Cairo Museum Egypt

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo is one of the most fantastic museums worldwide. It is a large building where they display the treasures of ancient Egyptian history, giving us the wonderful evidence of mental ability and artistic skill of the ancient Egyptian Man. In fact, before the arrival of the French campaign, led by the famous general Napoleon Bonaparte to Egypt in 1798, the ancient history of Egypt for centuries was almost unknown and full of a lot of confusion and ambiguity.

imageThe French expedition brought more than 165 scholars and scientists in all specialties to study all aspects of Egyptian life, geography, zoology, geology, history, religion, traditions, laws etc. Those scientists showed great desire and enthusiasm to study the entire Egyptian, especially history and ancient monuments. Undoubtedly, the charm and grandeur of these monuments attracted many of them to go almost all regions of Egyptian territory especially in Upper Egypt. The ancient Egyptian monuments were the largest field of study and research for some of these historians and scholars. A few years later came the work of French painter and historian Vivian Dinon who walked enchanted by the wonders especially in Upper Egypt-Egypt, and finally his work resulted in a valuable book entitled “Travel to the Lower and Upper Egypt” published in Paris in 1803.

Also thanks to other French scholars that came with the French expedition that made ​​a great work that encompasses all aspects of life in Egypt of the eighteenth century, publishing his famous book titled, “del Descripcione ‘Egypte” which contains nine volumes of investigations and eleven paintings and illustrations. A few years later, a historical episode normal, guided to a great discovery; deciphering the secrets of Ancient Egyptian history. The stumbling upon a black stone known as the “Rosetta Stone” resulted, therefore, the deciphering of the ancient Egyptian language, a critical event in the history of mankind, and so the scriptures engraved on the walls of temples and tombs gave us great data history, civilization, and religious art in ancient Egypt.   During the nineteenth century began to appear in Europe in general and France in particular a new science called “Egyptology” which led to a fervour among scholars of Europe. and yet, historians, archaeologists, adventurers and treasure hunters and migratory came to Egypt enchanted by its history and culture, began excavating sites in different territory, and obviously some of them lacked the necessary scientific honesty, so there were thefts monuments and objects and immediately emerged a large market of Egyptian Antiquities in Europe, and while there was that time of the nineteenth century the true value of heritage monuments by the native Egyptians.

Neither the government nor the people knew the value of these authentic objects findings and wonderful antiques. and as there was no control over this sector cultural antiquities and Egyptians artifacts were subject to theft, trafficking, smuggling and careless neglect for nearly 50 years until the end of the reign of Governor Mohamad Ali (1805-1849), the modernization of Egypt, who sent conserve monuments and objects discovered in a building within the Citadel of Saladin in Cairo, prohibiting the trafficking of monuments outside the country. imageThanks to Mariette Pacha (1821-1881) precurso the French Egyptologist who established the Egyptian Antiquities Service of first. Mariette in 1857 founded the first museum in the neighbourhood of true “Bulaq” in Cairo. It was, indeed, a small building that consisted of four rooms that were exposed objects and antiquities Egyptian . Soon, this museum was badly affected by the flooding of the river Nile, so the objects were transferred to an annex of a royal palace of the Egyptian Ismael Pacha in the city of Giza. now The Egyptian Museum in Cairo was a fruit of great efforts and good desire to preserve the ancient Egyptian artifacts. It was announced an international competition between European companies in the late nineteenth century to build a museum, and won the competition a company from Belgium, so the design of the facade of the museum, unfortunately, is not Egyptian, but was decorated in the style Greco-Roman.

The design of the museum was done by the French architect Marcel Dourgnon according to the neoclassical model. In 1897 the construction began and ended in 1901, but only the 15 November 1902 the museum was officially opened during the reign of the governor of Egypt Abass Helmi (1892-1914). Egyptian Museum now stands in the square doTahrir (centre of Cairo) near the east bank of the Nile (the corniche). It is a building of immense red colour with a large outdoor patio. The museum has a cafeteria and a book store selling gifts, postcards, slides, maps, guides and history books and Egyptian art. courtyard in the museum, across the internal portal there are three flags, the first is the National Flag, the second represents the Ministry of Culture, and the third belongs to the Supreme Council of Egyptian Antiquities. There, at the top of the facade falls two dates, the first is 1897, which refers to the date of commencement of construction works, while the second is 1901, indicates the end of the works, but the museum was inaugurated in 1902. There are also two initial letters to the right and to the left of the name aldo governor who ruled Egypt from 1892 to 1914, are the letters “A” and “H” indicate that successively named Abbas Helmi. At the center of the facade lies if the head of the goddess important according to ancient Egyptian beliefs, the goddess Hathor (Ht-Hr) who was considered one of the most famous and ancient Egyptian goddesses. She was the goddess who nursed the god Horus as a baby during the absence of his mother Isis acontecimenetos according to the legend of Osiris.

Hathor was the goddess of love, joy, music and motherhood. It was basically figured in three ways: the first as a cow fully, the second with a form híprida woman’s body and head of a cow, and the third way is a woman but with two cow horns on their heads and solar disk between them. On the facade, is the head of Hathor, is represented with the face of a woman, two horns with the solar disk. To both sides, right and left is a representção Goddess Isis celebrate, the wife of Osiris and mother of Horus. Isis was imageone of the fundamental divinities who played a large role in Ancient Egyptian Theology. Isis was the goddess of motherhood, loyalty, and magic. Here Isis is a figurative way Greco-Roman and not due to the traditional Egyptian style your wig and your gown also with node that is Roman. Salem addition, the facade was decorated in the Greco-Roman style due to the existence of two Ionic columns, as this type of columns only appeared in the Greco-Roman Period. After all they are some names of ancient Egyptian kings written into medallions. in the garden of the museum, some monuments are scattered here and there, most of them date from the New Kingdom period (1570-1080 a. C approx.). At the west end of the courtyard is a cenotaph, or symbolic tomb built in honor of the memory of the famous figure, the French Egyptologist Mariette Pasha, who was born in 1821 and died in 1881. It is, indeed, a marble cenotaph commemorating this famous figure who came to him the idea of fundção museum that houses and displays the objects found. He wished to be buried in this place, it seems that the cenotaph is only symbolic. The cenotaph is surrounded by busts of famous Egyptologists as one Champollião, Mariette, Selim Hassan, Labibi Habashi, Kamal Selim etc. At the centre of the courtyard is a fountain filled with two kinds of plants, the papyrus and lotus. The papyrus was the symbol of Lower Egypt (North), while the lotus was the symbol of Upper Egypt (the south). The papyrus is found in the swamps of the Delta region in northern Egypt. It is a plant that needs lots of water and measures almost 2 m. high. In Ancient Egyptian papyri were used to make writing paper, sandals, etc. and barges. While the lotus was in the South, and there were two species, the blue lotus and white lotus during the Ancient Egyptian Era.

We also know that the Romans introduced a third species from Asia. The lotus flower is the symbol of the resurrection, and beyond papyrus, lotus gave inspiration to architects to decorate ancient columns and capitals. Indeed, the Egyptian Museum in Cairo is one of the great museums in the world in terms of cantidade of exhibits and those who are still deposited, because – according to one estimate, the museum has about 120,000 objects on display, while there are over 100,000 obejectos stored in warehouses. The display of objects is arranged on two floors chronological order, with the direction of correpondendo clock inicindo up from Period Predinástico hence the Archaic Period, from the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, the Late Period and ends by early Greek Era in Egypt. The second floor is devoted primarily to display the collection of Tutankhamun, the objects from the tomb of the couple Yoya and Tuya and the Hall of Mummies. To both sides of the front entrance of the museum’s two sphinxes that give the visitor a special impression as if you are entering an Egyptian temple.