In a recent meeting of the Board of Directors of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), Atef Moftah, general supervisor, announced that construction work on the long-awaited museum in Giza is 99% finished.
As reported by Daily News Egypt, the meeting of the board, chaired by Khaled El-Anany, Egypt’s minister of tourism and antiquities, included an update on how the project is progressing ahead of the expected opening this year.
See also: The Grand Egyptian Museum: everything we know so far
GEM to open in 2022
According to Moftah, the structural work on GEM has been completed, while 99% of the additional works on the site are also finished. Meanwhile, the external spaces are 98% complete and work on the surrounding roads is 92% complete.
In addition, the structural work on the Khufu Boat Museum is finished, with final touches now taking place.
The museum, which has experienced many delays over the years, is now expected to open in summer 2022, with work having been disrupted once more during the global pandemic. The 500,000 square-metre museum will have three floors, home to conference facilities, educational spaces, a 250-seat 3D cinema, a children’s museum, shops and restaurants.
The Grand Egyptian Museum will be the largest museum in the world dedicated to a single civilisation, with a 100,000-strong collection of artefacts from around 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history. A highlight will be the Tutankhamun collection, which will have its own dedicated exhibition space, showing all 5,600 objects retrieved from his tomb.
More than 55,000 artefacts now moved to new museum
To date, over 55,000 objects have been transferred to the GEM, and 96% of work to finish the main exhibition halls has been done, said Eltayeb Abbas at the meeting, adding that 99% of the archaeological work on the entrance hall and the great staircase is complete and over 99% of the finishing touches to King Tutankhamun’s Hall are done.
Once open, the museum hopes to generate 5 million visits each year. To cater to this large number of visitors, the parking capacity is being increased from 1,300 to 2,000 and Moftah also gave the meeting an update on this. Plus, a new metro line is under construction, for easy access from Cairo in the future.
Last year, blooloop spoke to Waleed Abdel Fattah, senior VP at Hill International, and project manager for GEM to find out more about the new museum.
