This is the facade of the Great Egyptian Museum
** [UPDATE: everything we know about the Great Egyptian Museum, with information from Spanish Egyptologist Manuel José Delgado]**
Egypt is recomposed after a few convulsive years, it sees itself with the strength to once again receive those tourists in love with its charms and, for this, it draws on culture, on that ancient civilization that seduces so much and that will achieve greater prominence with the inauguration in 2020 of the * * Great Egyptian Museum, a project called to be the largest archeology museum in the world.**
After 15 years of work, its inauguration will make it a reality through which you can walk and marvel at the 45,000 works of art that he plans to exhibit. Attention to the data, because of them, 25,000 had never been exposed before. In addition, and to make the appeal even greater, 5,000 pieces come from the tomb of Tutankhamun.
This is the Great Egyptian Museum
And yes, indeed, we can say that the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) will be colossal, like the collections it will house inside and in keeping with the environment in which it is located: to some 20 kilometers southwest of Cairo, on 50 hectares of land between the country's capital and the Pyramids of Giza.
In fact, only 2 kilometers separate it from these Pyramids, which makes it in a new viewpoint from which to contemplate these monuments with which it tries to blend in thanks to a design of triangulated geometry with a façade 800 meters long and 40 meters high. Such genius is the work of the studio Heneghan Peng Architects .
The 168,000 square meters of surface that the building has have been divided into three great galleries, conference facilities, educational spaces, a conservation and restoration center, leisure areas, restaurants, shops and cafes. It also has auxiliary buildings and large gardens.
The exhibition areas will be located on the upper levels of the GEM and will allow for a journey from Prehistory to the Greco-Roman era, passing through the pharaonic dynasties.
Only the entrance gives clues of what one can enjoy: an impressive statue of Ramses II, weighing more than 80 tons and 11 meters high , will receive the visitor who will be able to access the rest of the show by a 25-meter-high staircase.
This is what the Grand Egyptian Museum looks like inside
*This article was initially published on 07.06.2018 and updated with the new opening date of the museum.