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Egypt’s Gem of a Museum Gears up for Grand Opening 

A visitor tours the Grand Egyptian Museum, in Giza on the southwestern outskirts of the capital Cairo on February 7, 2025, set to open fully on July 3, following a partial opening in October. (AFP)
A visitor tours the Grand Egyptian Museum, in Giza on the southwestern outskirts of the capital Cairo on February 7, 2025, set to open fully on July 3, following a partial opening in October. (AFP)
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Egypt’s Gem of a Museum Gears up for Grand Opening 

A visitor tours the Grand Egyptian Museum, in Giza on the southwestern outskirts of the capital Cairo on February 7, 2025, set to open fully on July 3, following a partial opening in October. (AFP)
A visitor tours the Grand Egyptian Museum, in Giza on the southwestern outskirts of the capital Cairo on February 7, 2025, set to open fully on July 3, following a partial opening in October. (AFP)

Nestled near the iconic Giza pyramids, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) is preparing for a lavish opening, featuring a towering statue of Ramses II and more than 100,000 artifacts, including Tutankhamun's golden treasures.

After two decades of planning, the GEM is set to open fully on July 3, following a partial opening in October.

Its long-awaited debut comes after years of delays caused by instability and the global pandemic.

Ahmed Ghoneim, the museum's director, said the inauguration could span several days, with celebrations extending beyond the museum and pyramids to sites across Egypt and even abroad.

"It will be a spectacular showcase of Egypt's historical and touristic potential," Ghoneim told Egypt's ON TV.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has invited US President Donald Trump and Spain's King Felipe VI to attend the ceremony.

"This museum is the (world's) largest museum for a single civilization, which is the Pharaonic civilization," Sisi said in December.

Spanning 50 hectares (120 acres), the GEM is twice the size of both Paris's Louvre and New York's Metropolitan, and two and a half times the British Museum, according to its director.

- Stepping into history -

"The landscape of Egypt contributed to this rich civilization and we wanted to reflect that in the design," said Roisin Heneghan, co-founder of Dublin-based Heneghan Peng Architects -- the firm behind the museum's design.

"You see the pieces in the museum in the context of the pyramids. You are reminded of the place where this all happened," she told AFP.

An 11-meter (36-foot) statue of Ramses II greets visitors, leading to a grand staircase lined with statues of pharaohs, gods and sarcophagi, and ending at a window framing the pyramids.

Currently, 12 galleries display around 15,000 artifacts arranged chronologically from prehistory to the Greco-Roman period.

They include Queen Hetepheres's treasures, such as her intricately carved armchair, in sophisticated lighting after years of being tucked away in the old Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square.

Even before the official opening, the museum left some of its first visitors awestruck.

"I cannot get over how the lighting is. It is just atmospheric and helpful, and you end up just drawn to everything that is around," said Philippa Hunt, a tourist from the United Kingdom.

South African visitor Leon Wolmarans said the GEM was a significant upgrade from the old one.

"This is much better organized, much better lit. The architecture is impressive," he told AFP.

Among the most anticipated displays for the grand opening are the treasures of Tutankhamun, including his iconic gold mask, which will take pride of place in a dedicated gallery.

- Boost for the economy -

More than 5,000 Tutankhamun artifacts have been transferred to the GEM, though his full collection, including his sarcophagus and the embalmed remains of his daughters, will be revealed at the official opening.

The GEM will also showcase the 44-meter-long cedarwood solar barque, buried near the Great Pyramid around 2,500 BC.

Another boat, still being restored, will offer an immersive experience, with visitors watching conservators at work over the next three years.

With cutting-edge technology such as virtual reality and interactive exhibits, the GEM promises a fresh take on storytelling, making history come alive for younger generations.

The museum website lists entry prices starting at 200 Egyptian pounds (about $4) for adult nationals, and 1,200 pounds for foreigners.

Beyond archaeology, the GEM is central to Egypt's efforts to revive an economy.

With tourism recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, the GEM is expected to attract five million visitors annually, adding to a record 15.7 million tourists in 2024.

Elhamy al-Zayat, former chairman of the Egyptian Tourism Federation, said the museum's proximity to the newly opened Sphinx International Airport, the pyramids and a growing number of nearby hotels will be a game-changer for Egypt's tourism sector.

"There will be easy transportation options to and from the museum, making it accessible from anywhere," he told AFP.

"This will definitely transform Egypt's tourism industry."

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Culture

French Artist Begins Giant ‘Cave’ Art Inflation Over Paris’ Oldest Bridge

People walk along the Seine river next to "The Pont Neuf Cave," an inflated art installation by French street artist JR, on Paris' oldest bridge, the Pont Neuf, Thursday, May 21, 2026, which will be open to the public from June 6-28. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
People walk along the Seine river next to "The Pont Neuf Cave," an inflated art installation by French street artist JR, on Paris' oldest bridge, the Pont Neuf, Thursday, May 21, 2026, which will be open to the public from June 6-28. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
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French Artist Begins Giant ‘Cave’ Art Inflation Over Paris’ Oldest Bridge

People walk along the Seine river next to "The Pont Neuf Cave," an inflated art installation by French street artist JR, on Paris' oldest bridge, the Pont Neuf, Thursday, May 21, 2026, which will be open to the public from June 6-28. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
People walk along the Seine river next to "The Pont Neuf Cave," an inflated art installation by French street artist JR, on Paris' oldest bridge, the Pont Neuf, Thursday, May 21, 2026, which will be open to the public from June 6-28. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

The oldest bridge in Paris has begun to vanish this week, as the artist JR — who is known as the “French Banksy” — began inflating a giant “cave” over the Pont Neuf.

The monumental, rocky illusion is swallowing the 17th-century landmark, which has carried Parisians across the Seine for more than 400 years. By Thursday, it looked as if a prehistoric cliff had risen in the heart of the city.

The inflation process, which was carried out overnight — after being delayed by bad weather — is the most dramatic stage yet of a project more than a year in the making.

One of the most ambitious public artworks Paris has seen in decades, which has been funded by the sale of JR’s work and a handful of corporate partners, does not open to the public until June 6.

“We’re about to leave something pretty incredible in the middle of Paris,” JR told The Associated Press earlier this year at his studio in the city’s east, wearing his trademark hat and shades.

The transformation of the bridge has been documented by the AP since March with time-lapse cameras, including one fixed on a rooftop terrace high above the river, watching the bridge slowly disappear day by day.

From the outside, the installation looks like a rocky mass that “literally” breaks the landscape, said JR, who is famous for pasting enormous photographs on buildings, walls and rooftops around the world. This time he wanted Parisians to do something unusual on their busiest bridge: stop.

Visitors will be able to walk for free through a long, dark tunnel that lets in no daylight and where, according to JR, people “will lose track of time.”

The numbers are startling. The structure is 120 meters (393 feet) long and 18 meters (59 feet) tall — which is as high as a six-story building.

Yet it is built almost entirely from air — 80 fabric arches filled with 20,000 cubic meters of it — and weighs only about five tons. The fabric was hand stitched by 25 artisans in a village in Brittany.

Nothing digs into the historic stone.

Cut the air and the cliff would sink like a held breath — a collapse JR’s engineers spent weeks rehearsing in a hangar at Orly airport to be sure that if the power ever failed, the rock would come down gently.

The artwork, called La Caverne du Pont Neuf, is a tribute to a Parisian artistic legend.

In 1985, artist Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, wrapped the same bridge in pale golden fabric — 13 kilometers of rope, a decade of arguing with city hall, three million visitors in two weeks. The act helped invent the idea of monumental art in modern cities.

A square beside the bridge now carries their names.

“It’s pretty hard to go after them,” JR said.

His idea, he said, is to bring “mineral and nature” back to the heart of the city. He is not covering the bridge but undressing it — sending the dressed stone back to the limestone quarries from which Paris itself was cut.

The cave is also a warning. JR built it as a nod to Plato’s allegory, in which prisoners mistake shadows on a wall for the real world.

“What are our caves today? Our phones,” he said. “Because we believe that our algorithm on social media is the reality.”

Then he walks straight into the contradiction: to enter his cave about screens, visitors raise their phones.

The tech company Snap has built an augmented-reality layer that shows what the eye cannot.
The sound is a low, mineral hum from Thomas Bangalter, formerly of Daft Punk — who was 10 the year Christo wrapped the bridge.

The cave will be open around the clock from June 6-28, closing the bridge to traffic and visible from the quays, from passing boats, even from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

It will coincide with Paris Fashion Week, World Music Day and the all-night Nuit Blanche arts festival.

When it comes down, the fabric will be reused or recycled. Air, JR likes to say, leaves no scar.
Then, like the golden wrapping 40 years before, the cave will be gone — and the Pont Neuf, older than the republic and older than the revolution, will reappear exactly as it was.

Culture

Winston Churchill's 'Playful' Paintings Go on Show in London

The 'Winston Churchill: The Painter' exhibition opens on Saturday at the Wallace Collection in London. Justin TALLIS / AFP
The 'Winston Churchill: The Painter' exhibition opens on Saturday at the Wallace Collection in London. Justin TALLIS / AFP
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Winston Churchill's 'Playful' Paintings Go on Show in London

The 'Winston Churchill: The Painter' exhibition opens on Saturday at the Wallace Collection in London. Justin TALLIS / AFP
The 'Winston Churchill: The Painter' exhibition opens on Saturday at the Wallace Collection in London. Justin TALLIS / AFP

As Britain's wartime leader, Winston Churchill was known for his stirring speeches, but a new London exhibition explores another side to his creativity -- as a passionate and prolific artist.

The exhibition opening Saturday at the Wallace Collection will be the most significant display of the statesman's paintings for more than 60 years, including over 50 canvases, many of them rarely seen in public.

Churchill first tried painting during World War I after he resigned from the government over the 1915 failed Dardanelles naval attack.

This was a "very difficult time in his life" when "he suddenly finds himself with all this unwanted leisure time", Lucy Davis, co-curator of the exhibition, told AFP.

"And he discovered painting as a way of releasing the stress, the anguish that the situation had caused him."

The museum presents a chronological survey starting with his first paintings, created with advice from renowned artist John Lavery, then canvases painted in the 1920s at Chartwell, the country house where Churchill lived with his family.

Largely self-taught while associating with well-known painters, Churchill quickly became interested in landscape painting and drew inspiration from holidays in the south of France to create brightly colored canvases dominated by blues and ochre.

- 'Loved the light' -

Churchill "saw painting as a spur to travel" and "just loved the light and warmth and atmosphere, which he captures so beautifully", said Davis.

A whole room is dedicated to canvases inspired by trips to Morocco, including "The Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque", the only painting that Churchill did during World War II. A gift to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the painting recently belonged to Hollywood star Angelina Jolie.

The exhibition ends with the postwar period when Churchill, defeated in a general election, began painting again and continued until his death in 1965, with some of his works going on display at the Royal Academy.

Churchill had previously shown paintings at various galleries, but always under an assumed name.

As a statesman, Churchill went down in history for his wartime leadership, but as an artist, he had little interest in depicting current world events, the curator stressed.

"He was a wartime leader. He was known for these very stirring wartime speeches. But in these paintings, you really see his joie de vivre, his witty side, his playful side."

One painting at the exhibition is an exception: "The Beach At Walmer", painted in 1938 as fears grew of imminent war.

It shows a sandy beach in southern England with bathers paddling. But in the foreground, a black cannon points at the sea, suggesting a looming threat.

Culture

Saudi Heritage Commission Discovers Abbasid-Era Gold Jewelry in Qassim

The Saudi Heritage Commission logo
The Saudi Heritage Commission logo
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Saudi Heritage Commission Discovers Abbasid-Era Gold Jewelry in Qassim

The Saudi Heritage Commission logo
The Saudi Heritage Commission logo

Saudi Arabia’s Heritage Commission announced the discovery of a collection of Abbasid-era gold jewelry at the archaeological site of Diriyyah in Qassim Region during the fourth season of excavation and survey work.

The discovery includes 100 gold pieces adorned with floral and geometric motifs, along with architectural remains from the Abbasid period, including stone foundations, mud walls, pottery, and metal tools.

The findings indicate human settlement dating back to the late third century AH and highlight the site’s historical importance along pilgrimage and trade routes.

The discovery reflects the Heritage Commission’s ongoing efforts to document and preserve the Kingdom’s archaeological heritage, supporting cultural development goals aligned with Saudi Vision 2030.