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Beneath Cairo’s vast sky, where the Nile cuts through the desert and the air carries both heat and dust, visitors often sense something that goes beyond monuments. It is a feeling of belonging, formed by geography as much as by history. Cairo, with its flame trees and layered scents, feels less like a purely Arab capital than a Mediterranean and North African city, one continuously reinterpreting itself.
When I visited the Grand Egyptian Museum in May, months before its official opening, Tutankhamun’s treasures had not yet been moved. Even then, the scale of the building, the Grand Staircase, and the light pouring across colossal statues conveyed one clear impression: Grandeur.
For Egypt, the museum’s opening is more than a cultural milestone. It reflects a wider reawakening, an attempt to reclaim historical space and meaning. The opening of the new museum, and the growing cultural awareness within Egyptian society, suggest that the country is seeking its future through the depth and splendour of its own roots.
The opening ceremony on November 1 brought together political leaders, royals and cultural figures from across the region. Seventy-nine official delegations attended, thirty-nine of them led by kings, princes or heads of state. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi opened the museum, calling it “A new chapter for Egypt” and describing it as “A platform for dialogue, a destination for knowledge, a forum for humanity.”
The night mixed ancient imagery with modern spectacle. In the shadow of the pyramids, drones traced hieroglyphs across the sky as orchestras and Egyptian singers performed music written by Hesham Nazih and conducted by Nayer Nagui. The performance filled the desert air with sound and light, turning the museum’s façade into a stage for Egypt’s history.
For many Egyptians, it was also a moment of pride. Sponsored by TikTok, the event quickly hyped across social media, with thousands of clips shared on TikTok and Instagram. The online reaction mirrored the atmosphere on the ground, a mix of national pride, curiosity, and a sense that Egypt was reintroducing itself to the world.
The Grand Egyptian Museum is, in many ways, a reflection of Egypt’s own journey over the past two decades. Its long construction mirrors the country’s years of upheaval and recovery, a project that paused with revolutions, resumed with reforms, and now stands as a symbol of stability and ambition.
The idea for a new national museum was announced in 1992, when Egypt sought a modern space to showcase its heritage beyond the crowded downtown museum. The Giza Plateau was chosen for its proximity to the pyramids and its distance from the city. The foundation stone was laid in 2002 as part of the “Giza 2030” plan.
In 2003, Dublin-based Heneghan Peng Architects won the design competition. Construction began in 2005, halted during the 2011 revolution, resumed in 2014, and after years of delay finally reached completion in 2025.
Occupying fifty hectares of desert, the building stands only two kilometres from the Great Pyramid. Its geometry mirrors the pyramids’ alignment: the walls point toward Khufu and Menkaure, and the sloping roof echoes their angles. The materials, sand-coloured concrete, alabaster, and frosted glass, give the façade a soft luminosity that changes with the desert light. Inside, visitors enter a vast atrium dominated by a colossal statue of Ramses II and ascend the Grand Staircase lined with figures of pharaohs and deities. The design speaks of permanence and scale, but also of a nation intent on re-establishing its connection with history.
Inside the Grand Egyptian Museum, more than 100,000 antiquities trace the arc of Egypt’s history from the prehistoric period to the Greco-Roman era. The galleries are arranged by both time and theme, exploring the evolution of belief, kingship and daily life.
Among the centrepieces are the colossal 3,200-year-old statue of Ramses II that greets visitors in the atrium, the reconstructed 4,500-year-old solar boat of Pharaoh Khufu, and monumental sculptures of Nefertiti, Amenhotep III and Senusret I. The Grand Staircase displays dozens of royal figures and deities, leading toward the exhibition halls whose tall windows frame direct views of the pyramids.
The most anticipated space inside the museum is the Tutankhamun Gallery, where more than 5,000 objects from the boy king’s tomb are displayed together for the first time since their discovery in 1922. The 7,500-square-metre hall presents the treasures as a story of Tutankhamun’s short life and reign rather than a simple exhibition of objects.
The most anticipated space inside the museum is the Tutankhamun Gallery, where more than 5,000 objects from the boy king’s tomb are displayed together for the first time since their discovery in 1922. The 7,500-square-metre hall presents the treasures as a story of Tutankhamun’s short life and reign rather than a simple exhibition of objects.
In Egypt, the impact of the Grand Egyptian Museum is being measured not only in cultural terms but also through its political and economic reach. According to Egyptian journalist Salha Allam, the museum’s opening represents “a multidimensional gain” for the country, economic, developmental, touristic, and cultural.
Allam notes that the project has created thousands of permanent jobs across tourism, administration, and security, while indirectly generating many more in logistics, crafts, and local industries: “The museum has already become a cornerstone of international travel itineraries, especially for visitors from Europe, Asia, and the Gulf.”
Official projections, she adds, expect Egypt to attract more than 20 million tourists by 2029, generating around $19 billion in revenue. The area surrounding the museum, once a neglected edge of Giza, has been transformed through new infrastructure and services, turning it into a focal point of government investment.
“Beyond the economy,” Allam says, “The museum also carries political and cultural weight. It strengthens Egypt’s visibility abroad and renews its position on the global tourism map. The presence of dozens of kings, presidents, and ministers at the opening was more than protocol, it was a long-term political message about Egypt’s soft power and cultural leadership.”
In the end, the Grand Egyptian Museum feels less like an ending than a beginning. It mirrors Egypt’s search for direction, a country looking to its past as a guide. From the stone of the pyramids to the glass of the new museum, the line is renewed.
What stands here is more than a building. It reflects an idea taking shape: That a nation’s strength lies in how it understands its own story. It embodies a country carrying its heritage into the future, one that, despite economic challenges, finds unity in a shared history. In many ways, the museum captures how Egypt is learning to look ahead through the lens of its history, writing its own narrative from a deep sense of continuity.
Photos: Atelier Brückner and Grand Egyptian Museum
