Cairo’s $1.1 billion Grand Egyptian Museum will allow visitors to stroll through five thousand years of history and 50,000 artefacts, including those of Egypt’s famous king Tutankhamun

Young modern Egyptians are eager to protect and share their heritage; it will become the new landmark for Egypt, says Tarek S Tawfik, director-general of the upcoming $1.1 billion Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Cairo. The museum has been gaining expertise in the science of restoration and conservation, and is now primed to share its knowledge with other museums and countries, including India. The museum will be one of the largest in the world. Excerpts from an interview.

When are you planning to inaugurate the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM)?

There was a plan to have a partial opening at the end of 2018. However, a decision was recently taken to have a complete opening of the whole museum in 2020. The government is studying the most suitable time so that it does not clash with any other big occasion, such as the Summer Olympics 2020. We hope to announce a launch date in the first quarter of 2019.

What message does GEM send out to the world?

We have the Pyramids of Giza that were built by our ancestors thousands of years ago, and now we have GEM, which is a project of ‘pharaonic magnitude’ being built by modern Egyptians. It will be Egypt’s newest landmark. The museum is spread over 490,000 square metres. The building itself has an area of 168,000 square metres, with a total exhibition area of 63,050 square metres. GEM will house 100,000 artefacts, out of which 50,000 will be on permanent display and the rest will be stored for scientific research. The museum will also allow us for the first time to display all the artefacts recovered from King Tutankhamun’s tomb. Since the discovery of the tomb in 1922, only about 1,800 of nearly 5,000 pieces recovered have been put on display. The rest were in storage. We have collected most of these items and are in the process of conserving them. There are around 700 pieces still on display at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square. These will be shifted to GEM. One of the last pieces to be moved will be the golden mask of King Tutankhamun. His whole lifestyle will be on display, from his wardrobe, tunics, and sandals to his daily-life jewellery. Most of the jewellery currently on display was used for religious or ceremonial events. We will also have on display the kind of food he ate.

What is the one item from the King Tutankhamun collection that you are most excited about?

King Tutankhamun was eight to nine years old when he came to power. He died around 10 years later. The fascinating thing is that we found artefacts in his tomb that show the life of a growing child. One thing that excites me most is that we will be showing these different stages. We have different sizes of his shoes as he grew bigger. We also have his chairs from when he was a little boy all the way till he grew up and got a gold throne. It is the only gold throne from ancient Egypt that has been discovered so far. The throne and the royal insignia of the king will have a very special place in GEM.

Tarek S Tawfik

Will modern technology enhance visitor experience?

The artefacts must remain the stars. Technology will be used for enhancing visitor experience, but the pieces themselves are so expressive that we do not want to divert attention from them. Technology will play a bigger role in our archaeological galleries, where we will use digital means to make the relations between pieces more comprehensible.

How does GEM tell the story of Egyptian Civilisation?

This is the beautiful thing about the architecture of the museum. It will have 15 chronological galleries that will be interconnected. So when you enter the gallery of prehistory of ancient Egypt, you will also be able to spot the gallery for the Greco-Roman era — the tail-end of the ancient Egyptian civilisation. This will give visitors the feeling of the length and depth of the ancient civilisation. Visitors will be able to stroll through 5,000 years of history and witness the development of beliefs, social life and arts.

What are the other infrastructures?

The whole area around the museum is benefiting from this project. The streets have been broadened. A metro station is being prepared near the entrance. There is an airport coming up for chartered flights. Modernisation of facilities at the Giza plateau is part of the project. The museum and the Pyramids of Giza are just two kilometres apart. The vision is to make the Plateau a new cultural hub for Egypt.

Can you tell us a bit about the design of the GEM building?

The building is shaped like a chamfered triangle. It sits on a site two kilometres west of the Pyramids of Giza. The building starts from a single point and radiates towards the pyramids. Its north and south walls line up directly with the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Menkaure. The ceiling posed an architectural challenge, as great spaces had to be covered without any support. For greater stability, the ceiling was designed to have a zig-zag form, which symbolically represents the hieroglyph for water.

How is the funding working out? And how do you plan to get a return on it?

The museum is now estimated to cost about $1.1 billion. We have received two loans totalling $750 million from Japan. The Egyptian government is putting in the rest. The return on investment for such a project is not just monetary; it is also a cultural return and the positioning of Egypt on the global stage.

Can you tell us a bit about GEM’s Conservation Centre?

We have 17 specialised labs and we are now the leading conservation centre in West Asia, North Africa and Gulf region. We are starting to have our first cooperation with Europe in Italy. Over the past eight years, transportation, conservation and restoration works have been going on in order to prepare the artefacts for display at GEM. Over 40,000 artefacts have already been readied for display. Around 50,000 artefacts will remain in our modern storage facilities and will be available to researchers. GEM aims to become the global centre of Egyptology and become an international education, training, and research institute for conservation, museology, archaeology, and tangible cultural heritage.

What is the plan for the Egyptian Museum once GEM opens?

The Egyptian Museum this year is celebrating its 116th anniversary. The building itself is a registered historical monument. The museum was one of the finest of its time, but times have changed and so have the demands of what a museum should offer. The Egyptian Museum has been criticised for being more of a storeroom than a museum. We are now relieving some pressure by removing tens of thousands of pieces. Many beautiful collections will emerge out of the shadow of the King Tutankhamun collection. For instance, King Psusennes I of the 21st dynasty had a golden mask very similar to that of King Tutankhamun (18th dynasty). It will finally have a chance to grab the limelight. The museum will not lose any of its attraction. The old museum will also offer night tours.

Is the Rosetta Stone returning to Egypt from Britain?

I was asked this in London by a British reporter. Of course, as a senior Egyptian official in the Ministry of Antiquities, my answer was that it would be great to have the Rosetta Stone back in Egypt. But there was no official request for it to be returned.