Past glories and present problems: Grand Egyptian Museum sparks national pride as well as debate

Egypt’s new cultural landmark has become a source of national pride and a mirror of the country’s economic strain

The Grand Egyptian Museum opened its doors to the public this week after a grand official opening that stirred patriotic pride and drew praise for the government for completing a project decades in the making.

As crowds thronged the new museum on Tuesday and Wednesday, the atmosphere was strikingly international. The marble great hall echoed with the overlapping sounds of different languages as groups from around the world moved through the vast new complex – some guided by tour leaders, others walking confidently with open leaflets in hand.

The visitors, who numbered around 18,000 on the first day, came in every manner of attire: women in full niqabs walking alongside western bare‑shouldered tourists, tattooed travellers brushing past Coptic priests in flowing black robes and large crosses that caught the light.

People walk in front of a statue of King Ramses II at the entrance of the Grand Egyptian Museum on Tuesday, the first day it was opened to the public. Reuters

Some posed for photographs on the Grand Staircase dotted with pieces from across Egypt’s history, while content creators wielded hand-held cameras as they moved slowly towards the museum’s centrepiece, the King Tut gallery.

Bathed in dim golden light, the gallery is striking, with the young king’s possessions displayed in dozens of glass cases, each individually lit.

The pieces are arranged under five sections: discovery, identity, funeral, lifestyle and rebirth.

The 5,600 artefacts in the collection, many of them made of gold, were previously housed at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square and had never been displayed together since their discovery in 1922.

Jewellery of ancient Egyptian king Tutankhamun on display at the museum. Reuters

“I took my students to visit Tut’s collection when it was at the museum in Tahrir multiple times, but I feel as though I am seeing it for the first time now,” Mona Amin, a history teacher from Egypt’s Gharbia province, told The National.

“The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir is a respectable place, but it was too small to exhibit such an important collection of artefacts. This hall allows you to really see each piece and appreciate it.”

Placed high on a pedestal in the middle of the gallery, above the heads of even the tallest visitors, was King Tut’s famed funerary mask.

Dozens of visitors crowded around the display case, raising their mobile phones to film or photograph. In the dim light, their phone flashes pulsed brighter than any other glow in the hall as they moved this way and that for a better view or a selfie.

Visitors clamoured to film and take selfies with the funerary mask of King Tutankhamun. AP Photo

Another of the museum’s highlights, which opened to the public view for the first time on Tuesday, was the Khufu Boat Museum, housing the gargantuan ship that the Old Kingdom pharaoh believed would carry him through the afterlife.

The ship, discovered disassembled in 1954 near the Great Pyramid, is one of two; another was identified the same year but not fully excavated until 2021.

Measuring about 43 metres in length, the first ship, currently on display at the museum, is suspended in mid‑air along one side of the vast hall.

A circular network of staircases leads visitors upwards so that they begin by looking up at the hull and end up looking down on its deck from the third level.

On the other side of the hall, a metal scaffolding has been erected on which the second ship will be pieced together and restored, in full view of visitors – one of the museum’s more outside-the-box exhibition ideas.

People take pictures of the solar boat of King Khufu, during the second day for visitors after the official opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Egypt. AP

While many visitors were drawn by the cultural significance of the new exhibitions, others came in the afterglow of the lavish ceremony that launched the museum on Saturday. Broadcast on screens across Cairo’s main squares, the event captured the nation’s imagination.

Though some criticised it as being excessive at a time of economic hardship, others defended it as “a moment of national unity” and “proof that regardless of whether it is poor or not, Egypt still holds an important place on the global stage”, as two users of X wrote on the social media platform.

In the week since the museum's inauguration, a wave of national pride has swept Egyptian social media. Social media users praised the grandeur of the event and tens of thousands celebrated the moment with AI‑generated selfies that transformed them into pharaohs.

Many visitors to the museum paused to take photographs beside the partly disassembled black‑and‑gold stage where the opening ceremony was held.

“The ceremony just looked expensive and regal, and seeing all these important people really inspired me. I wore my best clothes and I think I took about five thousand photos today,” said Sara Ahmed, a visitor from the lower‑income district of Hadayek Al Ahram, speaking to The National outside the museum on Tuesday.

“We really needed a celebration like this, after two years of genocide in Gaza and everyone’s lives getting more expensive. These moments are important – something sweet that we can use to break the bitterness of life. And more tourism will mean there’s more money coming in, which I hope will benefit everyone.”

Visitors walk among statues displayed on the Grand Staircase of the museum. EPA

The enthusiasm was not universal. Some Egyptians felt that the ceremony’s cost was hard to justify given the pressure on household budgets following the government's lifting of fuel subsidies less than two weeks earlier. The move – the second this year – raised prices by around 12 per cent.

“To me, this museum is just one more elite venue that people like me won’t be able to afford and won’t be welcome at, like the beaches of the North Coast or the new restaurants on the Nile,” said Malek Hussein, 51, an Uber driver who made six trips to the museum on Tuesday morning.

“Even if the opening made people happy and they are praising it, that will fade in a couple of weeks and they will realise that fuel is still expensive and life isn’t any less difficult for most Egyptians.”

Another concern widely discussed on social media has been ticket pricing for Egyptians.

Visitors pass through an entrance to the Grand Egyptian Museum. Bloomberg

At 200 Egyptian pounds ($4.20) for an adult, much lower than the 1,450 pounds charged for foreigners, the entry fee is still beyond the reach of millions of Egyptians whose incomes have not kept pace with inflation.

“For my family of five, a visit to the museum would cost me 800 pounds just to enter, not counting food purchases, which will also be very expensive,” Mr Hussein said.

The museum’s debut has also revived demands on social media for the repatriation of Egyptian antiquities taken abroad during earlier periods of political turmoil.

Prominent Egyptologist Zahi Hawass has used the museum's opening to renew his petition for the return of the bust of Nefertiti from Germany and the Rosetta Stone from Britain.

Together, the celebrations and debates surrounding the Grand Egyptian Museum mark a defining moment for modern Egypt – a project long promised, finally realised, and now serving as both a monument to national pride and a mirror of the country’s economic and social divides.