Dig days: Egyptian museums By Zahi Hawass Museums in Egypt are entering a new era. New institutions are being constructed, and there is a change from the concept of museums as storage facilities to modern museums with educational and cultural messages. In conjunction with this development, associations for "Friends" of various museums, including the Islamic Museum, Coptic Museum, and the Cairo Museum, have been organised. For the first time, each of these museums also has educational programmes that teach archaeology and art to both adults and children. We are building a number of new national museums. There will be national museums at Sohag and Suez; two others will be opened next month at Rashid and Al-Arish. A national museum has already been opened in Alexandria. Specialised museums are also being built, such as the Textile Museum in Old Cairo, scheduled to open soon. The Akhenaten Museum in Minya, the Mosaic Museum in Alexandria, the Portrait Museum in Fayoum, and the Coin Museum at the Citadel are other examples of this type of museum. Site museums are yet another category. A beautiful site museum at Saqqara, the Imhotep Museum, was opened recently by Mrs Mubarak. Soon a site museum to be known as the Crocodile Museum will be opening at the temple of Kom Ombo. The great museums of Egypt are also being renovated as part of our overall plan. The Coptic Museum recently reopened, and the Islamic Museum will open in May of next year. In Alexandria, the Jewellery Museum will open this year, while the Graeco-Roman Museum will be completed in two years. In Cairo there is also a plan to have three unique museums. The first will be the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), which will be built in the shadow of the pyramids. The construction of this museum will begin in 2007. Its design has already been chosen through an international competition: the architect is Chinese and lives in Dublin. This museum will be finished in approximately five years. Its main attraction will be the artefacts from the golden king Tutankhamun. The museum will also display the solar boat, now at Giza, and about 100,000 other objects. There will be auditoriums and conference areas, and also a centre for learning. An IMAX theatre will also be built near the GEM. The second museum in Cairo will be The National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation , which is almost half finished and is located in a beautiful area. This location, Ain Al-Chura at Fustat, is a site fronted by a lake. From this location one can see the mosques and churches of Old Cairo as well as the Pyramids away in the distance. The third museum is the present Egyptian Museum in central Cairo, which will contain the major masterpieces of Pharaonic art. More than 70 per cent of its present contents will be moved, but what will remain will be glorious, and there will be space to exhibit these important pieces properly. In the meantime we are making some major changes that will enhance the experience of visitors to this key museum. Most of the planned changes will be finished in less than a year. First, visitors will use the entrance that they use now only as an entrance, and will exit into an open area located on the west side of the museum. In this area we are building a large bookstore where 6,000 people will be able to buy books as well as replicas and souvenirs. There will also be a cafeteria where people can sit after spending time in the museum shop. Tourists will be able to enjoy their visit to the museum and also buy unique objects bearing the museum's logo. Like the others, Cairo's Egyptian Museum is being renovated. The most important change will be the reconstruction of the basement of the museum, which was like a maze of corridors with dusty, neglected objects where people got lost. We are moving many of the boxes of archaeological objects, such as pottery and funerary cones, things that will not be displayed, to a storage facility in Dahshur, and the basement will be reconstructed with doors and proper storage. Offices for various departments, including education, conservation, and a new collections management department will be located in the basement. The museum will be painted without being closed while the work is done, and new washrooms will be installed. The final plan will also include air conditioning. Work on the museum will be finished in less than a year. I am very proud that I will be able to restore this wonderful museum and make it into a showpiece of the 21st century. It will be a museum with an educational message, but one will also have an introduction to Pharaonic history through this unique museum that has no parallel. I am inviting everyone who has read this article to visit the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square in a year's time.
