Main entrance of the Egyptian Museum

The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to the most extensive collection of pharaonic antiquities in the world. It has 136,000 items on display, with many more hundreds of thousands in its basement storerooms. View of the modern citys skyline. ... This article refers to the historical Pharaoh. ...

The museum is an outgrowth of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, established by the Egyptian government in 1835, in an attempt to limit the looting of antiquities sites and artefacts. Its museum opened in 1858 with a collection assembled by Auguste Mariette, the French archaeologist retained by Isma'il Pasha. After residing in an annex of the palace of Ismail Pasha in Giza from 1880, the museum moved to its present location, a neoclassical structure on Tahrir Square in Cairo's city centre, in 1900. A museum is typically a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education enjoyment, the tangible and intangible evidence of people and their environment. ... 1835 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... 1858 is a common year starting on Friday. ... The French scholar and archaeologist Auguste Ferdinand François Mariette (February 11, 1821 - January 19, 1881) was the foremost Egyptologist of his generation, and the founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. ... redirect Ismail Pasha ... Giza (Arabic, الجيزة, transliterated al-ǧīzah; pronounced in Egyptian Arabic dialect of Cairo al-Gīza; also sometimes rendered in English as Gizeh, Ghizeh, or Geezeh) is a town in Egypt on the left bank of the Nile river, across from the old city of Cairo, and now part of the... 1880 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture. ... 1900 is a common year starting on Monday. ...

The highlight of the collection is often considered to be the tomb artefacts of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, whose almost intact tomb Howard Carter found in the Valley of the Kings in 1923. Tutankhamun (alternate transcription Tutankhamen), named Tutankhaten early in his life, was Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt (1334 BC/1333 BC - 1323 BC), during the period known as the New Kingdom. ... Howard Carter (May 9, 1874 – March 2, 1939) was an English archaeologist and Egyptologist famous as the discoverer of KV62 the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt. ... Valley of the Kings The Valley of the Kings, or Wadi el-Muluk (وادي الملوك) in Arabic, is a valley in Egypt where tombs were built for the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom, the Eighteenth through Twentieth Dynasties. ... 1923 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...

The museum's Royal Mummy Room, containing 27 royal mummies from pharaonic times, was closed down on the orders of President Anwar Sadat in 1981. It was reopened, with a slightly curtailed display of New Kingdom kings and queens, in 1985. Mummified cat from Ancient Egypt. ... Anwar Sadat Mohamed Anwar el-Sadat – محمد أنورالسادات Arabic - (December 25, 1918 – October 6, 1981) was an Egyptian politician and President from 1970 to 1981. ... 1981 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1985 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Egyptian Museum official website (http://www.egyptianmuseum.gov.eg)
• Entry at Insecula (Encyclopédie des arts et de l'architecture) (http://www.insecula.com/musee/M0011.html) (in French)