Past glories and present problems: Grand Egyptian Museum sparks national pride as well as debate

The Grand Egyptian Museum opened its doors to the public this week after a grand official opening that stirred patriotic pride and drew praise for the government for completing a project decades in the making.

As crowds thronged the new museum on Tuesday and Wednesday, the atmosphere was strikingly international. The marble great hall echoed with the overlapping sounds of different languages as groups from around the world moved through the vast new complex – some guided by tour leaders, others walking confidently with open leaflets in hand.

The visitors, who numbered around 18,000 on the first day, came in every manner of attire: women in full niqabs walking alongside Western bare‑shouldered tourists, tattooed travellers brushing past Coptic priests in flowing black robes and large crosses that caught the light.

People walk in front of a statue of King Ramses II at the entrance of the Grand Egyptian Museum on Tuesday, the first day it was opened to the public. Reuters

Some posed for photographs on the Grand Staircase dotted with pieces from across Egypt’s history, while content creators wielded hand-held cameras as they moved slowly towards the museum’s centrepiece, the King Tut gallery.

Bathed in dim golden light, the gallery is striking, with the young king’s possessions displayed in dozens of glass cases, each individually lit.

The pieces are arranged under five sections: discovery, identity, funeral, lifestyle and rebirth.

The 5,600 artefacts in the collection, many of them made of gold, were previously housed at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square and had never been displayed together since their discovery in 1922.

Jewellery of ancient Egyptian king Tutankhamun on display at the museum. Reuters

“I took my students to visit Tut’s collection when it was at the museum in Tahrir multiple times but I feel as though I am seeing it for the first time now,” Mona Amin, a history teacher from Egypt’s Gharbia province, told The National.

“The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir is a respectable place, but it was too small to exhibit such an important collection of artefacts.