Cairo's new Grand Egyptian museum (GEM): a colossus still waiting for a soul

Last visit: August 2025

My rating: 5 (provisional rating at this time)

Visit duration: 2 hours

Web: https://grandegyptianmuseum.org/

When you enter the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), just steps from the Pyramids of Giza, you feel like you've landed on a spaceship in the desert: slanted façades in pale stone, reflective glass, monumental geometries obsessively evoking the shape of the pyramids, vast spaces that seem designed more to astonish than to accommodate. It's yet another piece of an Egyptian dream that took twenty years of construction, delays, international funding, and endless promises of an "imminent opening."

The building flexes its muscles in a display of pomp, luxury and magnificence that has few equals in the world and promises the visitor a formidable museum experience.

The Grand Egyptian Museum: A long gestation

The project began in 2002 with an international competition won by the Irish firm Heneghan Peng. The idea was extremely ambitious: to create the largest archaeological museum in the world, capable of holding over 100,000 artifacts, thus freeing up the old Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square , now saturated and worn. But the construction was fraught with difficulties: economic crises, the 2011 revolution, the pandemic, a revolution, budget fluctuations. Every year the definitive opening was announced, every year it was postponed.

The soft opening

The GEM has finally opened its doors in a "soft opening": the spaces are accessible, but the collection is still limited. This isn't a formal inauguration, but rather a sort of dress rehearsal for the actual opening, currently scheduled for early November 2025.

What do you see today?

Once through the ticket office turnstiles, visitors are greeted by a golf cart that whisks them along a short path to the entrance. I wonder whether this golf cart service will remain operational even when the tourist flow is much greater, and what the point was in designing the ticket office this way, not directly adjacent to the entrance. Initial concerns, however, are quickly dispelled by the museum's dazzling and monumental façade; once inside, the spectacular façade fades into the immense steel, glass, concrete, and stone atrium, where a colossal statue of Ramses II reigns supreme.

Once through the atrium, you ascend a monumental staircase lined with numerous exquisite sculptures, and expectations skyrocket because the grand entrance of this long-awaited museum, in which the whole of Egypt has invested immeasurable sums, could not be better.

Once you reach the top of the stairs, the exhibition plays its trump card, featuring a huge window overlooking the Giza plateau and the pyramids; a museum entrance could hardly be more spectacular, nor could it raise greater expectations.

As one might expect from a modern museum, the layout of the rooms is perfectly orderly and moving from one room to the next is perfectly natural without requiring the use of a map, as is instead the case in more old-fashioned museums.

The very first rooms do indeed display works of a certain value, and it is natural to visit them with a certain enthusiasm, fueled by the breathtaking entrance and the expectation of witnessing an exhibition that finally does justice to the invaluable treasure trove of artifacts that until now have not been adequately displayed in the historic Cairo museum.

However, as you wander through the rooms, a sense of déjà vu becomes more and more insistent. The usual monumental statuary alternates with exquisite jewels, sarcophagi, and the inevitable bas-reliefs of ancient monarchs beating down vanquished enemies, but also archaeological finds that arouse indifference. The exhibition spaces are meticulously curated; nothing is left to chance, but truly astonishing works are lacking.

The museum displays are perfectly aligned with the highest standards expected of a museum in 2025, such as the inevitable Chinese tourists who touch all the exhibited works with their own hands while the security guards doze off looking at their cell phones, or the barefoot tourists who doze off on the luxurious marble benches.

I have a fleeting start when I spot a bronze cat reminiscent of the splendid Gayer Anderson cat in the British Museum, but then the visit draws to a close.

Proceeding at a leisurely pace, the entire visit takes about two hours, covering just one floor and 12 rooms, one of which, number 3, is not yet open to the public. It's unclear to me whether the exhibition will expand to other floors once fully operational; if not, the colossal building would be a significant waste of space dedicated to grandiloquence and a few too many luxury shops on the ground floor. If the GEM was truly created to finally provide a home for too many works that couldn't fit in the old Cairo museum, it would be surprising if the entire museum were to be reduced to just one floor and 12 rooms, leaving room on the ground floor for a long row of shops, from Starbucks to various jewelry stores.

Anyone who enters GEM today finds themselves in front of a futuristic container which, although brilliant, has not yet found its definitive content .

What will tomorrow contain?

The promise, however, is immense. The GEM is expected to house the entire collection of Tutankhamun's treasure , exhibited in its entirety for the first time (although it's not yet clear, at least to me, whether the transfer will be complete or only partial). This is the beating heart awaited by visitors from around the world, the element capable of transforming a glittering shell into a truly unique museum.

Next to Tutankhamun, there should be room for:

• never-before-exhibited finds from Egyptian archaeological warehouses,

• a definitive arrangement of the large collections of statues, papyri, sarcophagi,

• world-class restoration laboratories, already active behind the scenes.

If all of Tutankhamun's treasure were to find its future home here, I can think of no more fitting or dazzling home for that astonishing funerary treasure; the treasure would find the finest home imaginable, and the museum itself would acquire a prestige it currently lacks.

A personal impression

Walking through the rooms, I experienced a curious sensation: that of a museum that isn't yet a museum. It's like visiting a newly built theater, where the stalls shimmer with new velvet and the chandeliers twinkle, but the show hasn't started. For now, the GEM is above all architecture : grandiose, futuristic, even a little chilly. Yet, if the young pharaoh's treasure truly finds a home here, along with thousands of previously unseen artifacts, then this place will inevitably become one of the most spectacular cultural destinations in the world.

My judgment can therefore only be suspended and postponed until a future visit. At this time, I can only express regret for the way the reopening was handled and for the authorities' broken promises.

Conclusion

The Grand Egyptian Museum today is a colossus that shines with promise rather than content. A savvy visitor might find it "boring" compared to expectations, but its historical and symbolic importance is unquestionable: once fully operational, it will likely redefine the very way ancient Egypt is told. For now, the visit is worthwhile above all as a taste of the future: a future that, this time, we hope, won't be long in coming.