The Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square

In front of you stands one of the most famous museums in the world. It opened on 15 November 1902, to a design by the French architect Marcel Dourgnon, and its salmon-pink colour has become a symbol of the city.

1A Frenchman in the garden

The collection is older than the building. In 1858 the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette created the Antiquities Service and opened a first museum at Bulaq, in warehouses by the river. His fight was to keep finds from leaving the country. The collection later moved to Giza and, in 1902, to this palace.

Mariette asked to rest among the objects he had gathered. His tomb is in the garden, surrounded by busts of Egyptologists.

2A museum in motion

On 28 January 2011, in the middle of the revolution, intruders broke into the museum and stole 54 objects; some were later recovered. In April 2021 the royal mummies left here in a grand parade for the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat. And Tutankhamun's grave goods, the star of the house for a century, moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, which opened on 1 November 2025.

Even so, its galleries still hold thousands of pieces from every period of pharaonic history, in wooden display cases that seem to belong to another century.

3What to look for

• The two female figures on the facade.
• The pond with papyrus and lotus, the plants that symbolise Upper and Lower Egypt.
• Mariette's tomb, in the garden.