-struggling financial system. They’ve predicted that the GEM will appeal to some 5 million guests per yr.
