The storied treasures of Tutankhamun are gone. In their place are the modest, though still gold and silver, funerary items belonging to an obscure king – Psusennes I – who ruled Egypt some 3,000 years ago.
Also gone are the dozens of tour buses that had for decades brought hordes of foreign tourists to the Egyptian Museum, a Cairo landmark that was for more than a century a must-visit site for foreign visitors and a place etched in the collective memory of many generations of Egyptians.
The Egyptian Museum, in the bustling heart of the capital, has been almost totally eclipsed by the much larger, state of the art Grand Egyptian Museum (Gem) the formal opening of which on November 1 was marked with an extravagant ceremony attended by royals and heads of state.
Thirty years in the making, the new museum near the Giza Pyramids has been all the rage in Egypt since it opened, with thousands of foreign tourists and locals thronging its galleries, where they are captivated by majestic statues and the treasures of Tutankhamun – and pleasantly surprised by the adequacy and cleanliness of amenities, a rarity in Egypt's public spaces.
Gem's first
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