Cairo, the Egyptian capital, might be the city that hosts the largest number of museums in the whole globe. The Egyptian Museum of Antiquities would be the star of all museums in Cairo often visited by all the tourists who spend their holidays in Egypt. However, Cairo hosts no less than 30 to 40 museums with all sorts of displays from different eras.
During the last period, the city of the thousand minarets witnessed the opening of an interesting new museum. The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization which was partially opened in February. The museum is quite remarkable and travelers who tour Egypt are encouraged to visit them while they are in Cairo.
The idea about establishing a national museum of Egyptian civilization emerged in 1982, when the UNESCO announced it will establish such a museum together with the Nubian Museum in Aswan. The foundation stone of the museum was set in 2002. Today, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization welcomes several visitors who travel to Egypt.
The museum has a huge surface area of 33.5 acres with surface area of the buildings being 130,000 square meters. It is expected that the museum would display 50,000 exhibits from various periods of the Egyptian history ending with contemporary pieces. The complex also has storage houses which are equipped following the latest technologies that are used in other famous museums around the world like the Louver and the British Museum.
The partial opening of the National Museum of Civilization hosted the exhibition of the Egyptian crafts over the years. The collection includes 42o pieces which demonstrate four traditional crafts Egyptians excelled in producing; pottery, carpentry, jewelry, and weaving. This collection of displays would interest many travelers from different places around the world who visit Egypt.
The displays demonstrating the Egyptian crafts include exhibitions from the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, the Weaving Museum in Al Mui’z Street, the Coptic Museum, and the Islamic Art Museum. This is in addition to the storages of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. The result was in fact quite notable and amazed the attendees in the opening ceremony.
Among the most interesting displays exhibited in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization include some pottery collection that date back to the pre-dynastic era in Egypt. There is also the chair that belongs to the mother of King Cheops, the builder of the Grand Pyramid of Giza. Travelers who tour Egypt are quite recommended to explore the museum.
Another interesting chair in the museum is that which belongs to the Old Kingdom period. The chair contains 120 complicated pieces of wood which illustrate the talents and the skills of the ancient Egyptian craftsmen. There are also some wooden doors with magnificent decorations and jewelry that were made in Upper Egypt in different periods of time.