Egyptian Museum, Cairo

Is the Egyptian Museum in Cairo worth visiting now?

Yes, as a second museum. If you have time for only one, pick the Grand Egyptian Museum: Tutankhamun, the newer galleries and the pyramid views are all there. If you have a spare half-day in downtown Cairo, the Tahrir museum is well worth it — the ticket costs less than a third of the GEM's, and much of what you see here is not in Giza.

What stays here is the classic Egyptology collection: the Narmer Palette, the Tanis treasures with Psusennes I's gold mask, the burial goods of Yuya and Thuya, the Amarna rooms and the huge Amenhotep III colossus. Expect old wooden cases, sparse labels and patchy air-conditioning. Expect fewer crowds too — the tour coaches now go to Giza.

Skip it if you dislike dusty, dense museums or are already short of time in Cairo. Come if you love the history of archaeology: the building itself, with its 1902 galleries and memorial to Egyptologists in the garden, is part of the story.

Egyptian Museum tickets and opening hours

Foreign adults pay EGP 550, foreign students under 24 with a valid card pay EGP 275, and children under six go free. The audio guide is EGP 75 and phone photography is free. These are the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities' published prices, and there are no extra tickets for individual rooms.

The museum opens every day from 9:00 to 17:00, with the last ticket sold at 16:00. During Ramadan it closes at 16:00, last ticket 15:00. Arrive by 15:00 at the latest if you want to see more than the ground floor.

Buy online on the Ministry's Egymonuments site or the Experience Egypt app, or simply at the desk. Visa and Mastercard work on every channel, desk included; tickets are dated and non-refundable. Carry a few small Egyptian pound notes for toilets and tips — there is nowhere inside the galleries to buy water.

What to see in the Egyptian Museum

• Narmer Palette — a 64 cm siltstone slab from around 3100 BC, showing King Narmer in the crown of Upper Egypt striking an enemy. It is one of the earliest images of a unified Egypt, found at Hierakonpolis in 1897–98.
• Amenhotep III and Tiye colossus — seven metres of limestone filling the central hall, with three of their daughters at their feet. It once stood in the king's mortuary temple at Thebes and is the largest known pair statue.
• Tanis treasures — royal gold of the 21st and 22nd dynasties, found intact by Pierre Montet in 1940. Look for Psusennes I's gold-and-lapis mask and his silver coffin; silver was rarer than gold in ancient Egypt.
• Yuya and Thuya — the parents of Queen Tiye and grandparents of Akhenaten. Gilded masks, nested coffins, a chariot and a Book of the Dead from their Valley of the Kings tomb, found in 1905.
• Amarna rooms — reliefs of Akhenaten and Nefertiti worshipping the sun disc, the Aten, and fragments of painted palace floors from his short-lived capital.
• Merneptah Stele — a granite slab of around 1208 BC, found by Flinders Petrie at Thebes in 1896. Its victory text contains the earliest known mention of Israel.
• Saqqara Bird — an 18 cm wooden bird of around 200 BC, a favourite of “ancient aircraft” theorists; Egyptologists see a toy or a weather vane.
• Old Kingdom galleries — statues of the pyramid age, scribes and painted coffins. Some large pieces have gone to Giza, so ask a guard for the room if you are after one specific object.

Egyptian Museum vs Grand Egyptian Museum

For Tutankhamun, the GEM is the only option now. Tahrir is the museum for a second day — Egypt's oldest objects and the Tanis gold.

Ancient Egypt in Cairo: compare and choose

Historic places in Cairo with a YesGo score. Tap a column header to sort.

How to do it right

• Start in the central hall: the Amenhotep III colossus faces you as you enter, and the Narmer Palette sits near the start of the route.
• Head upstairs for the Tanis gold and Yuya and Thuya while you still have energy.
• Mornings are quieter; groups from cruises and day tours tend to arrive around midday.
• The EGP 75 audio guide is worth it — many case labels are short and decades old.
• If this would be your only museum in Cairo, choose the Grand Egyptian Museum instead: that is where Tutankhamun is.
• The Nile and Qasr al-Nil Bridge are a couple of minutes' walk away — a good place to decompress after the galleries.

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