Traveling to Egypt, a rich country with many museums, in fact there are more than 34 museums all over Egypt. The Egyptian Museum is a National Museum which have collections from a specific period, or part of the Ancient Egyptian history, called the symbol of faith for the Egyptians. This is where you will come across the most extensive treasures of the ancient Egypt including all types of art as well as artifact .
It houses the world’s largest collection of Pharaonic antiquities, and many treasures of King Tutankhamen.The actual name for the museum is called The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities and it is located in Cairo, Egypt. In 1834 Mohamed Ali decreed an administration for the antiquities. He also ordered constituting the first museum in Al-Azbaquia. In 1858, because the original building was getting to be too small to hold all of the artifacts Mariette was in charge of the Egyptian Antiquities Institution and he built a museum in Bulaq, which opened in1860.
The new building was to be constructed on the bank of the Nile River. In 1878, after the museum was completed for some time, it suffered some irreversible damage; a flood of the Nile River caused the antiquities to be transferred from Bulaq to the Palace of Giza (Saray El-Giza) In 1891.
In 1902 the present museum was built. It has about 120,000 objects on display, and several hundred thousand are still in the vaults.
The Egyptian museum comprises many sections arranged in chronological order:
The first section:
Houses Tutankhamon’s treasures of the most famous pharaoh ,a traveling tourist treasure ( one of the major highlight ) was found remarkably intact by Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings in 1923.
The second section :
Houses the pre-dynasty and the monuments that are from the Old Kingdom .
Third Section:
Houses the monuments belonging to the first intermediate as well as the Middle Kingdom monuments.
The Forth section:
Houses the Modern Kingdom’s monuments.
The Fifth Section:
Houses the monuments of the late period and Roman and Greek times. Coins and papyrus exhibition adorns.
The Sixth Section, and the Seventh Section:
Houses the scrabs as well as sarcophagi of the pharaohs.
Guidebooks are available at the museum, although they are limited to some of the major items.
The museum has over 120,000 items so you need to be selective about what you want to see. , a word of advice – don’t try to see everything. If you do, you will not remember anything!
The Battle in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on 25/1/2011 had an effect on the safty of the musem :
The Egyptian Museum overlooking Tahrir Square in Cairo’s city center was vandalized Friday night by nine convicts, who broke artifacts and attempted to steal two Pharaonic mummies, and tossed relics onto the ground in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.
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