Egyptian Museum

The Egyptian Museum was built in 1902, so the building is now an antiquity in its own right. It stands in central Cairo, overlooking Tahrir Square.

The museum displays more than 120,000 artefacts covering every kind of ancient Egyptian antiquity, including mummies, sculpture, papyri and jewellery. It also holds the remains of its founder, Gasten Maspero, who died in 1916, in honour of his work for Egyptian antiquities. In front of the main entrance is a small artificial pond planted with papyrus and lotus, the plants the ancient Egyptians revered most. Colossal fragments of statues and obelisks stand in the garden.