Cairo's Three Museums: Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), Egyptian Museum, NMEC...what's the difference?!

the Grand Egyptian Museum, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, and the Egyptian Museum Cairo in Tahrir Square. A lot of travelers don't realize that Cairo has three museums where you can visit ancient Egyptian artifacts and see them up close. In today's video, I'm going to go over all three museums. One of them hasn't opened yet, one of them has 22 royal mummies, and one of them has been around for over 100 years. Let's talk about the three main museums in Cairo, what you can see at each one, and which ones you should visit on your Egypt adventure. I'm Gus with Egypt Adventures Travel. I create customized itineraries for trips to Egypt, I connect travelers with vetted and trusted local Egyptian guides, and I also lead private tours myself. You can get in touch with me anytime by sending me an email, Gus at EgyptAdventuresTravel.com. I'm looking forward to hearing from you and helping you with your trip to Egypt. Now let's talk about Cairo's three museums where you can visit ancient Egyptian artifacts and talk about which museums you should visit on your trip and what you can see at each one. We're going to start out with the Grand Egyptian Museum. We're starting with this one because this museum is the most anticipated museum in all of Egypt, and it's not yet finished, and it's not yet open. The Grand Egyptian Museum is in Giza. It's right next to the Giza Plateau where you visit the pyramids and the sphinx, and it's going to be the largest archaeological museum in the world when it finally opens up. As of this video, I don't know when that opening is going to be. I've got a couple other YouTube videos you can check out on my channel that talk about the gem and when we think it might be open, but no one knows for sure. Once the gem does open, it's going to be the biggest archaeological museum in the world dedicated to one civilization, and it'll be the place that travelers can go to where they can get the most bang for their buck in terms of seeing thousands of ancient Egyptian artifacts. The King Tut Gallery at the gem is going to be the most magnificent display of ancient Egyptian artifacts anywhere. It's going to have all of the objects that were found in King Tutankhamen's tomb, including his golden funerary mask, his golden throne, and literally over a thousand other pieces. This gallery is going to be amazing. The Grand Egyptian Museum will also host the Khufu Solar Boat, a massive boat that was unearthed next to the Great Pyramid in Giza. So I would say the Grand Egyptian Museum is a must for travelers visiting Egypt, but this museum is not open yet. So unfortunately, if your trip is happening in 2022 or early 2023, chances are you will not be able to visit the Grand Egyptian Museum. The second museum I want to talk about is the Egyptian Museum in Cairo at Tahrir Square. This is Egypt's historic museum. It was built over a hundred years ago, and it's been the go-to museum in Egypt for decades. This museum, currently at the making of this video, houses Tutankhamen's golden funerary mask, the most prized ancient Egyptian artifact, and there's a lot of the King Tutankhamen artifacts that are still on display at this museum, despite more than half of them being moved over to the Grand Egyptian Museum. The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square is still going to be a great museum for travelers to visit, even after the gem is open, because this museum will always stay open and will have artifacts that will not be able to be seen at the Grand Egyptian Museum. For example, the Egyptian Museum in Cairo has the Tannis galleries, which have gorgeous silver artifacts, including a silver sarcophagus. And silver was not a material used commonly in Egyptian artifacts, so this gallery with all of the silver artifacts is a really amazing sight to see. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo also has the Narmer Palette, which is one of the first depictions of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh and is a wonder of an object to view up close. And there's thousands of other statues, mummies, and artifacts all over the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, so I would say this museum is the number one museum to visit while the gem is still under construction. And even after the gem is open, for Egyptophiles who love ancient Egypt, the Egyptian Museum in Cairo at Tahrir Square will still definitely be worth the visit. The third museum I want to talk about is the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, or the NMEC, or NIMIC for short. The NIMIC only opened up a few years ago, so a lot of people are getting it confused with the gem. A lot of people are saying the NIMIC is Cairo's new museum, but the gem is the new museum, so which one is the NIMIC and which one is the gem, and it's causing all sorts of confusion. So the NIMIC is the newest museum in Cairo to have opened fully, and you can go to the NIMIC to view a smattering of artifacts from all throughout Egypt's history. From prehistoric history, they have some proto-humanoid remains of the NIMIC that are tens of thousands of years old, all the way to the modern day. They have some masterpieces of 20th century Egyptian sculpture, for example. There are Coptic Christian artifacts, there are Islamic artifacts at the NIMIC, but most importantly, the NIMIC houses 22 royal mummies of ancient Egyptian pharaohs. You can see the mummy for Ramses the Great. You can see Hatshepsut's mummy alongside 20 other royal mummies at the mummy gallery at the bottom of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. So once the gem is open, I would say the NIMIC would probably be priority number three for travelers. So if they only have one or two days in Cairo, visiting the gem would be top priority. But if a traveler loves ancient Egypt, wants to get up close to the mummies of 22 different royalty members, pharaohs, queens, princes, then going to the NIMIC is going to be another great stop to add on your list for your time in Cairo. The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, that's a tongue twister. The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization is located about a 15 minute drive south of downtown Cairo. It's right next to Coptic Cairo, so it's a really great idea to visit Coptic Cairo and the NIMIC right after one another. If you really want to and the weather's not super hot, you could even walk from Coptic Cairo to the NIMIC. It's only about a 45 minute walk. So the NIMIC, about 15 minutes south of downtown Cairo, a great option if you want to see those 22 royal mummies. I hope this video helped travelers understand the three different museums in Cairo that have ancient Egyptian artifacts and know what to see at each museum and decide which museum is the right one or which ones are the right ones for you to visit on your Egypt adventure. Thanks for checking out this video. I'll have a new video next week. Until then!