The Grand Egyptian Museum: A New Chapter in Archaeological Excellence
Walking Through History’s Greatest Museum
At last, after decades of anticipation, the Grand Egyptian Museum stands ready to revolutionise our understanding of ancient Egypt. This architectural masterpiece, commanding views of the Giza plateau, spans nearly half a million square metres – a space larger than the Louvre – making it the largest archaeological museum complex in the world. Within its monumental halls, over 100,000 artefacts await discovery, including the complete Tutankhamun collection, unified for the first time in history.
The museum’s vast exhibition spaces encompass 50,000 square metres of galleries, featuring a breathtaking 40-metre-high entrance hall graced by an exceptional statue of Ramesses II. The Grand Staircase alone – a masterwork of architectural design – displays over 80 colossal pieces, creating a chronological journey through ancient Egyptian history. The Tutankhamun galleries, occupying some 7,000 square metres, showcase the young pharaoh’s treasures in unprecedented detail.
Andante’s Egypt – New Museums and Discoveries tour focuses on the much-anticipated opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, the Imhotep Museum at Saqqara and the Graeco Roman Museum in Alexandria.
Saqqara
The sprawling necropolis of Saqqara is one of the most archaeologically important sites in Egypt. Here were buried some of the most important officials of Memphis and it was also the place of Egypt’s first pyramid. Here we will see the Tombs of Maya and Horemheb and the recently opened Old Kingdom Tomb of Mehu, subject of the excellent 2020 documentary ‘The Secrets of Saqqara’. In the afternoon we shall explore the Imhotep Museum which has re-opened after 2 years of renovation. Our day at Saqqara completes with the Tomb of Maia who was wet-nurse to Tutankhamun and the Tomb of Nemtymes both re-opened to the public in the last decade.
Cairo
The National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation in Cairo opened in 2017 and is the first of its kind to display the richness and diversity of Egyptian civilisation throughout the ages, from prehistoric times to the present day. The museum’s exceptional collection includes the royal mummies, which are exhibited in a new interactive display using 21st century cutting-edge technology to go beneath the wrappings and reveal their secrets, in addition to shedding light on the rituals and religious beliefs surrounding mummification in ancient Egypt.
Alexandria
The fabulous Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria re-opened its doors to the public in 2023 after 18 years of renovation work. Dedicated to the Greek and Roman eras of Egypt, exhibiting artefacts from Alexander the Great’s occupation, the subsequent Ptolemaic Dynasty, and the period of Roman rule to province up to the Muslim conquest. Among the thousands of artefacts on display are several discovered during underwater excavations in the sunken cities of Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus as well as in the ancient Portus Magnus of Alexandria. In the afternoon we visit the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Here we will see superb mosaics recovered from the royal palace of the Ptolemies and the excellent Manuscripts Museum. There is so much more to see here than most people realise.
Abu Sir
In Abu Sir we explore the ancient Tapaposiris where the Ptolemaic temple and a funerary monument modelled on the Pharos were built on a ridge between lake Mareotis and the Mediterranean. Recently there has been much speculation that it may contain Cleopatra’s tomb which as yet, remains undiscovered.
Giza
The Great Egyptian Museum sits on the edge of the Giza plateau with the pyramids within view. A huge undertaking which started over 20 years ago, the Museum boasts over 750,000 sqm in floor size, 12 exhibition halls and thousands on thousands of artefacts. At 45m long, the cedarwood Solar Boat of King Khufu once housed in a cramped exhibition hall at Giza now fits easily within the vast space of the GEM and two exhibition halls are entirely devoted to Egypt’s most famous pharaoh, Tutankhamun alone. For the first time, almost all of the 5,000 objects discovered in his tomb will be on display. Costing nearly a billion dollars in its creation, this is the biggest Museum in the world.
Expert-led
Join us in Egypt with your expert Guide Lecturer, Lucia Gahlin. Lucia Gahlin is a specialist in the archaeology of Ancient Egypt and has been leading archaeological tours to Egypt for over 25 years. Her most recent academic position was Honorary Research Fellow at University College London’s Institute of Archaeology, where she continues to work closely with one of the world’s most important collections of Egyptian antiquities, the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. She has worked extensively on the material dating to Akhenaten’s reign in the Petrie Museum and at the archaeological site of Tell el-Amarna, the remains of the pharaoh Akhenaten’s capital city in Middle Egypt, where she has been the Small Finds Registrar. She has been Chair of the Friends of the Petrie Museum, a Trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society, and Director of Bloomsbury Summer School. She has taught Egyptology for the Universities of London (Birkbeck College and UCL), Reading, Surrey, Sussex, Exeter, Warwick and Bristol. Her areas of special interest are Ancient Egypt’s social history, the Amarna Period, settlement archaeology, and the rituals and beliefs of daily life. Her publications include Egypt: Gods, Myths and Religion.
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