Eight Reasons to Re-Visit the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir

As the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) captured the world’s attention earlier this month, interest in Egypt’s ancient artefacts and the museums that house them has been reignited. After all, the GEM is not only the world’s largest museum dedicated to a single civilisation, but also an architectural marvel in its own right. Yet long before the GEM existed, the jewel in Egypt’s antiquities crown was the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, and it remains very much worth a visit.

Opened in 1902—before such discoveries as Tutankhamun’s tomb and the Bust of Nefertiti—the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir is the oldest national museum in the Middle East and North Africa. It was also among the first in the world to be purpose-built, while other national museums like the British Museum and the Louvre were housed within existing historical structures. For this and other reasons, the museum is currently on UNESCO’s World Heritage Tentative List, an honour that, if granted, would make it Egypt’s eighth World Heritage site.

Located in Downtown Cairo, the museum’s rose-hued neoclassical façade and sunlit halls feel like a callback to the early days of archaeology and exploration. The museum holds over 180,000 artefacts, offering not a meticulously curated, narrative-driven experience but an overwhelming abundance of history. While it may no longer house Tutankhamun’s iconic gold mask, here are eight artefacts you shouldn’t miss at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, some of the greatest archaeological discoveries housed in the heart of the city.