Construction of Egyptian Museum

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo houses the largest collection of pharaonic antiquities in the world. Its collections began with earlier museums founded in the 19th century, and the pink neoclassical building on Tahrir Square, designed by the French architect Marcel Dourgnon, opened in 1902. It holds more than a hundred thousand objects, from the Old Kingdom statues and the royal mummies to the treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun, which was found in 1922. The museum was crowded for much of the 20th century, and a new Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza pyramids was built to hold major parts of the collection. It remains a central landmark for the study of ancient Egypt.

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