The Museum of Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, a substantial collection of ancient antiquities are housed there. Your visit to Egypt won’t be complete without a trip through its galleries.
It was established in the 19th century by the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette to house the world’s most valuable collection of its kind. In 1891 The objects were transferred to the palace of Ismail Pasha in Giza before being moved in 1902 to the current building at Tahrir Square, which is the first purpose-built museum structure in the world.
The museum contains over 120,000 items, including the contents of the famous monarch Tutankhamen “until it will be moved to the new museum” and most of the mummies that have been unearthed since the 19th century. The museum’s contents span from the Predynastic through the Greco-Roman period.
The building is divided into two floors. The first floor would take the visitors on a chronological tour through the collections. This tour would provide them with a very good background for most of Egypt’s ancient history.
The second floor was organized thematically according to tomb or category including the exhibit of the contents of Tutankhamun’s tomb, including his famous funerary mask.
The Museum houses the magnificent Royal Mummies room where you can see the mummies of some of Egypt’s most famous pharaohs of the New Kingdom. It is also houses a small but fine collection of Fayoum portraits from Hellenistic and Roman times.
