World Heritage Site

While we are working diligently on the TWHS project, in Paris they are slowly adding updated Tentative Lists. A surprise came in last week with the inclusion of ‘The Egyptian Museum in Cairo’. Rumours about it being considered first appeared in 2019, but faded out since. The submission comes at a remarkable moment as the new ‘Grand Egyptian Museum’ in Giza is almost ready to open. 50,000 pieces including the Tutankhamun collection will then have been relocated from the old museum to the new.

The "Museum of Egyptian Antiquities", as the original museum is officially called, is one of the most notable museums in the world. It has been in the same building since 1901 and with 120,000 Ancient Egyptian artefacts on display, it is the world's largest Egyptology museum. Egypt hopes to prove its OUV along the lines of purpose-built museum design and the important contribution to Egyptology as field of study.

I visited the museum in October 2018. I will record my experiences here in some detail as what you see and where you find it in the museum may already have changed in 2021. I arrived at 9am - coming early in the morning or late afternoon seems to be the best recipe against the crowds that are always here. As many as 2.5 million visitors show up in a ‘normal’ year. I found at least 150-200 people already waiting in the courtyard for the doors to open.

Once inside, after a second security check, all tourists and their guides piled up in the first rooms. However, I immediately continued to the rear rooms on the ground floor. Room 3 at the very back of the ground floor is dedicated to the period of Pharaoh Akhenaten. These finds look very different from the other Ancient Egyptian art: faces were portrayed much more lifelike.

Then I immediately went up the stairs to the first floor. This actually has more to offer than the ground floor. A hall and a corridor are dedicated to the famous finds from Tutankhamun's tomb. The highlight is of course the golden death mask, which is located in a separate room and may not be photographed. In the corridor are the larger burial finds such as a golden throne. The most beautiful I found the alabaster canopic jar - 4 white burial vases containing the remains of the organs of Tutankhamun, which were removed before he was mummified.

Almost every tourist comes here with a guide, and apparently they all call on a fixed set of highlights. I had also made a list beforehand with the most interesting rooms and objects, but it is just as nice to just walk into a room and see what catches your eye. All objects here are actually masterpieces, which other museums in the world would pay a lot for.

Upon entering I had bought an extra ticket for the "royal mummies" exhibition. I found it in a small and crowded room. Apparently many people are fascinated by those shriveled heads and bodies. I didn't like it much. The mummified animals in a room next to it I found a lot more interesting. The ancient Egyptians mummified everything: crocodiles, ibises, oxen, dogs, cats. Sometimes they were pets, accompanying their owners in the afterlife. But they were also sacred animals or just "food" to sustain the deceased in the grave.

When we evaluate the Egyptian Museum for WH status, the main question will be whether it is still attractive enough in comparison to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza. Its pros are its prime location (even the epicentre of Egypt’s 2011 Revolution), the quality and cohesity of its collection, its long history as a museum in general. The purpose-built museum was the first of its kind in the Middle East, it showed the Egyptian discoveries in Egypt instead of being whisked away to Western Europe. So why would it be less important than Berlin’s Museum Island for example?