October 25, 2025
On November 1, 2025, The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) will be officially opened.
For three days, it will be inaugurated and shown only to dignitaries. Then on Tuesday, November 4, it will be officially opened to the public. November 4th is the anniversary of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb which happened over one hundred years ago in 1922. Needless to say, a short time ago given the temporal scale of this museum’s exhibits.
Located in Giza, on the western edge of the Cairo metropolitan area, it is adjacent to the Giza Pyramid Complex.
The museum has been under construction for over two decades and contains over 5.3 million square feet of permanent and temporary exhibition space with more than 100,000 archaeological artifacts including its most famous treasure, the golden mask of Tutankhamun. GEM is considered to be the largest museum in the world for a “single civilization”.
Our Teremar Travel associate, Egyptologist and Historian Ibrahim Morgan, has been sending us video updates which we will share here in anticipation of the opening in one week. He has been working with the museum for the last several years as the artifacts have been moved from the old museum in Cairo to their new permanent home in GEM.
Ibrahim is our expert in Cairo for all of our Egyptian travels. From Abu Simbel in the south, to Luxor, to Saqqara and north to Alexendria, Ibrahim provides a unique one-of-a-kind experience for our clients during their visits to Egypt. Ibrahim brings over 30 years of experience in the field along with a Master’s Degree in Egyptology. He is fluent in several languages and is considered an expert in reading hieroglyphics and will bring to life the stories contained in the stone walls of these ancient archaeological sites.
Ibrahim also has access to tombs and other locations that are not open to the public. And if you are looking for a magical experience, he can arrange a solo visit, just you and your family and no one else, to explore the inner chambers of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Built 5,000 years ago, it is truly one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
October 26, 2025
In this video, Part 2, Ibrahim guides a tour group up the Grand Staircase, which displays 60 masterpieces covering four themes of Egyptian history: Kings and Kingship, Divine Buildings, Gods and Kings and last, The Journey to Eternity – the Great Pyramids.
October 27, 2025
Part 3 – Ibrahim continues his presentation guiding his group up the Grand Staircase which has 106 steps displaying 60 masterpieces covering four themes.
From this artifact depicting events over 3,300 years ago, Ibrahim explains:
“The Stela here shows the sun god, Aton, depicted as a sun disk with rays extending to a hand at the ray’s end holding an Ankh, the sign of eternity. He holds it to the nostrils of the worshipers to give them eternal life.
Akhnaton, King Tut’s father, created this new god, Aton, in response to the threats from increasingly powerful and insubordinate priests of Amon, the primary deity at the time. Akhnaton started worshipping Aton and built a new capital for him called Akhetaton which today is the city of Tell Al Amarna located in the middle of Egypt hundreds of miles away from Luxor, the existing seat of power then.
After Akhnaton’s death, the priests of Amon, who was the main god at the time and whose religion Akhnaton abolished, punished Akhnaton by chiseling out his image along with Nefertiti’s image, Akhnaton’s wife, and their oldest daughter’s image. The royal family returned to Luxor when Tutankhamun, Akhnaton’s son, became king.”
So, it seems, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
October 28, 2025
Video, Part 4 – Ibrahim continues his climb up the Grand Staircase on the way to the glass wall that overlooks the great pyramids. Here, he stops to describe the sarcophagus of Queen Meresankh III whose tomb was discovered at the base of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. This stone coffin dates back to the Fourth Dynasty.
Ibrahim explains:
“This sarcophagus is a unique one-of-a-kind discovery, renowned for its exceptional decoration. Weighing 50 tons, it was commissioned by the queen’s mother. But, at the age of 51, Queen Meresankh III became ill and died before her mother. Thus, the elder queen’s daughter is buried within it.
The mastaba tomb was found intact by George Reisner, a German-American archaeologist, almost 100 years ago on March 9, 1927. Inside the coffin, he found the skeleton of Queen Meresankh III, buried 4,500 years ago. From measurements, it was determined she was 4′-11″ tall.
Meresankh III was the wife of Khafre, a son of king Khufu. She had 8 children. An inscription on a doorway of the tomb records that Meresankh was buried 272 days after her death. An unusually long delay that suggests her death was unexpected and that time was needed to prepare her tomb.”
The second video below is a collection of photos from inside the tomb of Queen Meresankh III at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
October 29,2025
In this video, Part 5, Ibrahim continues his climb up the Grand Staircase and stops at the fourth section of exhibits called “Journey to Eternity”. Here, he points out a sarcophagus that was found in Medina many miles south of Giza.
As Ibrahim explains:
“This coffin is for Nitocris, the daughter of Pharaoh Psamtek the first. The coffin was found in Deir al Medina, a village where the artisans who built the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and Queens lived, on the west bank of Luxor. Her mummy was never found.
Nitocris was a nun. Before Christianity, the ancient Egyptians had nuns who were considered the divine wife of God. The nuns do not marry and must stay a virgin and they serve in the temple. Nitocris, divine wife of god Amun, was a nun for 70 years serving in Habu Temple in Luxor.”
October 30, 2025
Here, in Part 6 of our video series, Ibrahim continues his climb up the Grand Staircase heading to its finish at GEM’s Upper Level where the main exhibit galleries begin.
The Grand Egyptian Museum opened its signature staircase for trial as a vertical gallery on the 1st of December 2024. Containing over 60 artefacts, it is broken into four sections that mirror the life and times of the pharaohs: Kings and Kingship, Divine Buildings, Gods and Kings and last, The Journey to Eternity.
The design of this entrance and staircase allows visitors to gradually transition from the contemporary world back into the world of the pharaohs and reach the plateau level, the level at which the galleries are located, and visitors see the pyramids for the first time from within the museum.
October 31, 2025
This is part 7 in our series and the last. In it, Ibrahim reaches the top of the Grand Staircase where the permanent galleries are located. The staircase is the chronological route within the museum, culminating in the view of the pyramids at the top of the stairs. As Ibrahim approaches the glass wall overlooking the pyramids, to his left are the 12 main galleries displaying over 24,000 artifacts and to his right, is the complete King Tutankhamun collection comprising 5,398 pieces.
Ibrahim gathers his group around a model of the museum and explains:
“This model displays the full extent of the museum from the hanging obelisk outside the main entrance to the top of the stairs where we are now in front of the glass windows overlooking the Giza Pyramids. Between the museum and the pyramids, plans are for constructing hotels, restaurants, cafes and businesses. And they are planning to regrow ancient Egyptian plants like lotus, papyrus, sycamore trees, fig and palm trees. To provide access from the museum to the pyramids, a path with bridges will connect the two sites and electric carts will be available for transportation for the museum visitors.”
The official opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum is tomorrow, Saturday, November 1, 2025 and opening ceremonies will be broadcast live on TikTok starting at 6:00 PM local Egyptian time.
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