World Famous Egyptian Museum

The famous Egyptian Museum opened in 1863 and was the first national museum in Egypt.  The museum has over 120,000 antiquities on display and it is believed there are another 140,000 in storage. 

The museum was interesting.  Upon entering the grounds we had to go through security and hand over our phones, cameras, weapons, and bags.  This meant I had to leave my camera and bag with them.  There was no way I was giving up my phone, which is my lifeline. 

After going through security we entered the garden in front of the museum.  There were several tour guide historians that approached us and asked if we wanted to hire them to be our tour guide.  Half our group hired a guide and the other half went through the museum on their own. 

I was glad we hired a tour guide. He guided us through the museum and showed us the highlights of Egyptian history.  There was also a sprinkling of Roman history in the museum.  The opportunity to see over 120,000 ancient artifacts is a little overwhelming.  We didn’t have that much time so we saw the most important displays.

The boy king Tutankhamun had a whole gallery. The collection was amazing with nearly 2,000 items.  The most impressive items were the life sized solid gold death mask and the two coffins on display.  They were buried with several coffins.  The first coffin we saw was wood, decorated with gems.  The second was cast with solid gold.  The attention to detail was very impressive.  In King Tuts gallery we also saw his throne and two life sized statues of him that were in his tomb.  It was interesting and surreal to see ancient artifacts that you had seen on TV and read about in books your whole life.  To see them in person was an unreal experience. 

The other highlight of the museum tour for me was the room dedicated to ancient Egyptian jewelry.  There were necklaces, earrings, face masks and other jewelry displayed.  Most pieces were made of gold and lapis.  Some of the pieces were so large all I could think is these Egyptians must have had huge neck muscles.

We skipped the Royal Mummy Rooms.  When we arrived there was a large line and an extra fee to enter the Royal Mummy Rooms part of the gallery.  We decided it wasn’t worth the time or money to stand in line.  The Mummy Rooms are filled with 22 mummies that lie in chronological order.  There are two rooms and out of respect for the deceased the rooms are always silent.  We only had a few hours to see the museum and I think we saw a pretty good amount of the collection.  If I were to go again I would set aside more time in the museum and hire a guide for several hours to show me around.  The museum felt like a warehouse and the collection of items was densely packed into the museum.  The museum also lacks a good label system so sometimes it was hard to know what you were looking at, or why it was so significant. The tour guide was worth the money to help guide you through the museum and make sure you saw the highlights. 

Egyptian Arab Spring Reflection

Protest in Tahrir Square-2011

The Arab Spring and protests erupted in Egypt in January 2011 which was a few weeks after I returned from my trip. The protests took stage in Tahrir Square, a few blocks from the hotel I stayed at in Cairo.  During the unrest several people broke into the museum.  They were trying to loot the museum which houses the world’s largest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts.  According to news reports 9 men broke into the museum and damaged about 100 artifacts.  They also decapitated two mummies that were approximately 3,300 years old.  When the men were caught they were found with the skulls and a statue of Isis. 

This tragic loss of Egyptian history would have been worse had it not been for a few brave people that knew the history needed to be protected.  Several Cairo citizens stood together and pleaded with people not to loot the museum.  They built a human chain around the museum and stood guard until the military was able to put the museum under military guard. After this incident the museum was protected.  A lot of artifacts were damaged and other warehouses that housed ancient Egyptian artifacts were also looted. The event will mark a moment in history where the world lost some of its greatest ancient treasurers.