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Five Things to Know About the Grand Egyptian Museum

Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli, speaks to the press prior to the official opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza, on the southwestern outskirts of the capital Cairo on November 1, 2025. (AFP)
Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli, speaks to the press prior to the official opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza, on the southwestern outskirts of the capital Cairo on November 1, 2025. (AFP)
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Five Things to Know About the Grand Egyptian Museum

Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli, speaks to the press prior to the official opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza, on the southwestern outskirts of the capital Cairo on November 1, 2025. (AFP)
Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli, speaks to the press prior to the official opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza, on the southwestern outskirts of the capital Cairo on November 1, 2025. (AFP)

Near the ancient Pyramids of Giza just outside Cairo, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) is gearing up for its lavish opening on Saturday after two decades of delays.

Massive statues and historic artifacts from the country's ancient civilization will be on display across the 24,000 square meters (258,000 square feet) of permanent exhibition space.

Here are five things to know about the long-awaited museum, which Egyptian authorities have called "the largest cultural building of the 21st century".

‘Fourth pyramid’

An imitation of the nearby pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, the museum's triangular glass structure was designed by the Irish firm Heneghan Peng Architects.

The state-of-the-art complex -- dubbed the "fourth pyramid" of the Giza Plateau –- houses around 100,000 artifacts from the 30 dynasties of ancient Egypt's pharaohs.

About half of the collection is on display, with the rest kept in storage.

20 years in the making

The towering $1 billion facility, which has been more than 20 years in the making, is expected to draw more than 5 million visitors every year.

The government hopes the museum will play a central role in reviving an Egyptian economy battered by debt and inflation.

Ramses

An 11-meter (36-foot) granite statue of Ramses the Great greets visitors in the vast entrance atrium.

Ramses II -- the third king of the 19th Dynasty -- reigned more than 3,000 years ago (1279-1213 BC) and is among the greatest of all the Egyptian pharaohs.

His statue has toured the world twice, attracting millions of visitors in 1986 and then from 2021 to 2025.

The GEM will be the statue's final home after several relocations since its discovery in 1820 near a temple in ancient Memphis, south of Cairo.

From 1954 to 2006 the statue stood in front of Cairo's main train station.

Boy king

One gallery is dedicated to the 5,000 artifacts from the collection of King Tutankhamun, the most well-known figure of Ancient Egypt.

The full collection is in one place for the first time since British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the famed pharaoh's tomb in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor in 1922.

The boy king's gold-covered sarcophagus and his burial mask, inlaid with lapis lazuli, will take center stage at Saturday's opening.

After years of debate, genetic tests conducted in the early 2010s suggested malaria and a bone disease led to the pharaoh's death at the age of 19.

A separate building was designed for the 4,600-year-old solar boat of Pharaoh Khufu, one of the largest and oldest wooden artifacts from antiquity.

The 44-meter-long (144-foot) cedar and acacia wooden boat was discovered in 1954 near the Great Pyramid of Khufu -- the largest of the three structures.

Over the next three years, visitors will also be able to watch experts from behind a glass wall as they restore another boat discovered in 1987.

Frequent delays

The museum was partially opened to the public in October 2024.

Launched in 2002 under then-President Hosni Mubarak, its grand opening was delayed by political turmoil after the 2011 uprising, the Covid-19 pandemic and regional conflicts.

The GEM is built around a colossal six-storey staircase lined with mammoth statues and ancient tombs leading to a panoramic window with a view of the nearby pyramids.

Twelve main galleries trace civilization across 5,000 years of history, from prehistoric times to the Roman era.

The complex also includes storage areas open to researchers, laboratories and restoration workshops.

It will open to the public on November 4.

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Culture

Arab League Calls for Promoting Values of Coexistence, Inter-cultural dialogue

The League of Arab States logo
The League of Arab States logo
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Arab League Calls for Promoting Values of Coexistence, Inter-cultural dialogue

The League of Arab States logo
The League of Arab States logo

The League of Arab States affirmed the importance of consolidating the values of coexistence and mutual respect, promoting a culture of dialogue, and enhancing social cooperation, as these represent the foundation for building stable and prosperous societies amid the increasing cultural and religious diversity witnessed around the world, Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported.

In a statement issued ahead of the International Day for Tolerance, observed annually on November 16, the Cairo-based pan-Arab organization explained that respecting the right of others to differ and believing that diversity is a source of civilizational richness constitute a fundamental pillar for achieving true peace and strengthening social stability, WAM said. It stressed that tolerance is a human and ethical value that no society aspiring to progress can dispense with.

The League stressed the need to integrate the values of tolerance, dialogue, and coexistence into the vision of societies and the mission of their institutions, considering tolerance a bridge toward a safer, more just, and more humane future.

In this context, the League of Arab States is working on adopting the “Arab Declaration on Tolerance and Peace” as a guiding framework to support future efforts to anchor mutual respect and peaceful coexistence. The declaration also aims to enhance communication between different cultures and reject all forms of hatred, extremism, and discrimination, ensuring the preservation of human dignity regardless of religion, color, language, or culture.

The International Day for Tolerance is an annual observance day declared by UNESCO in 1995 to generate and raise public awareness about intolerance and promoting mutual respect, human rights, and cultural diversity.

Culture

Vatican Returns to Canada Artifacts Connected to Indigenous People

A pair of gauntlets made in the late 19th-century Cree-Metif native Canadian traditional style by indigenous activist Gregory Scofield. Gregory Scofield, AP
A pair of gauntlets made in the late 19th-century Cree-Metif native Canadian traditional style by indigenous activist Gregory Scofield. Gregory Scofield, AP
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Vatican Returns to Canada Artifacts Connected to Indigenous People

A pair of gauntlets made in the late 19th-century Cree-Metif native Canadian traditional style by indigenous activist Gregory Scofield. Gregory Scofield, AP
A pair of gauntlets made in the late 19th-century Cree-Metif native Canadian traditional style by indigenous activist Gregory Scofield. Gregory Scofield, AP

The Vatican on Saturday returned 62 artifacts connected to the Indigenous peoples of Canada to the country's Catholic bishops, offering what it called "a concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity", a statement said.

Pope Leo gifted the objects to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops following a meeting with their representatives including their president, Bishop Pierre Goudreault, said Reuters.

"The CCCB will proceed, as soon as possible, to transfer these artifacts to the National Indigenous Organizations (NIOs). The NIOs will then ensure that the artifacts are reunited with their communities of origin," the Canadian bishops said.

Catholic missionaries sent the artifacts to Rome on the occasion of a 1925 exhibition held by Pope Pius XI that displayed more than 100,000 objects. Nearly half of them later formed a new Missionary Ethnological Museum and were transferred to the Vatican Museums in the 1970s.

In 2022, the late Pope Francis issued a historic apology to Canada's Indigenous peoples ahead of his visit to the country for the Catholic Church's role in residential schools where many children suffered abuse and were buried in unmarked graves.

The repatriation of the native artifacts held at the Vatican Museums was also part of the talks between the Church and the Indigenous leaders.

Culture

Rebooted Harlem Museum Celebrates Rise of Black Art

To mark its reopening, the Studio Museum is mounting a retrospective on Ton Lloyd, whose works were shown in the museum's 1968 inaugural show. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP
To mark its reopening, the Studio Museum is mounting a retrospective on Ton Lloyd, whose works were shown in the museum's 1968 inaugural show. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP
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Rebooted Harlem Museum Celebrates Rise of Black Art

To mark its reopening, the Studio Museum is mounting a retrospective on Ton Lloyd, whose works were shown in the museum's 1968 inaugural show. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP
To mark its reopening, the Studio Museum is mounting a retrospective on Ton Lloyd, whose works were shown in the museum's 1968 inaugural show. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP

As the Studio Museum reopens this weekend in its gleaming new building, New York's premier institution for Black art finds itself looking back and looking forward at the same time.

Colorful signs featuring permanent works have sprouted near the museum's home in Harlem, a center point in Black life and imagination in America for more than a century, AFP said.

The museum, closed for the more than seven-year project, has commissioned new works to commemorate the reboot, which features expanded studios for the institution's artists-in-residence program.

But the 57-year-old museum is also hearkening back to its roots with a retrospective of the late Tom Lloyd, whose electronically programmed wall sculptures anticipated today's digital age.

Some of the same pieces were hung in the museum's inaugural 1968 show back when works by artists of African descent were mostly absent from New York's leading museums.

Today's art scene is very different.

Rashid Johnson, Amy Sherald and others are regularly showcased in shows at the Guggenheim, Whitney and other nameplate New York museums, which have also hosted retrospectives belatedly recognizing Black movements.

"In the time of the museum's life, we have seen this incredible trajectory and some of that is a result of the work that the museum did in its establishment and its early years," said Studio Museum director Thelma Golden, who oversaw a more than $300 million drive to finance a teardown and newbuild project that cements the museum's ties to Harlem.

"The aperture opens, but even with that, we still believe deeply in the work that continues to need to be done."

'Truly current work'

The museum's history is laid out in photos of the 1968 groundbreaking, and there are posters of jazz nights, "Uptown Friday" gatherings, high school programs and of shows such as a retrospective of James Van Der Zee, a famed photographer during the Harlem Renaissance.

The founders' ambitions included creating a place distinct from New York establishments like the Museum of Modern Art.

The Studio Museum will present "truly current work," founders wrote in 1966. The work "could turn out to be a flash in the pan or could conceivably begin an entire new school or new direction in art."

Backers also sought to redefine Harlem, "which is all too often equated with slums, violence and other evils," and to deepen the commitment of supporters -- some white -- to "make New York City a united city rather than one which is currently divided by an invisible Berlin wall."

Key turning points included 1981, when the Studio Museum broke ground at its current address at 144 West 125th Street.

Another shift came after Golden joined in 2000, when the mission statement was expanded beyond US-born creators to artists of African descent "locally, nationally and internationally."

Signature works

That broadened scope is boldly expressed on the building's exterior with a red, black and green flag by David Hammons inspired by the Pan-African flag of the 1920s associated with activist Marcus Garvey.

Another signature work is Houston Conwill's "The Joyful Mysteries," containing statements by seven prominent Black Americans written for future generations. The time capsules will be opened in September 2034, 50 years after their creation.

The new edifice itself nods to Harlem's architectural vernacular, with a mass of geometries in gray concrete and glass. The building has received rapturous reviews, and this weekend offers the public a first look.

Golden described the site as aiming to "redefine what a museum can be in its space and content."

She credited her predecessors, not all of whom lived to see Black art achieve mainstream acceptance.

"I am well aware that they did not get to see the fruits of the labor," Golden told AFP. "The inheritance I have from them is that they believed so deeply that that belief carries from '68 to this moment."