The Egyptian Museum is located in Tahrir square. It had been designated by “marcel dourgnon,” who won the national competition for making the best design for the museum; dourganon has chosen the neoclassical style.
The museum’s building works started in the year 1879 and finished in 1901. Then the museum was opened on the 15th of November 1902.
The museum consists of two floors, and it contains more than 120000 objects that date back to the various periods from ancient Egypt more than three thousand years ago.
According to the chronological path of ancient Egypt, the first floor arranges the monuments; pre-dynastic period, archaic period, old kingdom, middle kingdom, new kingdom, late period, and Greco-Roman period.
The second floor displays the monuments according to their kinds like caskets, coffins, and jewelry. Besides there, some halls show the collection of king tut ankh amon beside Yuya and tuya. There is a hall for the mummies of the kings. ( recently transferred to new civilization museum )
The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir square is not the first museum constructed in Egypt to store and exhibit different monuments. It was just the last step and coronation before steps, and places were chosen and built to store and display Egypt’s monuments.
Firstly after founding the “antiquities service of Egypt “in the year 1835 to protect the Egyptian monuments from being stolen – it suffered from being plundered by the local and foreign robbers- the monuments were collected to be stored in a small building at El-Azbakeya garden.
And later on, the collection was transformed into another museum which was called the bulak museum.
After a bit of time, the same place now existed. The Egyptian Museum was a military zone for the British soldiers. After negotiation between British authority and the Egyptian government, there was a deal to construct this place close to the river Nile, the main museum of Egypt.
It is the first building in all Egypt from cement, was built by Egyptian workers according to auguste marriet’s idea, and marcel dourgnon design, during the reign of khedive Abbas Helmy the second.
The museum is built on 15000 square meters, with a prestigious facade. On the facade’s left, the museum’s Bibliotheque contains more than 60000 books and
research about Egyptology and archeology.
On the facade’s right is another entrance that leads to the administration of the museum and security.
The middle of the face is the museum’s main gate, which was perfectly designed to summarize Egypt’s history with the following signs.
- There is a dom that refers to the Islamic period in Egypt on the top of the entrance.
- There is a past statue of maternity’s goddess, “Hathor,” which refers to the ancient Egyptian civilization.
- On the right and the left, there is a depiction of goddess Isis in Greco-Roman clothes, which refers to the mixture between ancient Egyptian and Greco roman cult during the rule of Ptolemy’s family.
- Under the two figures of isis, the entrance is decorated by two ionic columns.
the Garden
before the museum there is a big garden was constructed for relaxing after visiting the items and exhibitions of the museum enjoying the great view of the river Nile, it is highly important to mention that, during building the museum, both pyramids in Giza plateau and alabaster mosque in Cairo were seen from downtown.
The cenotaph
To the extreme left side of the garden, a large marble cenotaph is made for August Mariette as gratitude for his services in discovering and preserving the Egyptian monuments.
Auguste Mariette was born in 1821; he was a French architect who came to Egypt to collect some Coptic manuscripts for the French government.
By his arrival, he became interested in Egyptology, so he changed his career to egyptology.
After many essential excavations made by him, as his discovery of serapeum in saqarra, he was nominated as the director of the archaeological department.
Under his directory, he founded the Egyptian national museum in boulaq.
In 1881 he died and was buried in a tomb located at the museum’s back according to his will.
Now he is buried in a magnificent marble tomb. Around his grave, there are bust statuses for many Egyptologists and archeologists who did lots of accomplishments and achievements, like Maspero and Ahmed pasha kamal, etc.
the fountain
In the garden center, there is a fountain in which two sorts of plants: the papyrus plant and the lotus flower.
The papyrus plant.
- Symbol of lower Egypt.
- It had been used for various purposes like :
1- manufacturing papers
2- The stem was used as food.
3-making ropes.
The lotus flower
- It was the symbol of upper Egypt.
- There were two kinds of lotuses, the blue and the white.
- The blue lotus was used as food and making perfume.
- The blue lotus was regarded as a symbol of resurrection because it opens its buds when the sun shines and closes them upon its setting in the evening.
Other monuments in the gardens
The garden has other examples of various objects, such as
- The sphinx :
It is a greek word which had been derived from ancient Egypt “the living image.”
- The obelisks :
Some obelisks date back to the new kingdom. The word obelisk is a Greek word, while in ancient Egypt, it was called “tekhen “, the Arab world,” masala” means needle.
The obelisk had been erected for the first time during the reigns of the kings of the fifth dynasty. the obelisks were dedicated to the sun god ra
In addition to various statues for kings from ancient Egypt.