The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, commonly known as the Egyptian Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, was first founded in 1835 by the Egyptian government and after moving many times over the years until it was finally moved in 1902 to its current place on Tahrir Square. It and is the resting place of over 120.000 artifacts, among which is the famous collection of royal mummies (27, 9 on display) that contains the mummies of Tuthmosis III, Ramses II and the newly discovered mummy of Queen Hatshepsut. In 1976 the mummy of Ramses II was sent to Paris for repairs due to fungus infection, he was met at Le Gourget airport with a red carpet, a 21-gun salute along with all the fanfare. This museum is most famous by king Tutankhamon‘s treasure discovered by Howard Carter in 1922. It was the only tomb ever found that was intact, and it made a historically insignificant ruler the most famous of all.
2. THE MUSEUM OF ISLAMIC ART
The Museum of Islamic Art was at first situated in the ruined Mosque of the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim that was adjusted. The current building was designed by Alfonso Manescalo, and was completed in 1902 in neo-Mamluk style, with its upper story housing the National Library. This building hosts more than 3100 objects obtained from mosques and mausoleums throughout Egypt, among which you can different armories, carpets, coins, medals marble carvings and woodwork positioned in 25 halls.
3. COPTIC MUSEUM
If you are interested in Egyptian Christian history and artwork the Coptic Museum in Coptic Cairo, Egypt is the one to see. It was founded by Marcus Simaika Pasha in 1910 on 8.000 square meters of land offered by the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria under the guardianship of Pope Cyril V. Today it is the home of the world’s largest collection of Coptic artifacts and artwork that date as early as the first and second century AD. The total number of objects on display is about 15,000 that show Egypt’s diversity as well as a mixture of Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman traditions.
4. THE GRAECO-ROMAN MUSEUM
The Greece-Roman Museum of Alexandria in Egypt was created in 1892, at first it was situated in a 5-room apartment. Three years later it was moved to a bigger venue whose Neo-Classical façade still bares the Greek inscription MOYXEION (mouseion; "museum"). Today its 27 halls of exhibits are closed for renovation. Its collection contains numerous statues made from different materials, such as marble or granite. This collection was a product of various donations of wealthy Alexandrians and the Organization of Antiquities at Cairo, but also it contains pieces obtained from various excavations led by this institution’s directors.
5. THE BIBLIOTHECA ALEXANDRIA
The Bibliotheca Alexandria or Maktabat al-Iskandarīyah (English: Library of Alexandria ) is a major library and cultural center located in Alexandria, Egypt. It is a commemoration of the ancient library that once stood there and was lost during the Roman civil war around 48 BC. It was the biggest library of its time hosting up to 700.000 manuscripts, books and scrolls. In 1974 the Alexandrian University came to the idea of reconstructing the library and its notion was fully supported by Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak. A design was chosen by UNESCO after an architectural competition in 1988, and the construction began in 1995. After spending about USD $220 million and 7 years the complex was officially inaugurated on October 16, 2002.
6. ROYAL JEWELRY MUSEUM
The Royal Jewelry Museum was founded by President Hosni Mubarak on 24 October 1986. He has assigned the palace of Princess Fatima Al-Zahra' in Alexandria to be its home. In this museum you can see priceless pieces of jewelry, as well as rare painting, statues and decorations that once belonged to the Muhammad Ali Dynasty that ruled for about 150 years until the Revolution in July 1952.
7. LUXOR MUSEUM
Luxor museum, opened for visitors in 1975, is situated in the ancient capitol of the Egyptian empire, Thebes, today known as the city of Luxor. Even though it has fewer artifacts on display than the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo it prides itself on the quality of its collection gathered from the nearby archeological sights. Among this museum’s most prized possessions is a part of the great king Tutankhamon’s treasure along with two royal mummies (pharaohs - Ahmose I and Ramesses I, put on display in March 2004) and 26 well preserved New Kingdom statues that were found in the adjacent Luxor temple in 1989. One of other major exhibits is a reconstruction of one of the walls of the Akhenaten’s temple at Karnak.
8. MUMMIFICATION MUSEUM
The Mummification Museum is located in the Egyptian city of Luxor, overlooking the Nile River. It was opened by President Hosni Mubarak in 1997.This unique museum offers an insight of the ancient Egyptian secret of the mummification process. Not only have they made human mummies but in this museum you can also find mummies that prove they have done the same with all sorts of animals such as cats and crocodiles. The process lasted up to 70 day depending of the social status of the deceased. The higher his position on the social scale was the longer the process lasted.
9. THE NUBIAN MUSEUM
The International Museum of Nubian / The Nubian Museum, located in Aswan, Egypt, is a museum that includes 7000 square meters of indoor exhibition space as well as an open-door exhibition with 90 rare exhibits. The museum was completed for an estimated construction cost of LE 75 million (approximately $22 million at the time), and was inaugurated on November 23, 1997. This museum tracks the Nubian history as far as the Geological period and as close as the Islamic period. Its vast collection displays 50 pieces dating to the pre-history times, 503 from the Pharaonic time, 52 of The Coptic era as well as many other priceless exhibits.
10. KARNAK TEMPLE
Situated on the east bank of the Nile River in the ancient city of Thebes (today Luxor) lies the massive complex of the Karnak temple. This Great Temple of Amon Ra was known during the Middle Kingdom period as Ipt-Swt, meaning The Selected Spot; it was also called Pr-Imn, which means “House of Amon”. Its construction lasted around 2000 years with about 30 pharaohs contributing to its design in honor of the God Amon-Ra. Besides many temples it is the home to a sacred lake that dates back to Tuthmosis III and measures 80m in length and 40m in width. Next to it rests a scarab, biggest one left from ancient Egypt and it goes back to the reign of Amenhotep III. The complex was connected with the Luxor temple by a 3 kilometer processional way lined with sphinxes.
11. LUXOR TEMPLE
When Amenhotep III (18 Dynasty) came to the throne he was afraid that because his mother was not Egyptian people would not accept him as a rightful heir to his fathers throne. This is why he made a pact with the priests that if they gave him their support he would construct a great temple. He chose to make a temple for Amon’s wife so that he could come from the Karnak temple to his wife, during the floods of the Nile. All Egyptian temples were not accessible for anyone but the king and priests but Amenhotep III made a separate room called “the holly delivery room” whose walls were covered with paintings that revealed the way their king came from a legal marriage of the God Amon and his mother. This room was, unlike all others, seen by all the Egyptian people who whished to know how their king was borne.
The name Luxor came from the Arabs who upon arrival to this city saw many castles (“luxor” in Arabic) and they gave the name Luxor to the one they thought was the most beautiful. The construction began with the “holy of hollies”, followed with some storage rooms and a hypostyle-hall but before this hall was finished king Amenhotep III died. His heir was Amenhotep IV, also known as Akhenaten who didn’t believe in Amon, so he didn’t continue to build this temple. After his death kings Tutankhamon and Hormoheb finished the hypostyle-hall. Later on Ramses II made a huge open hall with pylons, along with 6 big statues and 2 obelisks.
Queen Hatshepsut and king Thutmose III built a small temple whish was, in the Christian era, used as a church. In the time of Fatimid rule a mosque was added to the complex on the left side of the hall of Ramses II.
12. ABU SIMBEL
Abu Simbel temples are two rock temples built by Ramses II and they are situated about 290km southwest of Aswan. However, this place is not the one where the temple originally lied. It was entirely relocated after the Aswan High Dam was constructed in 1960, because of the risk of flooding, it was moved to an artificial hill high above the dam. The twin temples (one for him and one for his beloved queen Nefertari) were carved out of the mountainside in the 13 Century BC, as a commemoration of Ramses II’s victory at the Battle of Kadesh. This complex is also a part of the UNESCO World Heritage.
13. THE TEMPLE OF EDFU
The temple of Edfu, which was made in Greaco Roman times, is dedicated to God Horus. It is believed that this temple was made on the spot where Horus defeated his evil uncle Set, the God of Chaos. The legend says that in the times when the Gods ruled on Earth Osiris was their king. His envious brother Set managed to kill him but his plans failed because Isis managed to conceive a son from Osiris. She was hiding until the boy was old enough to fight his evil uncle and after a long battle he was victorious.
This temple was made on the site of another temple built during the New Kingdom, although today very little of it is left it helps give the visitors a unique feeling of being in an ancient holy place.
14. KOM-OMBO TEMPLE
The Kom-Ombo temple is situated north from Aswan. Construction began during the reign of Ptolemy VI in the early 2. century BC, Ptolemy XIII built two hypostyle halls, an inner and outer one, and even Augustus built part of the court around 30 BC, but there are very few parts of this court that can be seen today. This temple is unique because it is dedicated to two gods and therefore everything in it is double; two entrances, two courts, two hypostyle halls, two sanctuaries and it is believed that there were even two sets of priests. The northern part is dedicated to Haroeris, who was the falcon headed sky god and the southern part is dedicated to Sobek, the crocodile headed god. It is also believed that sacred crocodiles were basking in the sun near the temple on the river bank. Through its history this temple has survived numerous floods, at one point Copts used it as a church and its stones were even used for new buildings, but this fabulous temple still stands and receives new visitors every day who enjoy basking in the glory of this ancient complex.
15. DENDERA
Dendera is a temple situated about 60 km north of Luxor on the west bank of the Nile. In ancient times this was a populated area with significant as the capitol of the 6TH nome, but as time went by her inhabitants moved to the nearby city of Qena. The temple we see today was through time altered by many Roman emperors such as Tiberius, Trajan and some say even Nero.
16. PHILAE TEMPLE
This beautiful temple, dedicated to the goddess Isis, lies on Philae Island near the Egyptian city of Aswan. The temple was started by Hartaka (25th Dynasty) in 700 BC, and was continued by many others including some Roman emperors. The word Philae in Greek or Pilak in ancient Egyptian means “the end” as it represented the southern limit of Egypt. When the Temples where finally closed by Justinian, it ended 4,000 years of worship of the pagan gods and become a church in 577 AD. It is dedicated to the goddess Isis. She resurrected her husband Osiris who was the king in the time when gods were ruling on Earth, and because of this she was considered a healer and protector of kings. After the Roman concurred Egypt the cult of this goddess was spread throughout Europe with temples as far west as the British Isles.
