Alexandria National Museum

The Alexandria National Museum gives a compact overview of Egyptian history through the eyes of Alexandria, from the pharaohs to the 20th century. It opened on 31 August 2003 in the former palace of Asaad Bassili Pasha, a wealthy timber merchant, built in the 1920s in an Italianate style on Horreya Road (the ancient Canopic Way).

The building and collection

Bassili lived in the palace until 1954. It later passed to the state and was converted into a museum. About 1,800 objects are displayed in chronological order over three levels. Pieces come from all over Egypt, including items transferred from the Egyptian Museum, the Graeco-Roman Museum, the Coptic and Islamic museums and the royal collections.

What to look for

• Pharaonic galleries in the basement, with statues, sarcophagi and objects of daily life from the Old Kingdom onwards, laid out around a reconstructed tomb setting.
• Greek and Roman Alexandria, with marble portraits, figurines and coins from the city founded by Alexander the Great.
• Underwater finds from the sunken harbours and the drowned cities of Abu Qir Bay, recovered by marine archaeologists since the 1990s. A temporary exhibition, “Secrets of the Sunken City”, opened in 2025.
• Coptic and Islamic material, from icons and textiles to coins, ceramics and metalwork.
• Modern Egypt: silverware, jewellery and personal objects from the Mohamed Ali dynasty.

Because the collection spans so many periods, it shows how Alexandria’s history fits together: a city founded by Greeks on Egyptian soil, ruled by Rome and Byzantium, then by Islamic dynasties, and reshaped again as a cosmopolitan port under Mohamed Ali and his successors.

Visiting tips

Allow one and a half to two hours. The labelling is in Arabic and English, and the museum is well lit and rarely crowded, which makes it a good introduction before visiting the city’s ancient sites such as Pompey’s Pillar, the Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa and the Roman Theatre at Kom El Dikka. It is a short taxi ride from the Corniche and close to the Graeco-Roman Museum, so you can easily combine the two.

Last checked October 2026. Sources: egymonuments.gov.eg, en.wikipedia.org, lonelyplanet.com, hyperallergic.com.