Egypt’s Grand Museum Is Finally Open. Now, ‘We Need Our Stuff Back.’

When the British archaeologist Howard Carter first peered into the long-sought tomb of Tutankhamen and was asked what he saw, he was famously said to have replied: “Wonderful things.”

For the first time since that excavation in 1922, all those “wonderful things” — more than 5,500 of them — are on display together in a newly envisioned exhibit that its curators hope will spark that same sense of awe.

The new Tutankhamen collection is the centerpiece of the Grand Egyptian Museum, a lavishly designed mega complex, with the Great Pyramids of Giza rising from the desert behind it. Decades in the making, the museum finally opened its doors to the public this week.

Its opening is a “gift from Egypt to the world,” Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, told the audience at the museum’s grand opening ceremony last week. And it holds an almost overwhelming array of remarkably preserved artifacts from an ancient civilization that has fascinated archaeologists, historians and museum visitors for centuries.

And for many Egyptians, the state-of-the art museum is seen as a stage from which to renew demands that Egypt’s most iconic antiquities belong in their homeland — not the marble halls of European museums.

“The old arguments against return are crumbling,” said Monica Hanna, a leading Egyptologist based in Cairo. The new museum, she argued, was a signal to the world: “Egypt possesses the capacity, the will and the world-class facilities to house its own heritage.”

With so many hopes riding on the museum, its creators were ambitious — despite more than 20 years of delays amid a revolution and counterrevolution, a pandemic and economic crises.

The 5.4 million-square-foot complex, sprawling over an area larger than 90 football fields, might better be thought of as several museums in one. It would be nearly impossible to see everything there in one day.

The pyramid-shaped, glowing alabaster entrance leads to a spectacular grand staircase, where lit-up statues and giant columns emerge from darkened steps. Inside the main building, 12 halls house towering sculptures, ornate jewelry and vividly colored friezes.

Several of these halls allowed for reserved visits during a monthslong “soft opening.” But the last and most anticipated exhibit yet to open was the Tutankhamen collection.

Entered via a hallway of flashing hieroglyphics, the Tutankhamen galleries offer displays based on the boy king’s life, death and hoped-for rebirth.

Or visitors can start from a room that lays out the worldwide excitement around the discovery by Carter of “King Tut’s” tomb. From there, several items — including a gilded wooden stool with carved animal feet and a translucent stone vase chiseled into lotus blossoms — stand in front of screens scrolling grainy images of the excavation.

The collection’s most famous pieces can be enjoyed again in a giant new chamber that gives more space to ponder them than their original home in the crowded, belle epoque-era Egyptian Museum in central Cairo. The new museum’s modern exhibition halls have high ceilings and darkened rooms with custom lighting that helps visitors see the intricacy of the boy king’s painted boxes and beaded sandals.

Tutankhamen’s funerary mask, of course, holds pride of place, spotlighted from above.

And for those interested in the myths and debates surrounding the boy king’s early demise (some experts say it was murder), there is even a section exploring the effects that new forensic technology and genetic testing have had on theories about his death.

Beyond the Tutankhamen galleries, another 11 halls are brimming with artifacts.

Egyptian historians say what excites them most about the Grand Egyptian Museum’s layout is not the towering statues and extravagant jewelry, but pieces that paint a story of ancient Egyptians’ everyday life.

There are statues of brewers and bakers at work, and busts showing women’s ancient hairstyles — from short bobs to curly wigs, styled to show off their ears. A tiny clay figurine of a man petting his dog pays tribute to the millenniums-old human-canine bond.

“The most significant items are those that connect us to the non-royal population, to daily life,” said Hanna, the Egyptologist.

To bring alive a sense of Egyptian daily life, the museum includes some high-tech displays. Inside the re-creation of one tomb, for example, colorful screen projections of its original friezes depicting everyday scenes suddenly spring into action: Hunters draw their bows to shoot at gazelles that leap off the screen; farmers wobble as they balance heavily laden baskets over their shoulders.

Egypt is banking on the museum spectacle attracting droves of tourists and their much-needed hard currency. The minister of tourism and antiquities, Sherif Fathy, said he expected it to draw up to five million visitors a year, and developers are rushing to build about 12,000 hotel rooms to host them.

But the museum is just as much an attraction to Egypt’s own 108 million people.

The opening day thronged with visitors not just from around the world, but from across the country, too. Older men in traditional robes posed for photos in front of glass cases while young Egyptian fashionistas filmed videos of themselves beside brilliantly colored necklaces.

Mai Mohammed, 26, an aspiring social media influencer wearing ancient Egypt-inspired earrings and winged eyeliner, said she had lost count of the times she had come to Grand Egyptian Museum since the soft opening. She still wanted to come for opening day.

“Not just for Tutankhamen,” she said. “I wanted to see everyone’s reactions — I’m so happy to see this.”

Delighting the public is just one of the museum’s objectives, Egyptian officials say. With new restoration facilities and an in-house staff of about 300 restorers, it is also staking a claim to bring the center of gravity for Egyptology, long driven by Western universities, back to Egyptians.

“This field was created in Egypt but has been flourishing in the outside world,” said Ahmed Ghoneim, the museum’s chief executive. “We want to have it back.”

That is the tip of the iceberg for many Egyptian historians, who have spearheaded myriad campaigns to demand the return of some of ancient Egypt’s most famous artifacts. Among the most frequently petitioned for are the 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti at the Neues Museum in Berlin, the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum, and the Dendera Zodiac at the Louvre.

Aside from arguments that their removal was legal under colonial-era laws, activists say the other case made against these items’ return was that Egypt’s museums were unable to handle such precious items, with repeated instances of damage or looting.

Even King Tutankhamen himself was not immune. In 2014, workers changing the lights at the old Egyptian Museum that was his home broke the beard from his gold funerary mask, then clumsily glued it back on in hopes that it would not be detected. (The mask was restored a few years later.)

Some Egyptologists say these arguments now ring hollow.

Not only is the Grand Egyptian Museum a suitable host, they say, but they question any institution that claims to be above problems of damage or looting. In 2020, oil was sprayed on 70 Egyptian artifacts (including sarcophagi) on Berlin’s Museum Island, and European museums have been struck by a string of heists in recent years, including the theft last month of French crown jewels from the Louvre.

“Don’t talk to me about protection, please,” said Bassam El Shamaa, a well-known Egyptologist in Cairo. “Hello! We need our stuff back — especially from the Louvre.”

Many Egyptians say the legal arguments defy a modern sense of ethics and historical reparation.

“It seems wrong to me that we should have to travel to a different country to see our own heritage,” said Mohammed, the influencer. “They are ours — they’re our identity.”

Egyptian officials are more circumspect.

In an interview, the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mohamed Ismail Khaled, shied away from ethical arguments and stressed the legal complexities of seeking returns.

Nonetheless, he said, Egypt hopes to persuade European museums to send iconic items like Nefertiti to the Grand Egyptian Museum for temporary exhibitions at least.

“We would like it if they could come visit — just only for some time,” he said. “So that Egyptians have the right to see their ancestors.”