Winter in Egypt, 2025 - We Visit the Grand Egyptian Museum, Part II

This is the second of two posts describing our visit to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in February, 2025.  In the previous post, I described some of the exhibits, mostly statues and stellae poised on the Grand Staircase which rises about 4 stories above the museum entrance.  There are about 60 large objects found here as the visitor climbs to the entrance to the twelve interconnected "main galleries" as they are named in the museum brochure.  Note that the Tutankhamun Gallery (not yet open - Tut's mask, etc. is still downtown) is not one of the "main galleries" although most visitors to the GEM will likely tell you that the Tut exhibit is the main reason they they come here.

After reaching the top of the Grand Staircase, we began our descent through the newly opened set of twelve galleries laid out in chronological order.  If you don't already have a guide to the collection, here is a chance  to scan a QR code with your phone and pick one up.  Scanning that code will take you here.  The guide lays out three suggested paths through the twelve main galleries: Historical, Themes and "Star Objects."  (We chose "lets just browse.")

  

 

If you have toured the old Cairo Museum (Egyptian Museum) downtown in past years, you may recognize some of the items on display.  There are many new ones, however, and the signage is much improved and the lighting is mostly well done.

Our first stop at this exhibit of statues from the Old Kingdom brings a number of ancient statues together although the unifying theme is not particularly clear.

 

 

I put the Artificial Intelligence robots to one final test here, asking both ChatGPT and Grok to "please identify this statue from the Grand Egyptian Museum."

ChatGPT replied: The exhibit you've inquired about is the painted limestone statue of Raherka and Meresankh, an exceptional example of Old Kingdom portraiture from ancient Egypt.

Grok stated:  This statue is the "Statue of Meryre and His Wife Iniuia" ... It dates to the New Kingdom.

My suggestion is to not take either of these robots along on your next archeological expedition.

I thought it was nice to see this collection of scribe statues brought together in one place and clearly labeled.

This intricate relief left me wondering whether the original colors were vivid or subtle.

 

Good old Ramesses II shows up again.  By this time even the casual viewer can identify his cartouche.

 

The glass used in the display cases and the lighting do not cause as much reflection as I encountered in the old museum.  I was usually able to get decent photos with only occasional irritating reflections.

 

Another stella - this one in granite from Karnak.

 

An interesting assemblage of columns, lintels and the like.

 

 

Another stella with great detail.

 

 We thought this mammoth statue of Queen Hatshepsut was one of the most impressive exhibits in the museum.

 

 An interesting presentation here.  The artist has given us only a clue as to what statue is trying to emerge from the block of stone.

 

A very interesting exhibit is this collection of objects that belonged to Queen Hetepheres, wife of King Sneferu and mother of King Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza.

 

Among Hetepheres collection is this reconstructed box capable of holding twenty ornate bracelets.

 

An empty sarcophagus completes the collection of  Hetepheres objects.

 

A number of items of pottery formed from greywacke were also on display near the Hetepheres collection.  We were unfamiliar with this type of fine sandstone that has been incorporated in sculptures from the time of the Old Kingdom.

 

We concluded the tour by descending the Grand Staircase on the opposite side from where we had climbed to reach the main galleries.

 

As we exited, we noticed that the weather had taken a turn toward Egyptian winter with rain falling as additional tourists approached the entrance to begin their tour.

 

We exited the GEM after a bit more than three hours without having done justice to most of the main galleries.  I would suggest that at least two half-days, and perhaps three would be desirable to see the collection, especially after the King Tut material is moved from the Egyptian Museum downtown.  Three or four hours is a long time to spend in a museum, but this one is worth it.

What is the price of admission?  1200 Egyptian Pounds, about 24 dollars at current exchange rates.

More pictures available at this Flickr Album.

Also see this post from our 2023 visit and this Flickr Album.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter in Egypt, 2025 - We Visit the Grand Egyptian Museum, Part I (and play with Artificial Intelligence)

Good News! The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) will finally have a grand opening on July 3rd, 2025. At least that was the promise as of late February.

We made our second tour of the partially open museum on February 9th while rumors of the grand opening date were just beginning to circulate in Cairo.  Will King Tut's treasures actually be transferred to their new home by then? We shall see.

Meanwhile, as of October, 2024, the GEM is open with its twelve "main galleries" now available to the public versus only the grand staircase that was accessible last year. 

For many years, we have been good friends with our neighbors across the hall at our apartment in Giza.  They have moved out to the eastern suburbs where we visited with them this year.  Their two sons Yusef and Omar are now fully grown and invited us to go along with them on their first visit to GEM. 

We toured the GEM last year when only the main floor lobby and grand staircase were open.  This year a number of the galleries were open, although the King Tut treasures remained at the old Egyptian Museum at Tahrir Square, despite what one might think after reading this article in Egypt Today.

 

We arrived at the huge building just past noon on a sunny February day and paused just inside to get a picture near the pond in front of the well-known statue of Ramses II.

  

 

I didn't bring a camera since last year cameras were not allowed inside.  Of course, cell phones are allowed.  It turns out that cameras were allowed inside this year - (check the rules at the time of your visit!) and so my museum camera, with the low-light f1.8 lens, didn't make it inside.  Photo quality suffered quite a bit as a result. It's a long walk from the parking lot to the ticket counter. 

We had a very nice tour of the facility and were very pleased by what we found.  As I began putting this blog post together, I put the AI robot, ChatGPT, to work on a couple of my pictures and am sharing the results in this post.  

There are three basic approaches to touring the museum.  There is far too much to just browse the whole collection unless you have several days.

• Use a guide (highly recommended for first time visitors - (Try this one)
• Pick up an audio museum guide in the lobby.
• Just wing it.
  

We took the latter approach since we are quite familiar with the history after twenty years of visiting the country and its many museums. 

We began by climbing the Grand Staircase.  A number of galleries are open along the way but we chose to go all the way to the top before moving into the galleries.  There is an escalator along one side since this is quite a long climb.

 

We made a stop at the first statue.  In spite of the signage being quite good in this museum, I somehow missed getting a picture of any label on this statue.  As I began this blog post, I thought this might be a good chance to try out the AI chatbot, ChatGPT, that I have been playing with to identify the statue based on the cartouches at the base.  I uploaded a cropped picture of the base.  Let's see how it did.

 

That's quite good.  The AI bot didn't just tell us "Ramses II".  It provided a little context.

Our next stop was at this statue of Akhenaten, frequently identified as the father of monotheism.

 Museums are notoriously difficult places to photograph. Lighting that provides helpful highlighting for the visitor raises holy hell with exposure and the extreme range of light to dark is challenging, even for an HDR camera which I don't have.  I usually fiddle around with Photoshop to try and get something halfway respectable.

Maybe ChatGPT could do something for us.  I gave it this image along with these instructions:

"Please improve the lighting in this photo of the head of Akhenaton. Also add a cartouche and English translation to the base."

The lighting came out very, very yellowish but I was able to fix that with Photoshop.  Of course, I clumsily misspelled Akhenaten's name and didn't notice it.  So, here's the final result, side by side.  What do you think?  The AI bot eliminated the background figures on its own.

ChatGPT also eliminated most of the serpent on the forehead, added a pharaoh's beard, patched up the bottom of the statue and made a better proportion for the base versus the head.  Perhaps it is a bit too smart for its own good?  Would you still recognize it as Akhenaten?

Reaching another resting point on the climb, we stopped at this delightful stella.  I can never resist photographing a big piece of granite, sandstone or basalt with hieroglyphics on it.

Let's see what ChatGPT can tell us about this cartouche.

Whoa!  That's just plain wrong.  We already know what Ramses II cartouches look like from our previous question.  Well, ChatGPT answers always have that warning at the bottom: "ChatGPT can make mistakes"

That is one of the biggest drawbacks to AI bots at present.  They can hallucinate and seldom seem to ever admit, "I don't know."  Perhaps ChatGPT has learned to always guess "Ramses II" for cartouches - it is frequently correct.

I forwarded the same cartouche picture via Whatsapp to our good friend, Rashid, in Cairo who can read hieroglyphics and he quickly replied with "Senusret", along with a picture.  Real intelligence beats the artificial kind once again.

So, I'll just put ChatGPT aside for now unless we need to enhance some photos.

On the next level, we find the Archeological Study for serious students of Egyptology; I haven't yet checked to see what might be of interest in there.  Also on this level is a dandy stella and the Tut gallery, just waiting for the Tut goods to arrive some day.

  

 

I worry about the placement of the stella.  I can imagine someone carefully studying it from the stairs side, stepping backward and going head over heels down the stairway.  Here is another larger view with some documentation of the stella.  It is an Akhenaten stella very reminiscent of the boundary stella that we saw last year at Amarna near Minya. This one comes from the nearby Cairo suburb of Heliopolis, an area described in this previous post.

 

Just a few more levels to go until we reach the top!  First we pass the Greek-looking god of fertility and the underworld, Serapis, and an excellent pyramid cap recovered from the nearby Saqqara area.

  

 

The reward at the top of the staircase is a spectacular view of the Giza Pyramids.

 

For more pictures see this Flickr Album. 

Cats and Dogs

When we arrived at our Cairo apartment this year we found only a single cat; last year we had two but in 2022 we were feeding up to ten cats. We had to buy food in bulk! I guess the word got out that food was available outside our door. We like to name these so-called street cats. We choose names that describe some characteristic of each cat. In 2022 we had so many cats that we ran out of clever names and so the last one named became just Kitty Kat.

The lone cat this year was Kitty Kat .  Here she is sleeping on her favorite chair where she spent many hours after discovering that we enjoyed her company.

 

She was a bit chubby - we suspected pregnancy. Sure enough, she got bigger and bigger until she delivered three kittens about March 11th.

We suspect that this cat, "Big Tom," has something to do with the situation. He seems to know a secret route into the building even though it's a security building and a key is needed to open the door.

  

 

One night we could see that Kitty Kat was unusually agitated, moving from place to place trying to get comfortable. Just outside our door we set up a maternity ward in the form of a box with a towel. She sensed that this was a good place to rest and immediately took up residence. We went to bed and when we checked in the morning, there they were-mom and three tiny kittens in one mass of fur. 

  

 

The kittens grew surprisingly quickly and their eyes opened;  Kitty-Kat, knowing what a safe place our apartment was,  moved them into our bedroom but we put them back into her box.

  

 

Suddenly, after 15 days they were all gone. I heard mewing sounds in the distance. Kitty Kat had taken the kittens to the very top floor of the building where there is a door to a vacant apartment with an opening of a few inches at the bottom. We saw her, with a kitten in her mouth, slip under the opening and then return for the last kitten. We can only speculate the reason for the move. Perhaps the box was too restrictive or too small for the growing family or ?? Only Kitty Kat knows the reason. Her family, her decision.

 

There are several dogs in the neighborhood too. Like many dogs here, they hang out on the tops of cars. 

  

 

 We offer them some treats when we pass by on the way to the grocery stores.

 

Kitty Kat is quite wary of people but we almost have her fully domesticated. We wish she was as friendly as some of the cute cats we encounter on the street; we will keep trying to build trust.