The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization – NMEC in Cairo

(If you want to explore Egypt’s Rich Heritage, visit the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC), which contains about 50,000 artifacts, royal mummies, and diverse eras. It’s a fantastic futuristic museum; it acts as a link between the wonders of ancient and modern civilization.)

The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization is considered an important educational and research center for visitors, both Egyptians and foreigners. The NMEC is considered the first of its kind in Egypt and the Arab world. It provides many examples of the luxury and variety of Egyptian Civilization from prehistoric times to today. 

This is interpreted as highlighting the Egyptians’ relationship and strong attachment to the land on which they lived throughout history by choosing cultural topics to be shown to shed light on the palpable and impalpable heritage of Egypt, more than 4000 of art and beauty that was able to break down barriers and form the current awareness of the Egyptian land.

Where is the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization Located?

The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization is situated in the center of the historical city of Fustat in the old city of Cairo. The museum’s space is 490,000 square meters. The choice of this historical city for constructing the museum was well thought out. This city has geographical surroundings, including historical constructions of different civilizations, and this is considered the best evidence of the tolerance of religions in Egypt, the mother of civilizations.

This city has a great history throughout the ages. The pharaohs chose it as a place for a large city, and the Babylonians chose it to be their settlement when they came to Egypt. After that, the Romans made it a base for them to defend themselves, attached it to the coastal and tribal regions, and kept it from any foreign aggressor on Egypt. 

The Jews and Christians also took it as a holy place to establish their rituals. When Amr Al-Aas entered Egypt, he took the Fustat city to be the capital and home of Muslim immigration. The museum site is distinctive as it contains a rare natural lake, the only one to remain in Cairo after the disappearance of many lakes, Ain Al-Sira Lake.

The History of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization

The idea of building the NMEC was for King Farouk (1938: 1949). King Farouk insisted on constructing a museum similar to the museums of Europe to document the various rich civilizations of Egypt. At the time, the Agricultural Society gave out an entire building inside it to construct a model for the Museum of Civilization to represent all the historical stages in Egypt via paintings and artifacts. Many years later, in 1982, the idea of constructing the national museum was renewed after the international campaign led by UNESCO to establish the National Museum of Civilization. After 17 years, the current location of the museum was chosen, and the construction and excavation process began in 2000. 

The museum established a temporary event in February 2017 called “The Egyptian Crafts Through the Ages,” covering a widespread space of about a thousand square meters. The goal of the event was to tell the whole world the history of Egyptian craftsmanship through several fields, such as hunting, agriculture, pottery, textiles, woodworking, jewelry, metalworking, and glassworking. In 2021, on the 3rd of April, at sunset, a huge event was organized under the name of The Pharaoh’s Golden Procession to transport the Thirty-Two Mummies from Tahrir Square in Cairo to the National Museum of Egypt Civilization across five kilometers with massive celebrations. 

The main purpose of constructing the museum was to establish a cultural, civil, scientific, and research center and become a center for local, regional, and international communication. The aim was to preserve and protect the ancient Egyptian cultural heritage from robbery and destruction. The museum hosts 50,000 different artifacts from pre-dynastic times to the modern era.

The Structure of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization

The museum is distinguished by an unmatched design in Egypt in the fields of architecture and modern technology. It takes up 33.5 acres (about half the area of The Vatican). Dr. Ghazali Kseiba, a genius engineer, designed it because his project to design a museum won an international competition in 1984. The show spaces were designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki. 

The NMEC consists of several floors, crowned by a pyramid-shaped hall called the “Hall of the Pyramid” or “Top Panorama Hall,” this hall includes nine 3D screens fixed on its walls, the Egyptian history and Pharaonic antiquities are shown on these screens with sound and image. In the middle of that hall on the ground, there is a Stereoscopic maquette for the entire museum and its various halls. The wall of the hall is somewhat isolated by sound-muffled gypsum to keep the visitors away from external noise and make them enjoy their time in the museum. 

The museum includes nine wide halls representing the civilization of Egypt from the prehistoric period to the present era. The temporary exhibition hall was opened, the main hall and the hall of royal mummies will be opened soon. There are other halls called the Dawn of Civilization, the Nile and the capital, writing and science, and beliefs and ideas; these halls will be opened gradually. The museum holdings will be shown in a historical sequence during eight main periods: prehistoric, archaic, Pharaonic, Greco-Roman, Coptic, Islamic, modern, and finally contemporary.  

The museum also includes a substantial temporary space for shows, a concert hall, and an education and research center. Additionally, there is a representation of the development of the city of Cairo. Several events, such as conferences, film screenings, lectures, cultural activities, and others, will be established in the museum.

Art Exhibits at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization

The museum presents the fantastic wonders of the Egyptian Civilization and pieces of art across the gradually chronological areas, including modern and contemporary Pharaonic, Archaic, Greco-Roman, Meddle Ages, Coptic, and Islamic, in addition to the six thematic artifacts representing the dawn of Civilization and expressing state and Society, writing, the Nile, beliefs and thinking, material culture, and the Royal Mummies gallery.  

The aims of these galleries are preserving Egypt’s palpable and impalpable heritage connected to these crafts, confirming the very important role of Egypt in these fields all throughout history, promoting patriotism and pride in Egyptian heritage, and strengthening community cohesion by finding solutions to contemporary problems and calling for hand in hand to develop society. The event in 2017, which is called “The Egyptian Crafts Through the Ages,” presented the history of the Egyptian Craftsman ship with its various fields, but the event focused on four crafts, including pottery, textiles, woodworking, and jewelry. 

The textile gallery contains 600 pieces, some of them are dresses for Queen Nariman and some clothes worn by servicemen. The pottery gallery, which is known as Pots with a black edge presented items from Naqada I culture, Badari culture, and other pieces from various historical times up to contemporary times. It returns to the pre-dynastic era, about 7000 years ago. However, it is still keeping its shape, quality, and luster. 

There is another group of “Fence,” a polished ceramic with a shining green layer carved on its outer side and burned again. This gallery dates to modern times. Both textile and pottery galleries highlighted the well-known linen production of Egypt, and documented the development of textile manufacturing, including monuments from ancient tombs and archaeological sites. Woodworking was highlighted through the representation of tomb walls and the showing of furniture and wooden artifacts from different historical times. 

The jewelry gallery returns to prehistoric times, presenting brilliant pieces from different royal origins, including pendants, crowns, bracelets, earrings, and amulets made of gold and silver. These pieces express Egypt’s great, complicated craftsmanship and symbolism. The NMEC includes a rare archaeological dyehouse that returns to the first century of the Fatimid period, “969- 1171AD.”

The Royal Mummy Hall at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization

 The royal hall contains 22 royal mummies and 17 royal Egyptian sarcophagi, which came on the evening of Saturday, the third of April 2021, in a huge parade from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir. To keep the mummies’ procession safe, security was synchronized with the procession and opening of both the main and the mummies’ hall of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.

These mummies return to the era of the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties, divided into 18 mummies for kings and 4 mummies for queens, including the mummy of King Ramses II, King Seqenenre, King Thutmose I, King Thutmose III, King Thutmose II, Queen Hatshepsut, King Seti I, Queen Mert Amun ( the wife of King Amenhotep I), and Queen Nefertari ( the wife of King Ahmose) in addition to the mummy of Bibi I from the Saqqara area of ancient monuments. All mummies of the same dynasty were grouped together, and each mummy had a context paper telling more information about its life and time. 

The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization presents great shows and screenplays, which include the development of the “burial” in ancient Egypt and the mysterious methods of mummification with their differences, starting with casing and mummification of the dead body. It also displays some holdings and artifacts of the Egyptian kings and Queens of the same period of rule, including funeral gear. 

To make the visitors feel the real atmosphere of tombs and mummies, the faint lighting in an amazing path, the hall is well equipped with identification charts and guiding icons. The mummies are shown via “multi-media” screens and graphic panels, where they will be shown in a distinctive way. In the background, there will be interactive displays and 3D holograms.

The Artifacts at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization

The NMEC hosts a number of stunning ancient Egyptian artifacts up to 50,000, which represent the development of the Egyptian Civilization and provide the best vision of ancient Egyptian heritage, including the birth plate that dates back to the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt era (1570-1050 BC), the breastfeeding statue, Thutmose III setting, Statues of King Amenemhat III taking the shape of the Sphinx, a pink granite statue of ancient Egyptian scientist, a statue of deity Nilus from the Greco-Roman era, nearly fifty sanctuaries from the Islamic era, and several small statues and amulets made of blue vines and more other superb artifacts.

The Significant Treasures at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization

The Museum of Civilization is also distinguished by containing the first and oldest clock known in ancient Egyptian history, the first water clock, the solar clock, a “staircase” to know and define the times, and also containing several farming tools to measure distances, lands, and spaces to determine and keep the borders of the neighbors, as well as the first gauge of the Nile, which was used to determine the height and water level of the Nile, it was used for warning at the time of the flood. 

In addition to presenting exhibits of Islamic and Coptic art and showing the shape of a loaf of bread from the Pharaonic era until today, the museum also contains makeup tools from every era, as well as a part of the covering of the holy Kaaba. 

The main hall of the museum includes contemporary works by people who made changes in our lives with their works in the recent era, such as Mahmoud Mokhtar, Said Al-Sadr, Hassan Fathi, and other great people. This allows visitors to trace the stages of Egyptian civilization’s development through the ages and see how great the achievements made by the Egyptian hands in the various fields of life from the prehistoric eras to the recent days. 

Facilities at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization

The floor inside the National Museum of Egypt Civilization acts as the international Training center, the first of its kind in Egypt. With the help of UNESCO، every participant can be trained by specialists in the fields of preventive maintenance, archaeological restoration, museum science, heritage preservation, human strains, and excavations. 

The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization is the first of its kind to implement an antiquities reception area that regulates the entry of artifacts into the museum, in addition to the covering and unwrapping operations. The Museum of Civilization hosts 14 archaeological stores and several maintenance laboratories, workshops, restoration factories, and printing and publishing centers, in addition to a huge theatre, cafeterias, restaurants, gift shops, and other services. 

The center of the museum works on providing the necessary cultivated and scientific resources through the most recent pamphlets and long-range patrols on the most important archaeological explorations, seminars, archaeological presentations, and conferences held in or outside Egypt, in addition to the latest publications of scientific journals and books.

 

Opening Hours & Ticket Prices for the National Museum of Egypt

The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization’s hours are from 9 AM to 5 PM, with the last ticket admission accepted at 04:00 PM. Fridays are exceptional as there is extra time to visit the museum from 6 PM to 9 PM, with the last ticket admission accepted at 08:00 PM.

The admission ticket costs 500 LE for FOREIGNER visitors and 250 LE for students.

The admission ticket costs 500 LE for ARAB visitors and 250 LE for students.

The admission ticket costs 80 LE for EGYPTIAN visitors and 40 LE for students.

Visiting the NMEC is a valuable chance