The Great Egyptian Museum displays treasures of the pharaohs at the pyramids.

Cairo. It is an event of pharaonic proportions: Kings, heads of state and international celebrities traveled to the official opening of the Great Egyptian Museum at the Pyramids with its priceless treasures of the pharaohs.

With the GEM, as the museum is commonly known, the most important artifacts of ancient Egypt have found a magnificent new home. The monumental building in Giza, in the greater Cairo area, houses more than 100,000 pieces from Pharaonic, Greek, and Roman antiquity in twelve exhibition halls – according to its operators, the largest archaeological museum in the world. Or, as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi put it, the “greatest museum in the history of mankind.”

The museum is intended to be a "platform for dialogue, a haven of knowledge, and a meeting place for humanity," says al-Sisi. Its opening marks the end of years of waiting, plagued by repeated delays. The museum was announced in the 1990s, and construction didn't even begin for 20 years. Time and again, something got in the way—a revolution, political unrest, an economic crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and finally, the war in neighboring Gaza. Large parts of the GEM have been accessible for a year now, and the atrium with its eleven-meter-high statue of Ramses II has been open since 2023.

With the official opening, the tomb treasures of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, and thus the crown jewels of the collection, are now on display. For the first time since British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings in 1922, all of "King Tut's" approximately 5,300 pieces are now being shown, 2,000 of which have never been publicly exhibited before. The treasure also includes the golden death mask of the boy king, which became perhaps the most famous symbol of pharaonic times.

Another highlight is the solar barque, believed to have been built for Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops). The 4,600-year-old, 42-meter-long vessel was buried—disassembled into 1,200 pieces—on the south side of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Experts painstakingly reassembled it after its discovery in 1954. It is now considered the oldest intact ship in the world.

Missing from the collection is Queen Nefertiti, chief wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, whose bust belongs to the collection of the Neues Museum in Berlin. Egypt has been demanding its return for years, while the German side maintains that the bust came to Berlin legally after its discovery in 1912. At the GEM, visitors are asked during tours to sign a petition to continue the fight for its return.

For Mohammed Ismail Khalid, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, even a loan of the bust would be a success. "Egyptians should be allowed to see this part of their history for the first time," says Khalid. However, he has not yet made a formal request – it is a "sensitive issue."

The building, designed by the Irish architectural firm Heneghan Peng, impressively integrates the GEM collection into the area surrounding the pyramids. Three sightlines from the museum building converge on the ancient structures, and a new pedestrian bridge connects the two attractions, which many tourists want to visit in a single day. Arrival and departure are also possible via the relatively new Sphinx Airport, located about a 30-minute drive away.

Visits to the Pyramids and Sphinx are now much more organized than they were a few years ago. They begin on the west side at a new entrance with shuttle buses, eliminating the congestion caused by private cars and tour buses. Stricter regulations apply to souvenir vendors, tour operators, and horse and camel owners. The previously used entrances were often chaotic, making tourists feel crowded and overwhelmed.

With all these renovations, the government hopes to give tourism a further boost. Last year, 15 million tourists visited Egypt – most of them from Germany and Russia – and the goal is to double that number by 2032. Revenue from shipping on the Suez Canal has plummeted because the route has become too dangerous due to attacks during the Gaza War. This makes tourism income all the more crucial for the country in its severe economic crisis.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Museum, the pink building on central Tahrir Square, which was long considered a must-see for many tourists in Cairo, is falling into obscurity. Its charm lay partly in the fact that some of the artifacts were stored as if in an attic – dusty, poorly labeled, barely lit, and covered in school scribbles. The most important pieces have since been moved to the GEM and the also newly built National Museum of Egyptian Civilizations (NMEC).

The GEM could become one of the most visited museums in the world, thus joining the ranks of the Louvre in Paris, with which the Egyptians already compare themselves. The Grand Egyptian Museum is said to be twice the size of the Louvre in total area – which is probably fairly accurate if one doesn't count the Louvre's parks. However, the exhibition spaces of both museums are roughly the same size.