Egyptian Museums

Apr 11

Egyptian Museum in Cairo

The Egyptian Museum had a lot to offer and was my first museum in Cairo. Seeing artifacts that I had only seen in books and pictures online was amazing. The museum was a spacious facility and each piece had plenty of space to view them.

You have to go thru security to get in but they were friendly and so was all the staff inside. I had a great experience here and would recommend a visit to a friend.

The Mummy Returns

The Egyptians believed that the mummified body was the home for this soul or spirit. If the body was destroyed, the spirit might be lost. The preservation was done so well that today, thousands of years later, we can still see what they looked liked. The deserts were so dry that they help preserve the body from bacteria and decay. The mummies still retained their hair and skin, and somewhat resemble their former self.

Drawings and Writings

Ancient Egypt was one of the greatest civilizations in the history of the world. They left behind the pyramids and sphinx obviously but the other treasures including art and writings are just as significant. This helps us understand what they were thinking and what was important at the time. People tried to understand these items for a long time but the language disappeared sometime in the 300’s AD. That was until some guys found a shiny stone with scribbles on it……….

The Rosetta Stone is a stele of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in 196 BC in Egypt by King Ptolemy V. What is the background and why is this significant?

France invaded Egypt during the time of Napoleon. In 1799 they arrived in the town of Rosetta and found the stone along with other treasures. The British came in 2 years later and took out the French and took procession of the stone and shipped it to England. The stone itself didn’t state anything significant and it had big chunks broken off. However the top and middle texts are in hieroglyphic and the bottom is in Ancient Greek. The world finally had the code to understand Egyptian Hieroglyphics and a few years later in 1822, they were able to do do just that.

Treasures of the Pharoah’s

There was an American tour of King Tut’s treasures in the late 1970’s (before I was born) and it went across 6 cities showcasing the art and jewels. My father went and bought me a book which he gave to me as a kid, the first book I ever owned. That’s what sparked my passion for Egypt. I had to travel a little farther than Chicago to see these items myself. Sidenote- King Tuts mask and all the high value items are kept in a dark room at (NMEC), I tried to take pictures and they threatened to arrest me.

National Museum of Egyptian Civilization- (NMEC)

In 2021 Cairo put on a massive show to celebrate the opening of the NMEC. They paraded 22 mummies, including 18 kings and four queens it was called the “Pharaohs Golden Parade”. https://youtu.be/LF41A6vVpow

The museum was built in the ancient city of Fustat and with over 5 million feet of space, the museum is massive.

It displays a collection of 50,000 artifacts, presenting the Egyptian civilization from prehistoric times to the present day.