We should forgive Egypt for being a little boastful and brash. After all, you can be a bit shouty when you are home to the Great Pyramid of Giza, the only surviving wonder of the ancient world, as well as Karnak in Luxor — one of the greatest religious complexes — and some of the most sublime art created by man. And that’s not to mention several deserts, Mediterranean and Red Sea coastline and the last, beautiful stretch of the world’s longest river. The country also has what they are calling a “new wonder in the making”, the Grand Egyptian Museum, but they are being uncharacteristically shy about that.
A couple of years ago President Sisi took the salute as the mummies of some of the most famous pharaohs were moved from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square to a new building in the southern part of Cairo. A little more than a year ago he was in Luxor to celebrate the opening of the Avenue of Sphinxes, a 2km-long ceremonial path that was buried beneath sand and silt for millennia and now, once again, links the Luxor and Karnak temples. These two events were seen as preludes to the opening of that wonder museum. But, so far, silence. What’s going on?
Staff at the museum are tight-lipped about opening plans, either because they do not know or have been sworn to secrecy. The museum’s website (visit-gem.com, not grandegyptianmuseum.org, which was acquired by a separate entity) says nothing about an estimated opening date. Several Egyptian ministers and well-connected commentators had floated the idea of the museum opening last November, to coincide with the centenary of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, but that date came and went. Social media is now awash with speculation that it might open some time this coming November. Meanwhile, this seems to be a riddle that not even the nearby Sphinx can answer.
The project is no newcomer to surprises. Instead of hiring a celebrated architect — as Bilbao did with its Guggenheim (Frank Gehry), Abu Dhabi with its Louvre (Jean Nouvel) and the Louvre Paris with its pyramid-topped extension (IM Pei) — what would be one of the world’s largest museums awarded the contract to design went to Heneghan Peng, a lesser-known Dublin-based firm.
Twenty years and a rumoured billion dollars later, the building sits on the edge of the Giza plateau, a couple of kilometres across the desert from the pyramids and Sphinx. Roads have been built, the new Sphinx international airport is ready, the Cairo metro is being extended to the museum and, more important, almost the entirety of the Tutankhamun treasures — along with some hundred thousand other antiquities — have been installed in the galleries. But there’s still no opening, grand or otherwise.
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The last cultural project on this scale in Egypt was the Library of Alexandria, opened by the late President Mubarak at a ceremony attended by his French, Italian and Greek counterparts, as well as the queens of Spain and Jordan. It has been suggested that President Sisi would like an A-list of world leaders and celebrities to attend the official launch of the new museum and its opening was postponed because of Covid.
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And yet, although the galleries remain closed, parts of the museum have quietly been opened. Last year some heads of foreign governments, celebrities such as Sting and other people were taken on guided tours of its Conservation Laboratory and Grand Hall for a fee of £890. In February I went inside for a little more than £5, on a ticket to Art Cairo, a fair held for the first time in the museum’s conference centre.
On my way to the centre I passed through the Grand Hall, which lives up to its name, as do the few wonders on show there — none more so than a 3,200-year-old Ramses II statue, which stood outside Cairo’s main railway station from the 1950s until five years ago, when it was moved to the museum. It is simultaneously massive and exquisite, and I stood studying it for a while, although most of the people around me were drawn to the shopping outlets — the museum gift shop, a selection of stores selling upmarket jewellery, carpets and handbags and a few cafés.
The museum’s website states that “we look forward to welcoming you” — and we look forward to being welcomed, but until that happens the Grand Hall and its retail outlets are all you’re going to get. We just hope that the wonder is worth the wait.
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Tickets to the Grand Hall cost £13 and can be booked at visit-gem.com. Anthony Sattin is the author of Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World, a Sunday Times history book of the year (John Murray, £12.99)
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