The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), located in front of the immortal pyramids of the Giza plateau, is about to become the new lighthouse of pharaonic heritage. After decades of delays, constant reconstructions and political and logistical adjustments, its final inauguration seems to have been set, after multiple postponements, on November 1, 2025. But, although the museum has not yet fully opened, a significant portion of its structure and contents can already be visited thanks to an experimental opening phase with twelve main rooms.
Thus, the visitor, even before officially existing, has already been able to understand that this project does not only aspire to renovate a museum, but to redefine Egypt’s relationship with its own past and with the world that observes it. The monumental project is a declaration of intentionsa message addressed to the rest of the world’s museums that still preserve, far from the Nile, some of the most emblematic pieces of ancient Egypt.
For decades, these institutions have justified the non-restitution of such works by appealing to the supposed lack of conservation means and infrastructure in the country of origin. The Grand Egyptian Museum, with its colossal scale, its cutting-edge technologies and its international preservation standardsaims to dismantle that argument once and for all.
It is enough to cross its threshold to feel that you are entering something more than a museum: in a grandiose staging of the pharaonic past. The light, filtered by its pyramidal geometry windows, the echo of the steps of the thousands of visitors on the pale stone and the voices that rise and resonate on the endless walls make up an atmosphere of almost ritual solemnity. A new temple erected by Egypt to guard its legacy and memory.
One of the first impact pieces has been placed in the large central atrium: the gigantic statue of Ramses II, which was already moved in 2018 from the center of Cairo in a delicate engineering operation. For seven years he has been waiting standing, in the middle of a pond, for this moment to come. This statue – weighing dozens of tons – stands as a host that welcomes the house of the ancient pharaohs. His presence, imposing and serene, sets the tone for what is to come.
The monumental project is a declaration of intentions, a message addressed to the rest of the museums in the world
From there begins the famous Grand Staircase, which ascends several levels until reaching the great viewpoint of the plateau of Giza. This stepped ramp also functions as a “vertical gallery” of sculptural piecesstelae and colossi lined up in succession, allowing the view to be maintained towards the pyramids while the visitor gains height.
The staircase becomes an axis of circulation (also mechanized for the less able or willing) and a an active architectural story: climbing means going back centuries and preparing to reach the origin of everything.
Another notable feature is the carefully controlled natural lighting, thanks to large windows and skylights that filter overhead and side light throughout the complexallowing some pieces to be contemplated in fuller atmospheric conditions than in traditional museums.
View of the Grand Staircase. Photo: Grand Egyptian Museum
The core of the museum – at least in its part already accessible to the public – is organized in twelve main galleries that make up a chronological and thematic tour of the history of ancient Egypt. The itinerary progresses from Predynastic Egypt and the Archaic Period to the Ptolemaic and Roman period, passing through the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms, arranged in an elegant exhibition grid.
Each of the four large chronological blocks is divided, in turn, into three thematic sections – society, kings and gods – that structure the narrative of the whole. They integrate monumental sculptures, reliefs, vases, jewelry, funerary goods and objects of daily lifein a staging that combines religion, administration, art and the beliefs that shaped the pharaonic civilization.
The objective is more than achieved. The new rooms of the Grand Egyptian Museum show that Egypt has achieved the most demanding international standards in conservation, museography and visual storytelling. Each space combines contemporary exhibition criteria with a deep respect for the solemnity of the past.
The display cases – with clean lines and controlled climate control – are integrated with multimedia elements, immersive projections and interactive resources that allow the pieces to be understood beyond mere contemplation. The light, carefully modulated, guides the visitor’s gaze and creates atmospheres that alternate amazement with intimacy and invite you to explore Egyptian history with a pedagogical clarity hitherto unprecedented in the country.
Image of the imposing lobby. Photo: Grand Egyptian Museum
In some galleries, touch screens show the manufacturing or restoration phases of objects; In others, the projectors recreate the original contexts in which they were found, bringing life back to tombs, temples and workshops. The visitor is no longer a passive spectator, but a traveler immersed in the experience.
Cheops – with the museum’s true crown jewels – still awaits its final inauguration, promising to elevate astonishment to a new scale. According to official estimates, the gallery of the young pharaoh will bring together for the first time the 5,398 pieces discovered more than a century ago by Howard Cartertransferred from the veteran Egyptian Museum in Tahrir.
At more than a billion dollars, this colossus is one of the largest cultural investments in history
In recent months, progress has been made in the final phase of the transfer of the few pieces that still remain in the old museum. Among them, the pharaoh’s ceremonial throne, his canopic jars and, of course, his unmistakable gold mask, an absolute icon of pharaonic Egypt. The authorities have indicated that this process marks the last leg of the preparations for the grand openingalthough not without challenges.
The biggest headache for conservatives is represented by a seemingly minor object: the ostrich feather fan that accompanied the king at his tomb. Its extreme fragility – the feathers, original from more than 3,300 years ago, are on the verge of disintegration – has forced the design of a special transport and conservation system with a controlled atmosphere, which delays the move of the entire collection.
The future Tutankhamun room is expected to offer an unprecedented immersive experience. The spaces will be dominated by darkness and directed light, with carefully modulated spotlights that will reveal the details of gold, wood or linen as if emerging from the darkness of the Valley of the Kings.
The airtight and anti-contamination display cases will maintain a stable microclimate through invisible sensors that regulate temperature and humiditywhile the projections and audiovisual resources will place the visitor within the history of the young king, his brief reign and the fate of the tomb that made him a legend.
View of one of the main rooms. Photo: Grand Egyptian Museum
Another of the expected attractions of the GEM will be the solar boats of Cheops, dated around 2,500 BC. c. The first of these ships was excavated in 1954 next to the Great Pyramid and later rebuilt. A monstrous boat measuring 43.4 meters in length and 5.9 meters in width that, for decades, was exhibited in a small museum next to the pyramid in Giza (the Giza Solar Boat Museum), until it was dismantled and moved to the GEM in August 2021.
In its new location, the solar boat will be integrated into special rooms equipped with extreme climate control and interpretive exhibits (models, explanatory videos, modulated tours) that allow us to contemplate its internal structure and its religious meaning. In the ancient museum of Giza, The visitor could ascend through three-dimensional platforms to see the helmet from different anglessomething that is expected to be replicated with improvements in the GEM.
Another of the new rooms at the GEM. Photo: Grand Egyptian Museum
Additionally, it has been promised to include the hitherto unpublished second solar boat associated with the Cheops necropolis, still in the restoration and special exhibition phases. The result will be a space dedicated to both ancient naval technology – the nailless assembly technique, the use of cedar wood from Lebanon, sealing techniques – as well as the funerary worldview of the pharaoh who was to fly through the skies with Ra.
The Great Egyptian Museum is certainly not the child of chance or haste, but fruit of more than two decades of perseverance. Conceived in the nineties, designed between 2003 and 2005 and built in 2005 by the Orascom-BESIX consortium, this colossus has required an injection estimated at more than one billion dollars. One of the largest cultural investments in history.
Economic crises, political upheavals, technical delays and even a pandemic stood in its way, which postponed its inauguration again and again. But Each delay allowed the project to be refined, providing it with greater technical precision and turn it into a model of contemporary conservation and museography.
Today, after so many postponed dates and accumulated expectations, the museum finally stands as the largest space dedicated to a single civilization in all of history. Its partial opening is already a fulfilled promise; its total opening, a symbolic act of restitution. The GEM already guards the pharaonic legacy and returns it from Egypt with pride and authority.
Its stairs ascend towards the light, Cheops’ ships wait to sail through the sky again and the young Tutankhamun prepares to receive, once again in his eternitythe view of the world. Egypt opens its doors to the future, erecting its own monument to time in stone and glass.