The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square is usually thought to be one of the best places to visit in the city. Artifacts from ancient Egypt have been found and are both many and exciting. Even though it’s hard, you should try seeing more than 155,000 exhibits daily. Also, the Egyptian Museum Cairo is not tiny; the building has more than a hundred different chambers. The Museum of Egyptian antiquity’s design is entirely classical and has nothing to do with ancient Egyptian art or temples, except for the halls inside, which look like the booths you can find in ancient Egyptian temples.

Topic covered includes:

  • How far is Tahrir square from the Egyptian Museum?
  • Historical Background of the Ancient Museum
  • Museum architectural design
  • The Museum collections according to eras
  • The Two floors of the Egyptian Museum

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How far is Tahrir square from the Egyptian Museum?

It is right in the middle of Cairo, the capital city of Egypt, and it is on the northern side of Tahrir Square. Before this one, there were other museums, but the fact that this one is open to the public makes it unique.

The History of Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square

In 1835, Muhammad Ali Pasha issued a decree to start an antiquities department. He did this to stop foreign consuls with offices in Egypt from stealing artifacts and sending them to cities in Europe. Muhammad Ali Pasha was in charge of the department, and Rifaa Al-Tahtawi was in charge of it. The museum was set up because of this order, which was the reason why. He also made a plan for how historical artifacts should be kept safe and put on display. In 1848 A.D., Khedive Abbas I ordered these artifacts to be moved from the Al-Azbekiya area to the Citadel of Saladin. The Citadel of Saladin was supposed to be where the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities began. But all this hard work didn’t pay off, and the project was stopped when Muhammad Ali died. Also, these artifacts shrunk because of the chaos after he died. On the other hand, after he talked about it with the castle’s archaeology club, he gave it to Duke Maximilian of Austria as proof of his good intentions to use it for medicine.

Khedive Saeed chose Mr. Auguste Mariette to be the first president of the Egyptian Antiquities Authority in 1858 A.D. This was done to stop people from taking things. Mariette found the Queen’s jewels in a tomb and devised a way to keep track of all the artifacts found during excavations. Taiba, near Dra’ Abu al-Naga (Ayahhotep). The coffin was one of the most important things because it had a lot of fancy jewelry, decorations, and weapons. It made Khedive Said want to set up an Egyptian artifact museum at Bulaq, so he did. Khedive Ismail gave the order to build it, and in 1863, it opened its doors to visitors.

The water had done so much damage to the museum that it was no longer usable. As a result, the water filled the museum. King Ismail of Egypt ordered that the Bulaq Museum and its collection be moved to one of his palaces in the city of Giza in 1890. In 1890 of the Common Era (also called the Common Era), Khedive Tawfiq called for an international competition to find the best plan for building a museum. The French architect Marcel Dornon won a competition to design Cairo’s brand-new building. The Italians won the competition to build the museum by coming up with the best idea. In 1897, when Khedive Abbas Helmy II was in charge, the museum’s foundation was laid. The structure was not completed until the following year, 1901. The venue’s doors opened to the public on November 15, 1902.

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Museum architectural design

Greco-Roman and French architecture influence the outside of the museum, but most of the collection is made up of artifacts from the Pharaonic period. At least part of this apparent contradiction can be explained by the fact that Egyptian officials at the time liked French architecture, while the inside of the museum kept its pharaonic style. Because both of these things happened at the same time, this explanation has been given. Ancient Egyptian objects and designs were used to decorate the rooms and passageways inside the building. The Egyptian Temple of Edfu was used as a model for these rooms and hallways, right down to the entrance shrine, which looks much like the one in Egypt.

The plan for the museum, built in classical Greco-Roman architecture, was made by a French engineer named Marcel Dornon. The project was chosen from 73 other ideas that were first given to the government. It has murals of the world’s most famous archaeologists made of marble, and on either side of the wooden entrance door are two giant statues of women made of cobblestone but with pharaohs’ heads. The outside of the museum has round arches and is made in a French style.

The hallways inside the building are pretty big, and the walls are quite tall. The windows on the ground floor and the glass ceiling panels let in a lot of natural light. The museum’s artifacts were set up in the central foyer, the highest point of the building, just like in the ancient temples that inspired the museum. The building was built to handle the flow of people from one hall to another if more rooms were added in the future. This was done with the need to keep up with the flow of guests in mind.

The Entrance interface:

Above the entrance is a bust of the goddess Hathor, who is shown here as a woman with two horns. A sun disk is visible between the horns. On either side of the entrance are statues of the goddess Isis dressed in Greek clothing. On the right and left sides of the top are the years 1897 and 1901, which show that Khedive Abbas Helmy II had this stele built in his honor. This stone plaque

The Museum’s Building:

The public can go to the museum at any time, either on the ground floor or the second floor. On the bottom floor, you can find coffins, paintings, and giant statues made of limestone and sandstone. These statues include those of Ramesses II, Senusret, Khafre, the Great Sphinx, Akhenaten, and Hatshepsut.

On the second floor are two rooms for royal mummies and other things from the New Kingdom. The group of mummies that belonged to “Tutankhamun,” also called the “golden king,” is the most well-known. The Central Museum is located on the highest level of the building. It looks like an old temple because it shows valuable things in a way that is similar to how the temples were set up. The building was built to expand if needed, and it already meets all the requirements for making it easy for guests to move from one hall to another.

Museum collections according to eras:

The Egyptian Museum has more than 150,000 pieces on display. Some of the most important is the archaeological collections found in monarchs’ tombs and the middle family’s royal entourage at Dahshur in 1894. The museum has the world’s most extensive collection of artifacts from ancient Egypt, and these artifacts come from all over ancient Egypt. There are a lot of things in the museum’s vast collections, such as:

  1. Prehistoric Group
  2. The era of the establishment (the first and second dynasties)
  3. Old Kingdom of Egypt
  4. Middle Kingdom group
  5. Modern State Group
  6. Late Ages group

The Two Floors of Egyptian Museum Tahrir 

The first floor of the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities:

The exhibit is usually set up in chronological order. If you start at the entrance and move clockwise around the outer galleries, you will see artifacts from the Ancient, Middle, and New Kingdoms. After that, you will reach the Late and Greco-Roman periods in the museum’s east wing. From a historical and a critical point of view, both agree that this is the best way to do things, even though everyone agrees that it is dull.

You can see more if you start your visit in the atrium, which gives you a sense of the whole Pharaonic period, then go to the beautiful Amarna-era hall in the north wing, and then come back to the departments that most interest you or you can go to the second floor to see the Tutankhamen-focused exhibit there.

In the article, the basement is broken into six different zones that can be seen from both sides. The other areas are the atrium, the ancient, middle, and new kingdoms, the hall from the Amarna period, and the east wing. It would help if you started in the Atrium foyer (Room 43), where the story of the many pharaohs’ reigns begins. This is actual, no matter which way you go from here.

The second floor of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo:

The halls that hold Tutankhamun’s treasures are considered an essential part of the display because they are in the most visible spots on the second floor. After seeing these, the rest of the exhibit seems less impressive, except for the mummies and a few masterworks. However, there are more rooms with artifacts that aren’t much less impressive than the ones on display here. You’ll have to go to the museum again on a different day if you want to see them.

Summary

Cairo is a beautiful and exciting city, so it shouldn’t be surprising that it has an old museum like the Egyptian Museum. It is the largest museum in the world that is only about the culture of one people. It was common for museums to be set up in buildings that had once been the homes of European kings and queens. Choose from our Egypt Vacation Packages to make your trip memorable.