The dream has become a reality… Ramses’ smile and Tut’s treasures welcome Egypt’s guests with the opening of the Grand Museum
A different morning dawned on Egypt today, characterized by a special splendor. The smile of Ramses II was on his stone face as if announcing the completion of the dream. After more than twenty years of waiting, and the passage of generations of planners, engineers, and archaeologists, the Grand Egyptian Museum opens its doors today, Saturday, in a global celebration, to tell the world the greatest story about modern Egypt as it redefines its relationship with its past.
The project, since the launch of its idea at the turn of the millennium, was like a race against time and with capabilities. Also, in 2002, the international competition was announced to design a museum worthy of the greatness of Egyptian civilization, and architects from more than 80 countries competed.
The Irish design won with a vision that combines modernity and awe, as the huge building overlooks the pyramids in an eternal background, as if the museum itself was extending its hand to ancient civilization across the extended sandy horizon, and with the will of the Egyptian state, the museum was transformed into a national project that goes beyond being an antiquities museum, into a symbol of continuity. The Egyptian state and its ability to accomplish the impossible. In the middle of the last decade, as Egypt entered a new phase of stability, the project was revived with unprecedented momentum. Experts arrived from Japan, which provided significant technical and financial support.
Egyptian teams also participated in the restoration of more than 50,000 artifacts inside laboratories that were the largest of their kind in the world. There, in the heart of the museum, the process of restoring Tutankhamun’s treasures was proceeding with surgical precision, in preparation for displaying them for the first time together in a hall. One.
As for the statue that became an icon of the project, Ramses II, it lived a journey no less dramatic than the museum itself. Since its transfer from Ramses Square in 2006, the huge Pharaonic king stood waiting for its new place, and when he moved in a majestic procession towards the museum gate, all of Egypt was watching the scene in silence and admiration, as if the statue was repositioning itself in the heart of history after a long absence, and since then Today, Ramses has become the guardian of the museum and the expression of its deepest symbolism: Egypt that does not break.
Today, when guests of Egypt enter from the great lobby and face Ramses with his majestic smile, they will feel that they are facing a meeting between ancient Egypt and modern Egypt, between the hand that built the pyramids and the mind that developed three-dimensional display techniques, a meeting between the genius of stone and the intelligence Screens.
The museum, with its area exceeding 500,000 square metres, not only displays artifacts, but also provides a comprehensive experience that redefines the concept of the museum itself. In addition to the halls and exhibitions, there are educational spaces, research centers, and areas for entertainment and culture, making the place an integrated cultural city, meaning that it is more than just a museum.
Perhaps what distinguishes this opening is that it is not only about the past, but rather opens the door. For the future as well, every detail in the project – From design to management – It reflects the vision of a new Egypt that invests in its culture as a soft power, and hence the symbolism of the opening at this time, to announce to the world that the Egyptian identity is not a heritage displayed behind glass, but rather a renewable energy that creates the future.
While cameras from all over the world line up to record this historical moment, Egypt’s first visitors will wander between the basalt corridors and the glass windows overlooking the pyramids, to hear the echoes of 7,000 years of history. Civilization has returned to life. Thus, after two decades of waiting, the curtain falls on one of the largest cultural projects of the twenty-first century.
The road was not easy, but it ended as it began: with Ramses’ smile, which today seems warmer than ever, as if she was telling the world that when Egypt dreams, it achieves the dream with stone, light, and will.
