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Inside the GEM - Photos
On our recent "Jewels of the Nile" trip,we had the good fortune to get access to the New Grand Egyptian Museum. (GEM). While not fully open or stocked it was a great teaser for what this place will offer when it is fully realised. It is truly enormous and magnificent. It will be a real credit to the treasures it will hold.
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Thanks for sharing. I hope it fully opens soon.
Thank you Lissa M!,,,,, We had to cancel this year due to Covid and are going in Feb ‘24. I am doing the happy dance!
We will be there on October 29 this year. We are getting excited!
Our tour starts November 19th - excited GEM will be available
Great pictures Lissa, thanks. Do you know when the full opening date of the GEM Museum?
This is been a dream of mine since 1978, it all stated with a trip to The Met to see King Tut's treasures exhibit. Our tour starts on September 7th, I'm hopeful the GEM exhibits will be open by then.
Cyn_OC623 - It's getting pretty close to your date (September 7th) and the Egyptian government still hasn't made an official announcement about its full opening date. Based on history, I'd bet that it won't be fully open by your date.
Cyn_OC623, thanks for the credit but those are not my photos. I was there late Dec 2022 and doubt it will open this year. I postponed my trip in anticipation of the opening and finally decided not to wait until any longer. I hope things change and it is open when you visit in Sept. It will be pretty warm so stay hydrated and enjoy!
There may be mini- soft openings, but I don't think the Grand Opening and general admission will happen until it is formally announced by President El-Sisi and there is a ceremony. Like the opening of the NMEC (parade of the pharoah's) and the Avenue of the Sphinxes in Luxor, it is a national pride thing and they won't do it without a Busby Berkeley-like grandiose, internationally televised ceremony attended by heads of state and other international dignitaries. Before that happens they need to make sure it is really done, everything works, the staff trained, the surrounding area has been spruced up, new hotels finished, the Cairo infrastructure (new roads, subway line extensions, etc.) can support it, etc. etc. and enough heads of state have RSVP'd and are sure to attend.
Recent posts on the GEM thread on TripAdvisor discusses a possible opening sometime in October through February. 😉
Just watched an interesting documentary on Netflix: Unknown- The Lost Pyramid, about the recent excavations at Saqqara.
Thanks for the updates. I think you're right, it's not going be open by September 5th.
The Tauck Tour has a great trip planned for us with plenty of museums to see. It's going to be a wonderful trip!
On a semi-related note, there's a new documentary on Netflix call Unknown The Lost Pyramid. It's about some new antiquities found in Saqqara. It's a bit slow moving (like GEM construction
), but interesting.
Cyn- we will be on the trip with you. Looking forward to it!
I may have seen that- was it the one a about digs in Saqqara, west of the pyramid's of Djoser's and Unas's, looking for a 'lost' pyramid? When we were there last year we came across a dig nw of Djoser's pyramid, near the Serapeum. A BBC, Nat Geo (?) photographer appeared out of nowhere, but he wouldn't tell me what he was shooting other than to say it was "significant!"
I also saw another show about investigations of the pyramids in Abusir which is between Saqqara and Giza. It was specifically about an excavation of a collapsed pyramid. They were working in extremely hazardous conditions, to hopefully reach a burial chamber that hoped contained a pharaoh (and possibly his burial goods?) All of the Egyptian Egyptologists, from Zahi Hawass on down, are hoping to find another Tut tomb!
If they do find one and it rivals or surpasses Tut's tomb, it begs the question, how will they deal with what they find and where will they put it all? Will they add on to the GEM or relegate Tut's stuff to a small single gallery?
Lissa , like you, I postponed my Egypt TWICE, once due to COVID year and second time dragging my feet thinking I could hit the GEM opening. Upon good advice from both Smiling Sam and Alan through this website, I grudgingly (& not happy) decided to just bite the bullet and go any way. Oh my goodness I am so glad I took their advice Went this last February.
Thank you for sharing these pictures. We plan to go back just to see the GEM once it opens,
We are on the small group tour starting 9/18. I was hopeful it might be open in time but just happy to be taking this trip. So great reading and seeing pictures from previous travelers.