World's Largest Archaeological Museum Opens
- Editor OGN Daily
- Nov 3
- 2 min read
Near one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza - Egypt has officially opened what it intends as a cultural highlight of the modern age.
The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), described as the world's largest archaeological museum, is packed with some 100,000 artefacts covering some seven millennia of the country's history from pre-dynastic times to the Greek and Roman eras. The vast $1bn museum, billed as the world’s largest archaeological facility dedicated to a single civilisation, opened on Saturday, after countless delays over the course of its two-decade construction.
The Grand Egyptian Museum covers an area of 470,000 sq. metres (116 acres). The complex was announced in 1992 but it was not until 2005 that construction began, says The Guardian. Some areas of the museum opened in a soft launch in 2024.
More than 50,000 items will be housed in the museum, including an 83-ton, 36-foot, 3,200-year-old colossus of Ramesses II and a 4,500-year-old boat belonging to Khufu, the pharaoh credited with building the pyramids.
However, the main draw of the GEM will be the entire contents of the intact tomb of the boy king Tutankhamun, displayed together for the first time since it was found by British Egyptologist Howard Carter. They include Tutankhamun's spectacular gold mask, throne and chariots.
"I had to think, how can we show him in a different way, because since the discovery of the tomb in 1922, about 1,800 pieces from a total of over 5,500 that were inside the tomb were on display," says Dr Tarek Tawfik, president of the International Association of Egyptologists and former head of the GEM.
"I had the idea of displaying the complete tomb, which means nothing remains in storage, nothing remains in other museums, and you get to have the complete experience, the way Howard Carter had it over a hundred years ago."
BBC News reports that prominent Egyptologists argue that its establishment strengthens their demand for key Egyptian antiquities held in other countries to be returned - including the famed Rosetta Stone displayed at the British Museum.
