History
The history of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo
From a small collection near Ezbekieh to Mariette's riverside museum at Boulaq, a palace at Giza and the 1902 building on Tahrir Square, and how it changed after 2021.
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Egypt's government set up a first antiquities museum in Cairo in 1835. Auguste Mariette's antiquities service founded a new museum at Boulaq on the Nile, which moved to a palace in Giza in 1889. The present building on Tahrir Square, designed by Marcel Dourgnon after a competition in 1895, opened on 15 November 1902. It has since lost two famous collections, the royal mummies in 2021 and Tutankhamun's treasures in 2025, and is now remaking itself around what remains.
A collection that kept moving
In 1835 the Egyptian government set up a museum near the Ezbekieh Garden in Cairo. It did not last. Antiquities kept leaving the country, and what remained was squeezed into a single hall in the Citadel. In 1855 the ruler Abbas I gave the entire contents of that hall to Archduke Maximilian of Austria, and those objects are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. A fresh start came with the French archaeologist Auguste Mariette, who was given charge of Egypt's monuments in 1858 and set up a museum in a former warehouse on the Nile at Boulaq. Mariette wanted a permanent building away from the river, and he was proved right when the Boulaq museum flooded in 1878.
From Boulaq to a palace at Giza
Mariette died in 1881, and his successor Gaston Maspero inherited a museum that was running out of room. By 1889 there was no space left for new finds, and objects from excavations sometimes waited in boats in Upper Egypt. That year the collection moved to one of Khedive Ismail's palaces at Giza, on the site of today's zoo. It was always meant as a stop on the way to something better.
The building on Tahrir Square
An international competition was held in 1895, and the French architect Marcel Dourgnon won it. The ministry describes it as the first contest of its kind. The foundation stone was laid on 1 April 1897 in the presence of Khedive Abbas Hilmi II, on what was then Ismailia Square. Al-Monitor notes that it was among the first buildings in the Middle East to use reinforced concrete. Moving the collection took five thousand wooden carts and two trains making about nineteen round trips from Giza; the first load alone held some 48 stone coffins. The move ended on 13 July 1902, and the museum opened on 15 November 1902. Mariette's tomb was moved into the garden, as he had wished.
A crowded, much-loved museum
From the start the museum showed large statues on the ground floor and funerary objects upstairs. It filled up so quickly that it came to look like a storeroom; Maspero answered critics that it was meant to feel like a pharaonic tomb or temple, where every surface was used. In 1954 part of its garden, which once reached the Nile, was taken for a municipal building, and in 1983 the building itself was registered as an Egyptian heritage site. In 2004 Wafaa El Saddik became its first woman director general.
2011 and the years of repair
During the unrest of January 2011 the museum was broken into on 28 January. Wikipedia records that 54 objects were stolen and others damaged; 25 of the missing pieces were found soon afterwards in the grounds, and restored objects went on show in an exhibition called Damaged and Restored in September 2013. A long programme of repair followed, funded in part by Germany, restoring the original colours and ventilation and fitting protective glass. A new layout opened in November 2018, with the burial of Yuya and Thuya shown on the upper floor.
After the great moves
On 3 April 2021, 22 royal mummies left the building for the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat. In 2025 Tutankhamun's treasures went to the new Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, which opened in full on 1 November. Al-Monitor reported in August 2026 that daily visitors had dropped sharply, that curators were proposing a future built around the history of Egyptology itself, and that the ministry sees the 2027 anniversary as a chance to reintroduce the museum. The building that first showed the world ancient Egypt is working out what it will be next.
Frequently asked questions
When did the Egyptian Museum open?
On 15 November 1902, in the building on Tahrir Square designed by Marcel Dourgnon.
Who founded the collection?
Auguste Mariette, the French archaeologist who led Egypt's antiquities service from 1858. He is buried in the museum garden.
Why did Tutankhamun's treasures leave?
They were moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, built to show the whole tomb together. It opened in full on 1 November 2025.
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