The famous Cairo Museum, built in the neoclassical style, is located, which is based on exhibits collected by its first director, a Frenchman by nationality, Auguste Mariette. It was he who opened this treasury in 1858, and at first it was located in a completely different building, and already in 1902 the current one was built.
The Cairo Museum, which has numerous exhibits, occupies one hundred halls. Approximately one hundred thousand rarities located in chronological order, exhibited in it. Visitors find themselves in the history of one of the most ancient civilizations on earth, spanning more than three thousand years.
At the very entrance they are greeted by huge sculptures of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and Tiya, his wife, who, contrary to tradition, has the same size as the statue of her husband.
The Cairo National Museum is considered the largest repository of ancient Egyptian art. His pearl is the one on display on the second floor. It was found in 1922 in the famous Valley of the Kings, located near Luxor. This find is considered an archaeological masterpiece, a sensation of the 20th century, because the tomb of this pharaoh is the only tomb that was not looted and appeared before people in its original form.
The transportation of the treasures of the tomb to the Cairo Museum lasted about five years, there were so many of them: the total number of all items was more than three and a half thousand, including jewelry, household utensils and jewelry.
In several halls in which the treasures of the tomb are displayed, there are four wooden gilded arks, in which in ancient times the stone sarcophagus of Pharaoh Tutankhamun was kept, and is now located in the Valley of the Kings. The Cairo Museum exhibits three sarcophagi, one of which, made of pure cast gold, weighs 110 kilograms. There, visitors can see the young ruler, which, made of the same precious metal, accurately reproduces the face of Tutankhamun.
Another priceless treasure that the Cairo Museum exhibits is the gilded throne, decorated with a scattering of precious stones, on which this pharaoh once sat. There are snakes on the armrests, and lion heads on the sides of the seat. On the back of this throne is a figure of Tutankhamun himself and his beloved wife. In the same collection, half-decayed sandals and a shirt are on display - what the young pharaoh was wearing.
More recently, the Egyptian, or Cairo, Museum opened a hall containing the mummies of other kings. Thanks to a specially created microclimate, you can see Ramesses II, Seti I, Thutmose II here - a total of 11 pharaohs.
The most “expensive” section of the museum are works of art that have come down to us from the so-called Amarna time, when Egypt was ruled by the “heretic pharaoh” Amenhotep IV, the father of Tutankhamun. It was he who renounced many of the gods of his ancestors and officially introduced the cult of Aten in the country. Thanks to his aesthetic requirements, a new, previously unprecedented artistic movement, which, in contrast to the restrained ancient Egyptian canonical art, is very similar to a kind of expressionism.
In general, the basis of the Cairo Museum is the “Antiquities Service” organized by the Egyptian government, which in every possible way prevented the chaos that reigned in the place. However, the Cairo Museum owes its real birth to its first director, the Egyptologist Mariette, who came to Cairo from the Louvre to acquire papyri. In love with this country, Auguste Mariette stayed here, devoting his life to creating a museum that would collect all the treasures found on ancient land.
His ashes rest there, in the courtyard of the museum.
In the very center of Cairo, in Tahrir Square, there is one of the largest repositories of historical artifacts - the Cairo Museum. The museum's collection is housed in more than one hundred halls, in which over one hundred thousand archaeological finds are exhibited. No museum in the world can boast of such a high concentration of exhibits.
History of the museum's creation
The foundation of the world's richest collection of Egyptian antiquities was laid by the French scientist Auguste Mariette, founder and first director of the Cairo Museum. Having become interested in Egyptology under the influence of his friend and relative, the famous Champollion, Mariette went to work at the Louvre Museum, and in 1850 he was sent to Egypt to search for ancient manuscripts.
Instead of searching the library archives, the young Egyptologist enthusiastically began excavating the Memphis necropolis at Saqqara, as well as in other places. The scientist sent his findings to the Louvre. He has the honor of opening the Avenue of the Sphinxes and the Serapeum, the necropolis of the sacred Apis bulls.
Returning to France, Mariette continued to work at the Louvre, but already in 1858, the ruler of Egypt, Said Pasha, invited him to head the Egyptian Antiquities Service. Arriving in Egypt, Mariette waged an energetic fight against the theft of ancient artifacts, not forgetting about archaeological research. Under his leadership, the Great Sphinx was finally cleared of centuries-old sand deposits. In 1859, in the Cairo suburb of Bulaq, at the request of a scientist, a special building for archaeological finds was built. This was the beginning of the Cairo Museum collection.
In 1878, during a flood, the museum building was partially flooded and many exhibits were damaged. After this, it was decided to build a new large building in a safer place, and the collection was transported for storage to the palace of the ruler of Egypt, Ismail Pasha.
For his services to Egyptology, Mariette was elected a member of a number of European academies, and the Egyptian authorities awarded him the title of pasha. Auguste Mariet died in 1881. The scientist’s ashes, according to his will, rest in a sarcophagus in the courtyard of the Cairo Museum.
The current building was built in 1900, and two years later the museum received its first visitors.
Since then, the museum's collection has been continuously expanded. However, there were dark moments in his story. During the Arab Spring in 2011, during a popular demonstration, looters destroyed several storefronts and stole at least 18 exhibits. The robbery was stopped by other demonstrators, after which the military took the museum under their protection.
Museum exposition
It would take several years to see all the exhibits in the Cairo Museum. Even experts from time to time find in its storerooms something completely new for themselves. Therefore, we will focus on the most interesting of the artifacts stored here.
The museum's exhibits are arranged chronologically and thematically. At the entrance, the visitor is greeted by impressive statues of Amenhotep III and his wife Tiye. The image of the queen is not inferior in size to the sculpture of the pharaoh, which contradicts Egyptian tradition.
The ground floor houses statues of all sizes, dating from the Predynastic era to the Roman conquest. Here are the fragments Great Sphinx– parts of a false beard and uraeus, images of a cobra from the pharaoh’s crown.
Of particular interest are the sculptural images of the pharaohs of the ancient era - a statue of the builder of the first pyramid, Djoser, the only surviving image of Cheops - an ivory figurine, as well as a magnificent example of ancient Egyptian art - a diorite statue of Pharaoh Khafre. The 10-meter statue of Ramses II made of pink granite stands out for its majesty.
To the era Ancient kingdom includes burial goods from the tomb of Queen Hetepheres, mother of Cheops. The tomb, discovered in 1925, turned out to be untouched. The finds made there, including the queen's palanquin, her bed, precious boxes and jewelry, give an idea of the luxury that surrounded the pharaoh's family.
An unforgettable impression will be made by visiting the “hall of mummies”, where the visitor finds himself face to face with the rulers of Egypt, including the legendary Seti I, Ramses II, Thutmose III, Amenhotep II, conquerors and builders who left behind majestic architectural monuments. The hall maintains a special microclimate that promotes the preservation of mummies.
Of great value are artifacts from the reign of the reformer Pharaoh Akhenaten, who tried to replace the traditional religion of the Egyptians with the cult of the single solar god Aten. In just a few years, Akhenaten built new capital, Akhetaten, which was abandoned after the death of the pharaoh, and his name was cursed by the priests. All memory of him was destroyed, but in the ruins of Akhetaten many works of art from the era of Akhenaten were preserved.
Pharaoh was a reformer not only in the sphere of religion. The frozen canons of art were violated during his reign; sculptural and pictorial images of people and animals are distinguished by expressiveness, naturalness, and lack of idealization. It was a real revolution in art. This period dates back to famous image Queen Nefertiti.
Tutankhamun's tomb
The real gem of the museum is the collection of objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun, the only royal tomb that remains intact. In total, more than 3,500 objects were discovered in the tomb, half of which are exhibited in the halls of the museum.
The tomb contained everything that a pharaoh might need in the afterlife - furniture, dishes, jewelry, writing instruments, even the royal chariot. A masterpiece of furniture art is a gilded throne carved from wood, strewn with precious stones. Also on display here are a statue of Tutankhamun, depicted standing on the back of a panther, his hunting weapon, even the shirt and sandals in which he was buried.
The museum displays four wooden sarcophagi. Inside them, nested inside each other, was the last one, golden, containing the mummy of the pharaoh. Small golden sarcophagi intended for the entrails of the deceased are also on display here.
The main treasure of the exhibition, and perhaps the entire museum, is the gold death mask pharaoh, decorated with azure. The mask is perfectly preserved and perfectly conveys the facial features of the ancient ruler. Tutankhamun's mask is a unique business card Cairo Museum and one of the symbols of Egypt.
A few hours of traveling through time past the display cases of the Cairo Museum will leave indelible memories. Even after a cursory acquaintance with the incredibly rich collection, it becomes clear why the Cairo Museum is often called the main attraction of Egypt.
The history of Egypt goes back so far that many artifacts have been hidden by the sands of time and their discovery continues to this day. The emergence of the Cairo Egyptian Museum, which tells about the millennia of development of ancient Egyptian civilization, was inevitable. Today, the Cairo Egyptian Museum is the world's largest museum of Egyptian antiquities, with a collection of more than 160 thousand exhibits covering 5,000 years of Egyptian history.
Museum of Egyptian Civilization - history of creation
Numerous local “black diggers” barbarously plundered famous tombs for centuries. In the 19th century, they were joined by treasure hunters and outright adventurers who rushed to Egypt from all over Europe. The artifacts they exported created a stir in Europe for objects of ancient Egyptian culture. This contributed to the organization of numerous scientific archaeological expeditions, which led to the discovery of a large number of previously unknown tombs and burials. Many of the treasures found were transported to Europe, where they replenished both the collections of museums and the interiors of palaces. However, most of the discovered artifacts still remained with the Egyptian government.
Auguste Mariet (seated left) and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (seated right) with the Sphinx in Giza in the background, 1871 
Sphinx at the Great Pyramids of Giza. Beginning of excavations at the base of the Sphinx 1900s
First collection - Azbakeya Museum
One of the reasons for the creation of the Egyptian Museum was an observation made by the French Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion. During one of his visits to the country, he discovered the monument described 30 years ago in a ruined state. The viceroy of the state, Muhammad Ali, heeded the Frenchman’s warnings and initiated the collection of unique exhibits by creating the “Egyptian Antiquities Service”, which was supposed to put an end to the looting in the area. archaeological excavations and save priceless finds.
In 1835, the Egyptian government built the predecessor of the Cairo Museum, the Azbakeyya Museum, located in the Azbakeyya Gardens area, the main attraction of which is St. Mark's Coptic Cathedral Orthodox Church. Later museum exhibits moved to the famous Saladin Fortress.
However, the first Cairo Museum did not last long - in 1855, Archduke Maximilian I of Austria received as a gift from Abbas Pasha all the exhibits exhibited at that time. Since then they have been kept in the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum. This was reflected in the unpreparedness of Egyptian society to create this kind of institution; the museum was perceived as a government treasury, from which jewelry could be taken at any time for gifts and payment by the state for services provided to it.
New collection - Bulak Museum
In 1858, on the territory of a former warehouse in the harbor of Bulak (now one of the districts of Cairo), Francois Auguste Ferdinand Mariet, a famous Egyptologist who carried out a considerable number of excavations, created a new Department of Antiquities of the Egyptian government and laid the foundation for a new museum collection. The building of the Egyptian Museum was located on the very banks of the Nile, and already in 1878 it became clear that this was a big mistake. During the flood, the river overflowed its banks, causing serious damage to the already large congregation.
Fortunately, at that time the significance of the exhibits was already assessed very soberly - they were promptly transported to the former Royal Palace in Giza, where the historical treasures were stored until they moved to the new building of the Cairo Museum.
Construction of the new building of the Cairo Egyptian Museum began in 1900 and already in 1902 the ancient treasures appeared new house- a two-story building in the center of the capital, on Tahrir Square, in which the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities is located to this day. Initially, it was planned to house about 12 thousand exhibits in the museum building, but today 107 halls display 160 thousand exhibits from the prehistoric and Roman periods, most of the collection represents the era of the pharaohs.
The Egyptian Museum experienced its next trials relatively recently - in 2011, when the unstable political situation in the country resulted in a real revolution, during which cultural institutions also suffered. The building of the Cairo Egyptian Museum was left unguarded and was broken into, two mummies stored there were destroyed, and several artifacts were damaged. Concerned residents of Cairo organized a human chain to protect the museum from looters, and later the army joined them. But about 50 exhibits were stolen, about half of them have not yet been found. Among the damaged objects in the Cairo Museum are a statue of Tutankhamun made of cedar wood covered with gold, a statue of King Amenhotep IV, several ushabti figurines, figurines from the era of the kings of Nubia, and a child mummy, which were restored by 2013.
Cairo Egyptian Museum - sphinx at the entrance Exposition of the Cairo Egyptian Museum
Exhibits of the Cairo Museum can be seen even as you approach the building: in the garden, very close, busts of the world's great Egyptologists are displayed. Here, guests of the Egyptian Museum are greeted by the famous Auguste Mariette, the founder and first director of the museum. Among his achievements was the discovery of the Temple of the Sphinx. Around the Marietta Monument, 23 more statues are installed in honor of other explorers who left their mark on the study. Ancient Egypt. Among them is a bust of the famous Russian Egyptologist V. S. Golenishchev, installed in 2006.
The part of the Egyptian Museum accessible to tourists is divided into two floors: on the first floor, exhibits are presented in chronological order, while objects on the second floor are grouped by burial or category. Tourist portal website
Cairo Egyptian Museum - Sphinx of Hatshepsut 
Cairo Egyptian Museum - collection of papyri Cairo Museum - Ground Floor Collection
On the ground floor you can get acquainted with extensive collections of papyri and coins that were in circulation in ancient world. Most papyri are presented in the form of small fragments, due to the fact that over several thousand years they have undergone decomposition. At the same time, in the Cairo Museum you can see not only papyri with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs - documents in Greek, Latin, Arabic. Coins also refer to different times and states. Among them are silver, copper and gold artifacts from Egypt, as well as countries that traded with it or occupied the territory ancient state in different eras.
In addition, on the ground floor of the Cairo Museum, exhibits of the so-called New Kingdom are collected. This period, in which the civilization of Ancient Egypt reached its peak, occurred in the period 1550 - 1069 BC. These artifacts are typically larger than items created in ancient centuries. For example, here you can see the statue of Pharaoh Horus, which was made in a rather unusual way - the statue is located at an angle, symbolizing posthumous wanderings.
Other original exhibits include a slate statue of Thutmose III and a statue of the goddess Hathor, depicted as a cow emerging from a thicket of papyrus. An unusual granite statue of the god Honeu, whose face is believed to have been copied from the young Tutankhamun. In the Cairo Egyptian National Museum you can see a large number of sphinxes (yes, the one is far from the only one) - the lion-headed Hatshepsut and representatives of her family are widely represented in one of the halls. Tourist portal website
Cairo Egyptian Museum - figurines 
Cairo Egyptian Museum - mummies Second floor collection
On the second floor of the Cairo Museum there are many unusual things on display - the Book of the Dead, Satirical papyrus, many mummies, and even chariots. But the most interesting is the collection of items related to Tutankhamun’s funeral utensils.
The set of funerary objects of the young pharaoh (he died at the age of 19) includes more than 1,700 exhibits, exhibited in more than ten halls. It is interesting that this pharaoh ruled for only nine years, his pyramid was far from the largest... But after getting acquainted with the objects that the young ruler took with him on his afterlife journey, all the other exhibits on the second floor of the Cairo national museum seem dull and insignificant.
Sarcophagi, golden arks, jewelry, golden statues of Tutankhamun depicting a young man hunting, a gilded throne and even a set for playing senet - these and many other objects will require a visitor to the Egyptian Museum more than one hour of time. Separately, it is worth mentioning the hall where it is presented golden mask Tutankhamun, consisting of 11 kilograms of pure gold. Tourist portal website
Cairo Egyptian Museum - Tutankhamun mask 
Exhibition of exhibits from the Cairo Museum in Germany The storage facilities of the Cairo Museum are regularly replenished - and this, oddly enough, is one of the main problems. The fact is that the main building is already too “saturated”. In order not to store precious objects where they are unlikely to ever be touched by a visitor, Egypt is trying to develop provincial museums by transferring to them part of the exhibits of the Cairo Egyptian National Museum. In addition, items from here can be regularly seen at exhibitions in different countries peace.
But the main expected event of the near future for the Egyptian museum community will be the opening of a new one - the Grand Egyptian Museum, which has been under construction since 2013, 2 kilometers from the Pyramids on the Giza Plateau. The new museum will be located in a huge complex with a total area of 92,000 m2, together with shopping center, most of the structure will be underground. It is planned to place an observation deck on the roof of the building with a view of the Great Pyramids. Inside there will be a statue of Ramses II (whose age is 3 thousand 200 years), 11 meters high and weighing 83 tons. The museum will house more than 100 thousand exhibits. The main exhibition is planned to be dedicated to Tutankhamun. Construction of the museum is estimated at $500 million. Egyptian authorities expect that 15 thousand people will visit the museum every day. Tourist portal website
Opening hours and cost of visiting:
Opening hours:
Open daily from 9:00 to 19:00.
From 9:00 to 17:00 hours during Ramadan
Price:
General admission:
Egyptians: 4 LE
Foreign guests: 60 LE
Hall of Royal Mummies:
Egyptians: 10 LE
Foreign guests: 100 LE
Centennial Gallery:
Egyptians: 2 LE
Foreign guests: 10 LE
The audio guide is available in English, French and Arabic and is available at the kiosk in the lobby (20 LE).
How to get there:
Address: Tahrir Square, Meret Basha, Ismailia, Qasr an Nile, Cairo Governorate 11516
By metro: Sadat station, follow the signs: Egyptian Museum, exit the metro and walk straight along the street.
By car or taxi: ask for "al-met-haf al-masri"
By bus: ask "abdel minem-ryad"