Designed by Dublin based Heneghan Peng architects so that the visitor moves through a sequence of spaces to gradually transition from the contemporary world back into the world of the Pharaohs the Grand Egyptian Museum opens fully in Cairo on November 4. The world’s largest archaeological museum is packed with some 100,000 artefacts covering some seven millennia of the country’s history from pre-dynastic times to the Greek and Roman eras. It displays the entire contents of the intact tomb of the boy king Tutankhamun, with its spectacular gold mask, throne and chariots shown together for the first time since its discovery by British Egyptologist Howard Carter. The vast museum complex – about the size of 70 football pitches – is expected to attract up to eight million visitors a year, giving a huge boost to Egyptian tourism. The grand staircase culminates with a view of the pyramids and allows visitors to navigate the museum. Located near the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza at the edge of the desert plateau between the pyramids and Cairo the exterior is covered in hieroglyphs and translucent alabaster cut into triangles with a pyramid shaped entrance.
