Page 24 - Dispatches - June 2022

There are already enough treasures in Egypt
to make a pharaoh’s head spin. The scale and
grandeur of ancient monuments in Luxor
alone is unmatched anywhere else in the
world. In fact, Egypt can’t even hold the
embarrassment of riches they already have.

By John Bregolli When visitors began tripping over mummies
at the old Egyptian Museum of Antiquities
John, who has been in Tahrir Square, plans were made for the
writing for O.A.T. for 17 construction of a new, larger museum worthy
years, loves travel and
history but says he is of holding Egypt’s wealth of ancient artifacts. by Ramses II—not the real pharaoh, of course,
beginning to feel as That was in 1992. After a spate of problems but a 40-foot-high, 3,200-year-old statue
old as the Pyramids. followed by pandemic-related delays, the weighing some 166,000 pounds.
Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) will finally
open for real this November. And it’s a gem There’s a buzz building in Boston right now
alright… for this summer’s Beyond King Tut show. It
Far Right: In may well prove to be the “groundbreaking
November of 2022, A tomb with a view immersive exhibition” of “a story 3,300 years
the new Grand in the making” as promised. But when you
Egyptian Museum get right down to it, it’s just a movie. And why
will overtake Built on the Giza Plateau within sight of the people would prefer something like Beyond
comprehensive- Great Pyramids, the Grand Egyptian Museum King Tut to the real thing is beyond me.
yet-crowded is the largest archaeological museum in the
Egyptian Museum of world. With five million square feet of space, In addition to 100,000 relics from the 5,000-
Antiquities (shown the $1 billion state-of-the-art museum will year Egyptian civilization, GEM will house
here) as the premier house the greatest collection of artifacts from the largest collection of Tutankhamun relics
collection of Egyptian ancient Egypt ever assembled. To set the stage ever displayed. There were about 1,500 items
artifacts. for what’s to come, visitors enter an atrium from the boy king’s tomb at the old Egyptian
with a 130-foot-high ceiling and are greeted Antiquities Museum, but there are 5,400

Right: John found
the sheer scale of
Luxor Temple to
be “unmatched
anywhere else in the
world.”

24 DISPATCHES • JUNE 2022

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