History & Heritage
11.28.2022
Egypt’s museums free for Tutankhamun’s 100th birthday
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, Egypt’s museums and archaeological sites welcomed Egyptian visitors and foreign residents for free.
This was reported by the website of the daily Al Masry al Youm, highlighting a decision taken by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The tomb of the emblematic pharaoh-boy who died at the age of 18 and the treasure it contained were discovered in November 1922 in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor by British archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter: on the 4th the first step of the staircase and on the 26th the access to the antechamber and on the 28th the access to the “treasure” (the last objects were removed eight years later).
Symbol of Egyptology
However, the tombs of the pharaohs Tutankhamun, Sety I, Ramses VI and Nefertari, all located in Luxor, as well as the pyramids of Giza, are excluded from free access, the site warns, recalling that Egypt has some 2,160 archaeological sites, 126 of which can be visited: six are on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The treasure of Tutankhamun, symbol of Egyptology and in which stands out the golden funerary mask of the pharaoh, will be exhibited for the first time in its entirety at the Great Egyptian Museum (GEM), which is gradually opening near the pyramids, said last week the website of the daily Al Ahram without giving a date for this inauguration expected for years.
The pharaonic museum in the western suburbs of Cairo, intended to become “the largest in the world dedicated to a single civilisation”, will house the mask so far admired in the one in Tahrir Square (ANSA).
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