Egypt Opens $1 Billion Grand Egyptian Museum Near the Giza Pyramids

Egypt officially opens the Grand Egyptian Museum

Cairo — After decades of planning, delays and rising costs, Egypt formally opened the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) near the Giza pyramids on Saturday, hosting dozens of foreign leaders and dignitaries for the inauguration of the more-than-$1 billion landmark.

One of the world’s largest single-civilization museums

The GEM is among the largest museums globally and the biggest devoted to a single civilization, spanning roughly 7,000 years of history from prehistory through the end of the Greek and Roman eras (around 400 A.D.). The triangular, more-than-5-million-square-foot complex sits about a mile from the iconic pyramids and was funded through Egyptian resources alongside international cooperation.

Striking architecture and monumental features

At the main entrance stands the 53-foot-high Hanging Obelisk, a unique installation in which a roughly 3,500-year-old obelisk is suspended over a glass floor so visitors can read its ancient inscriptions from below. The entrance leads to a Grand Staircase of 108 steps that ascends the equivalent of six floors to the main galleries, lined with colossal statues.

The museum’s triangular design fans outward from the entrance toward the three principal Giza pyramids, aligning with their positions. The building’s walls and sloping ceilings echo the pyramids’ lines and deliberately do not exceed their height out of respect for the ancient monuments. The interior provides sweeping panoramic views of the pyramids — a sight made possible after excavating and removing roughly 79 million cubic feet of sand, a task completed in about seven months.

Collections and highlights

The GEM contains 12 primary exhibition halls covering about 194,000 square feet and will display roughly 100,000 artifacts, nearly double initial estimates thanks to Egypt’s wealth of antiquities. Officials say a visitor spending one minute with each object would need almost 70 continuous days to see the full displayed collection.

Its headline attraction is the complete King Tutankhamun collection: all 5,398 items from Tutankhamun’s tomb will be exhibited together for the first time since Howard Carter’s discovery in 1922. The new Tutankhamun hall is six times larger than the former display at the old Egyptian Museum in central Cairo.

The complex also houses a dedicated space for the King Khufu boats — 4,500-year-old vessels associated with the Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu. The two royal boats, discovered in 1954 near Khufu’s pyramid, were painstakingly reassembled; the first reconstructed boat was moved to the museum in 2021, and conservation work on the second continues on-site.

Ramses II and monumental moves

In the GEM’s entrance courtyard stands the massive 3,200-year-old statue of King Ramses II. The 83-ton statue was removed from a busy Cairo square in 2006 and transported under heavy security to a location near the pyramids before being moved to its permanent position about 400 yards from that staging point; the original 2006 transfer took 10 hours and was widely televised.

Origins and the long road to completion

The site was allocated in 1992, and in early 2002 Egypt launched an international design competition that drew 2,227 architects from 103 countries. By August 2002, 1,550 entrants from 83 countries had submitted conceptual designs; the shortlist was narrowed to 20 and, in July 2003, the Irish firm Heneghan Peng won the project contract. The museum was originally scheduled to open in 2010 but was delayed by financial crises, political unrest, the COVID-19 pandemic and regional conflicts.

For the official opening, a presidential spokesman said 79 delegations were expected, including 39 led by kings, princes and heads of state or government. Egyptian officials hope the GEM will boost tourism and the national economy, projecting roughly 5 million visitors a year.

"It is a great day for Egypt and for humanity. This is Egypt's gift to the world," Nevine El-Aref, media adviser to the minister of tourism and antiquities, told CBS News.