Museums including the Louvre and the British Museum will back a three-year project to transform the Egyptian Museum of Cairo (EMC).
The project, Transforming the Egyptian Museum of Cairo, was launched by the European Union and will provide a collaboration between the Egyptian Museum of Cairo and the Ministry of Antiquities (Egypt).
The project, which will last two and a half years, will see a consortium of European Museums work with the Louvre, the British Museum, the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung Berlin, the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (Leiden), the BBR – Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung, the IFAO – Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale and the ICA – Istituto Centrale per l’Archeologia.
These museums will assist the Egyptian Museum in the adoption of significant new display areas and the outlining of a strategic vision for the future.
The aim of the project is to meet the ambitions of the European Union – promoting culture, preserving heritage and broadening of intellectual and cultural boundaries.
Efoorts will be focused on a redisplay of entrance galleries on the ground floor, the drafting of a masterplan, and the redisplay of the treasures from the Royal Tombs on Tanis.
The three-year project is the first phase of a larger project that would see significant upgrades to the Egyptian Museum. The European Union is funding the project with Euro 3.1 million.
There is another major museum project ongoing in Egypt. The opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) has been pushed back again to 2020. The museum was originally set to partially open in 2019, then fully in 2022.
The museum now aims to open the full 490,000 sq m complex in 2020.
The star attraction will be all 5,400 objects from the tomb of King Tutankhamun.
Image courtesy Bs0u10e01 via Wikicommons
