World leaders, together with monarchs and heads of state, have attended the inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.
The long-delayed GEM homes greater than 50,000 artifacts that present what life was like in historic Egypt.
The brand new area, which has been twenty years within the making and spans 500,000 sq. metres, contains immersive displays and virtual-reality units, in distinction to cluttered shows within the greater than century-old Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo.
GEM is the world’s largest museum devoted to an historic civilisation, and the $1bn (£760m) megaproject is geared toward boosting the nation’s tourism business and troubled financial system.
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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi with different dignitaries on the occasion. Pic: AP
The inauguration ceremony included fireworks and a drone gentle present depicting historic gods and pyramids within the sky.
Among the many dignitaries on the opening have been Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi, Spain’s King Felipe, Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.
Mr al Sisi urged attendees to “make this museum a platform for dialogue, a destination for knowledge, a forum for humanity, and a beacon for all who love life and believe in the value of humankind”.
Entire assortment of Tutankhamun treasures
GEM is situated close to the Giza Pyramids and Sphinx.
It can show the whole assortment of treasures from the tomb of the famed King Tutankhamun for the primary time since its discovery in 1922.
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Fireworks gentle up the sky above the Grand Egyptian Museum. Pic: AP
Why was the museum delayed?
Development started in 2005 below then president Hosni Mubarak.
It aimed to interchange the Egyptian Museum which had change into packed and disorganised, unable to take care of the quantity of historic antiquities in Egypt.
However work on the brand new museum was interrupted by turmoil surrounding the 2011 Arab Spring rebellion that introduced down Mr Mubarak.
There have been additionally additional delays, and a deliberate grand opening over the summer season needed to be postpone after the 12-day-long warfare between Israel and Iran erupted in June.
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Vacationers go to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza throughout a restricted opening earlier this yr. Pic: AP
Mr al Sisi’s workplace has hailed the museum as “an exceptional event in the history of human culture and civilisation”.
GEM is one in all a number of megaprojects championed by the chief since he took workplace in 2014.
His nation has launched into large investments in infrastructure with the goal of reviving an financial system weakened by many years of stagnation and battered by the unrest that adopted the Arab Spring rebellion.
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Pic: AP
Hundreds of thousands set to go to museum every year
The museum is anticipated to draw 5 million guests yearly.
As compared, Paris’s Louvre introduced in 8.7 million guests in 2024, the British Museum 6.5 million and the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York 5.7 million.
GEM’s 12 important galleries, which opened final yr, exhibit antiquities spanning from prehistoric occasions to the Roman period, organised by period and by themes.
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The golden masks of King Tutankhamun is seen on the older Egyptian Museum in Cairo in 2023. Pic: AP
Two halls that opened for the primary time with the grand opening are devoted to the 5,000 artefacts from the gathering of King Tutankhamun – a boy pharaoh who dominated from 1361-1352 BC.
British archaeologist Howard Carter found King Tut’s tomb in 1922 within the southern metropolis of Luxor.
However the previous Egyptian Museum didn’t have sufficient room to show the entire assortment, elements of which have been usually housed in museums overseas.
The gathering contains the boy pharaoh’s three funeral beds and 6 chariots, his golden throne, his gold-covered sarcophagus and his burial masks, made from gold, quartzite, lapis lazuli and colored glass.
The museum can be open to the general public from Tuesday.
