Truly a Gem of a Museum
Get the News by email
The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) was always intended to be an architectural masterpiece, a fit home for the display of the most outstanding objects produced by Egypt’s 7,000 years old civilisation.
After eight years of work, the first two phases of the project — including a power plant, fire station, fully equipped conservation centre with 12 labs and four storage galleries — were inaugurated.
The conservation centre is the largest in the world, intended not only to restore Egyptian antiquities but to be a regional conservation centre. It will also incorporate a documentation unit charged with creating a computerised database of all artefacts.
Established in partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and with Japanese technical assistance, the centre includes 12 laboratories for restoring, scanning and studying mummies as well as objects made from pottery, wood, textiles and glass. The 122 conservators are currently working on restoring 6,800 objects that will be part of the museum’s permanent display.
The Japanese government helped to fund the $600 million project. It provided a $300 million soft loan to be repaid over 30 years at an interest rate of 1.5 per cent. In addition, the Ministry of Culture will itself provide $150 million and an additional $27 million has already been donated by businessmen.
The Italian government financed the project’s year and a half feasibility study.
The museum will also house a conference centre with an auditorium for 1,000, catering to theatrical performances, concerts, conferences and business meetings. The main auditorium will be supplemented by seminar rooms, meeting halls, a multi-purpose hall suitable for a variety of events, along with an open plan gallery for accompanying exhibitions. A special section for children will be created in order to encourage young people to learn about their heritage.
A 7,000-square-metres commercial area with retail shops, cafeterias, restaurants, leisure and recreational activities is planned for the ground floor level, as well as a 250 seat cinema.
The museum complex will centre on the Dunal Eye, an area containing the main exhibition spaces. From this central hub a network of streets, piazzas and bridges will link the museum’s many sections. The design is by Shih-Fu Peng, of the Dublin firm Heneghan, winners of the international architectural competition held in 2003. According to Peng the museum, which will be partly ringed by a desert wall containing half a million semi-precious stone, will act as a link between modern Cairo and the ancient Pyramids.
The storage rooms will be equipped with movable units designed for secure storage and easy access, and the environment will be determined by the materials kept in individual rooms, whether they are organic or non-organic, or require low temperatures for their preservation.
The conservation centre has been constructed 10 metres below ground level.
Zahi Hawass described the museum’s thematic displays, beginning with the physical environment, the River Nile and the surrounding deserts and oases, moving through kingship and the state, religion as practised under the Pharaoh Akhenaten during the Amarna period, and displays focussing on the daily lives of the ancient Egyptians, their sports, games, music, arts, crafts and cultural and social practices.
The new museum will house objects drawn from prehistory and up to the early Roman period. The unique funerary objects of Tutankhamun, Hetepheres, mother of the Pharaoh Khufu, Yuya and Thuya, the grandfathers of Pharaoh Akhenaten, Senedjem, the principal artist of Pharaoh Ramses II, the royal mummies and the treasures of Tanis will all be on permanent display.
“Khufu’s solar boats, now on display at the Giza Plateau, and the red granite statue of Ramses II, removed four years ago from Ramses Square in downtown Cairo, will also be among the permanent display,” said Hawass.
To guarantee security and complete isolation of the complex from the surrounding neighbourhood an iron fence has been erected and is monitored by CCTV cameras. A buffer zone of trees has also been planted.
Excerpted from an article by Nevine El-Aref for Al-Ahram Weekly
Related posts:
