— Even before it opened 12 enormous galleries containing priceless artifacts this week, the Grand Egyptian Museum looked to be making history.
Egypt is finally allowing the public to view some of the 700,000 years' worth of antiquities devoted to four eras of history on a plot the size of 80 football fields, a project delayed for nearly two decades by war, an armed uprising and the pandemic.
Only a section of the museum covering over 5 million square feet opened Wednesday, with the rest of the facility to be inaugurated when authorities deem the time is right. When it is opened fully, it will be the largest museum dedicated to a single civilization.
The six-story Grand Staircase with a view of the pyramids and an atrium containing monuments, pharaonic statues and sarcophagi opened in November.
The museum, which is just over a mile north of the Great Pyramids of Giza outside Cairo, expects nearly 4,000 visitors for its debut, Al-Tayeb Abbas, the museum’s deputy director, told NBC News.
“We are testing ourselves for the grand opening,” he said.
For renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, the opening is a dream come true.
“We spent all this money to build the greatest museum in the world,” he said. “You will see the objects for the first time in an incredible way.”
Visitors are first greeted by a colossal 3,200-year-old statue of one of ancient Egypt’s legendary pharaohs, Ramesses the Great.
The statue is one of the first and largest artifacts that was transported to the new museum in 2018. It is among the 100,000 artifacts that have been brought from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square in Cairo and other museums across the country.
The Grand Staircase rises to the top of the museum, lined with some of the most pristine statues of the rulers of ancient Egypt.
At the top, a spectacular view of the pyramids opens up with a soaring ceiling. The galleries are lined with state-of-the-art cases with historic statues offering glimpses into the daily lives of not just the kings and queens but also ordinary people.
The grand museum also takes an equally grand time to fully tour.
“It will take you at least one or two hours to see at least maybe 20% of the statues,” Hawass said.
Each piece, including huge royal busts carved in granite, the gold necklaces with turquoise and coral and a several-feet-long preserved papyrus, is given enough space to be appreciated in a thoroughly modern and tranquil environment. Modest clay statues of workers grinding wheat and attending to large vats are also on show.
“They are telling the history of ancient Egypt, how the people lived together, the fear and hopes of the Egyptians,” Abbas said.
Among the museum’s grandest collections is the gold mask of Tutankhamun.
The mask, which has survived grave robbers and clumsy restorations efforts, will be kept in its own room in the climate-controlled museum, Hawass said.
In 2017, before the coronavirus pandemic slowed its construction, NBC News was given exclusive access to the Grand Egyptian Museum’s backroom stores with Tutankhamun’s beautifully crafted bows, wine and even fresh underpants buried 3,347 years ago. The embalmed remains of his stillborn daughters remain in ornate caskets.
Over 3,000 of the boy-king’s artifacts have never been displayed before and underwent extensive restoration in the museum’s conservation laboratory.
Hawass said the Tutankhamun exhibit — perhaps the most famous of Egypt’s archaeological treasures — won’t go on public display immediately because curators are waiting for a lull in fighting in the Middle East to hold a grand, global opening.
But already, the soft launch is attracting American visitors.
Sabrina Middleton, a travel tour operator, said, “We’re coming today because we want to see the Atrium and just experience it.” She said she and her colleague was returning later this month to see the newly opened 12 galleries.
“We’re going to be ready for it when it’s open,” Middleton said.
Abbas, the museum’s deputy director, is convinced that future visitors will be happy to wait for the grand opening, saying: “We have the best antiquities. We have the most fascinating objects inside.”
Keir Simmons and Charlene Gubash reported from Giza, Egypt and Mithil Aggarwal from Hong Kong.
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