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Museum Takes Visitors to Ancient Egypt

In Cairo, Egypt, a huge new museum holds statues, coffins, jewelry, and other treasures of ancient Egypt.

A large atrium containing many ancient Egyptian statues and other sculptures

© Sayed Hassan/Getty Images

Although the Grand Egyptian Museum is only partially open, there’s already plenty to see.

Thousands of years ago, kings called pharaohs ruled over ancient Egypt. They built giant palaces, temples, and pyramids. They had statues made to look like them. When a pharaoh died, their body was placed in a sarcophagus (coffin) painted to look like them and buried with jewelry and other priceless gold objects. Egypt has a larger-than-life history, and it’s now being told at the enormous new Grand Egyptian Museum outside Cairo, Egypt.

People walk on a plaza outside of the Grand Egyptian Museum.

© Fadel Dawod/Getty Images

Visitors walk outside the main hall at the Grand Egyptian Museum near Cairo, Egypt.

Only part of the 5-million-square-foot (465,000-square-meter) museum is open so far—and it’s filled with objects the ancient Egyptians left behind. Visitors can climb a six-story grand staircase lined with statues of pharaohs. They can stroll through a big, high-ceilinged space full of monuments, jewelry, more statues, and sarcophagi. Eventually, the museum will display about 100,000 objects!

One of the future exhibits will be all about King Tutankhamun (also called King Tut). Tutankhamun, who died when he was only 18, became famous when his treasure-filled tomb was discovered in the 1920s. The museum will display part of the contents of Tut’s tomb, including the gold, bejeweled mask that was placed over the king’s face when he was buried.

People stand on a large staircase that is lined with large sculptures of ancient Egyptian pharaohs.

© Sayed Hassan/Getty Images

Visitors check out the grand staircase and its many statues at the Grand Egyptian Museum.

Museum officials aren’t sure when the entire building will be open to the public. But Eissa Zidan, a director-general at the museum, promises that it will live up to its “grand” name.

“The museum is not only a place to display antiquities, but it also aims to attract children to learn about ancient Egyptian history,” Zidan told the Associated Press. “The museum is a gift to all the world.”

NEWS BREAK!

Election 2024

The exterior of the White House with flowers and a fountain in the foreground.

© Albert de Bruijn/Shutterstock.com

The results are in: Republican Donald Trump has won the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Trump, who served as president from 2017–2020, will take the oath of office on January 20, 2025.

The Republican Party also won a majority in the Senate (meaning they will hold the majority of seats for at least the next two years). As of press time, many races for the House of Representatives had yet to be decided, so it was still unclear which party would control the House.

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Did You Know?

The Great Pyramid of Giza
© Omar Baghdady/stock.adobe.com

Experts have discovered hidden chambers inside some of Egypt’s ancient pyramids. They are using an instrument called an endoscope to take remote photos of these chambers and find out if there is anything inside!

Use the slider below to see what an endoscope revealed hidden within the Great Pyramid of Giza!

S. Procureur, K. Morishima, M. Kuno, Y. Manabe et al., Nature Communications 14-1144 (2023); Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Making a Mummy

A mummy with a mask on its face lies in front of a decorated sarcophagus.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, Rogers Fund, 1912 (12.182.132c); www.metmuseum.org

A mask has been placed on the face of this mummy, which is nearly 4,000 years old.

The ancient Egyptians preserved the bodies of pharaohs and other high-ranking people. They believed this would allow the spirits of these people to live forever.

Bodies were preserved by undergoing a process called mummification. Here’s how it worked.

  1. Remove the organs. The intestines, lungs, and other organs were removed, and each type of organ was placed in a specifically designed jar.
  2. Cover the body in salt. The body and the cavity where the organs had been were covered in a special salt called natron, which soaked up the moisture. After about 40 days, the body was completely dry.
  3. Wrap the body in bandages. Finally, the body was filled with linen, painted with resins, and wrapped in linen. It was then put in a coffin and placed in a tomb. Tombs were also filled with jewelry, jars, furniture, and other objects that the ancient Egyptians believed the person’s spirit would need in the afterlife.

Life in the Ancient World

Ancient Egyptian art showing everyday life, including a wall painting of a woman bringing food to workers in the fields; a model of a stable; men waiting their turn to have their hair cut; a model of a granary; and a model of a riverboat.

© DEA Picture Library—De Agostini/Getty Images, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (20.3.9, 20.3.11, 20.3.1, 30.4.40) www.metmuseum.org; Photo composite Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

What was it like to live in ancient Egypt? The artwork above, which the ancient Egyptians created, helps answer this question.

You can learn about the ancient Egyptian civilization at Britannica!

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elaborate

Part of speech:

adjective

Definition:

: made or done with great care or with much detail

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