Winter in Egypt, 2025 - We Visit the Egyptian Museum, Cairo - Updated 6/15 and 6/17

We try to visit the Egyptian Museum on the edge of Tahrir Square once each winter during our stay in Cairo.  One of the worlds great Archeological Museums since its construction in 1904, it will likely remain a major drawing card for any visitor even after the official opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in July.

This year, I had a specific goal in mind for our visit:  During our cruise on Lake Nasser, two weeks earlier, I had learned that the oldest surviving manuscript of Latin poetry was discovered at Qasr Ibrim, the now-submerged island we drifted past early on the cruise.  More importantly, the manuscript could be found in the Egyptian Museum.  Like the Blues Brothers, we were on a mission from God!  Or at least on a mission in memory of Mother Brendan, my Sophomore year Latin teacher in 1961.

Mother Brendan had little tolerance for slackers like me; but she also had a great love of the Roman culture that went with the Latin language and regularly lectured us on that aspect of history (she also taught world history).  In spite of my lack of application to the subject, she pounded aqueducts, arches, mosaics, Volubulis, Punic wars and Hannibal into my head to the point where I am always seeking out the Roman ruins in any country where Caesar and his compatriots left them.

Would we be able to find this scrap of poetry on a shard of papyrus somewhere in the Egyptian Museum with over 120,000 artifacts - many of them stashed in the basement storerooms?

Our ace in the hole on this trip through the museum, as usual, was our friend and professional Egyptian guide, Rashid.  As we entered the museum, Rashid headed to the office of one of his friends to check on whether my scrap of poetry was still on exhibit.  

 

While Rashid was researching our poetry sample, we began a brief walking tour of the museum to check on a few of our favorite exhibits.  We stopped first at the Narmer Palette - an item many visitors are anxious to see if they ever took a course in Art History,  owing to its origins around 3000 B.C.

(Please note that clicking on any of the following photos will take you to our Flickr album with higher resolution images and additional pictures.)

 

Next, we stopped at the sarcophagus of Djedhor, another well known example of early Egyptian art, history and culture.

 

 

I was admiring the collection of Aphrodite sculptures when Rashid caught up to us.

  

Museum staff didn't have a specific location identified for our Roman poetry fragment, but did suggest that we look in two papyrus galleries on the second floor.

We passed another two of our favorites statues as we headed to the stairway to the upper level.

  

 

The best way to photograph much of the papyrus room display is from the opposite side balcony with a telephoto lens.  I couldn't resist capturing a couple of more pictures to add to our Egypt collection.

 

 

 

 

We moved slowly through the Papyrus galleries, looking carefully at the contents of the sloped display cases.  Suddenly, there it was!

 

For the benefit of other Latin poetry aficionados, it's located in Gallery 29.  Here is the view of the gallery entrance as seen from in front of Gallus' work.  Mother Brendan must have been looking down on me from heaven, providing guidance.  Here's a link to some background on Gallus and a translation of our fragment provided by Roman Times online magazine.

 

While we were on the upper level of the museum, we paused to stand in line with many others to visit the Tutankhamun exhibit - yes, it is still located in the old museum.  The line is slow moving but worth the wait; but no photos inside!  Another very significant room to visit, and not nearly as crowded is the Tanis Collection.  See our visit to Tanis post here, and tour the Tanis Collection at our blog post here.

    

 

We headed back downstairs to take a look at one of our favorite galleries documenting the Amarna Period and pharaoh Akhenaten, frequently acknowledged as the father of monotheism.  

  

 

We had several posts from the Armana area last year, beginning here. 

As we were moving toward the exit of the museum, we encountered an entirely new exhibit: The Reconstructed Tomb of Hesy-Ra.  With exhibit space opening up as many artifacts move to the Grand Egyptian Museum the old Egyptian Museum is finally receiving some maintenance and upgrades.  Signage and lighting is improving, particularly on the second level to this point.  Some artifacts are apparently coming out of storage and/or being re-presented.  

The Tomb of Hesy-Ra is a particularly improved and reconstructed example.  This tomb was discovered near Saqqara in 1861by the early French archeologist, Auguste Mariette.  Containing a number of carved wooden panels of Lebanese cedar, five of these treasures were moved to Cairo (the Museum of Bulaq was the primary home of Egypt prior to the opening of the Egyptian Museum in 1904) in 1868 and the tomb was covered over and abandoned until around 1910.  

  

The condition of these restored wooden panels is quite remarkable.

  

 

 

After exiting the museum, we walked across the plaza in front of the Ritz-Carlton toward the infamous Mogamma government center, undergoing remodeling for at least the past five years with plans to turn it into a first class tourist hotel.  But this year, banners on the building proudly proclaim that it will become a Mariott Autograph Collection Hotel.  This is part of a very ambitious plan to renovate much of downtown Cairo as government agencies move to the new capital about thirty miles to the east. 

UPDATE! 

 This article from 6/14 in the Pakistani Tribune reports that

"Only 26 objects from the Tutankhamun collection, including the golden mask and two coffins, remain here in Tahrir," said museum director Ali Abdel Halim.

"All are set to be moved soon," he told AFP, without confirming a specific date for the transfer or plan of relocation.

Well, it's tough to pin down anything to a specific date in Cairo, although the article still reports a July 3 target date.

In other news, regarding the old museum on Tahrir Square, the article concludes:

The museum's director said the space left behind will eventually be filled by a new exhibition "on par with the significance of Tut's treasures".

 

UPDATED AGAIN!

No sooner had I posted the update above, than news came that the opening has been delayed, once again.  This article in The Art Newspaper reports the latest change:

The long-awaited, official opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum on 3 July has been postponed yet again. On Saturday, the Egyptian prime minister, Mostafa Madbouly, announced that the museum’s full launch will take place in the last quarter of this year, due to the outbreak of war between Israel and Iran.

 

 

 

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.