At the heart of modern Cairo, on the famous Tahrir Square, stands the Egyptian Museum, housed in an ochre-coloured building in a neo-classical style inspired by Greco-Roman architecture. Designed by French architect Marcel Dourgnon and opened in 1902, this iconic museum holds one of the richest collections of Egyptian antiquities in the world.
Across two floors and over a hundred rooms, visitors can admire masterpieces spanning more than 5,000 years of history, from the earliest dynasties to the Greco-Roman era. Statues, sarcophagi, jewellery, stelae, mummies and everyday objects vividly trace the extraordinary refinement of pharaonic civilisation.
The history of these collections dates back to the 19th century. Initially displayed at the Boulaq Museum between 1863 and 1889, then transferred to the Giza Palace until 1902, they found their permanent home in the present-day Tahrir Museum.
Since 2024, a new era has begun with the partial opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), located near the Giza pyramids. This modern museum, conceived on a monumental scale, already welcomes some visitors and temporary exhibitions. However, the official inauguration has been postponed once again (initially planned for July 2025), and the famous treasures of Tutankhamun have not yet been transferred there. In the meantime, the historic museum in downtown Cairo continues to showcase the heritage of ancient Egypt at the heart of the city.
