08 March 2015
H.E Shaikha Mai Visits Grand Egyptian Museum – Cairo (Egypt)
On the Sidelines of Aswan Museum Inauguration Ceremony
On the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the world’s largest open-air museum in Aswan, Egypt, H.E Shaikha Mai bint Mohammad Al- Khalifa, Bahrain Culture and Antiquities Authority (BCAA) president, visited the building site of the Grand Egyptian Museum, a huge project undertaken by the Egyptian government with the Japanese government providing a large part of the funding as a soft loan to be repaid within ten years of inauguration. H.E was welcomed by H.E the Egyptian minister of antiquities, Dr. Mamdouh El-Damaty, and the museum director, Dr. Tareq Tawfiq to the inauguration ceremony.
H.E Shaikha Mai lauded the strenuous efforts deployed by the Egyptian Government with regard to tourist and cultural infrastructure development, saying that Egypt is to be set as stereotype and success model in this regard. Bahrain Culture and Antiquities Authority (BCAA) president has also pointed out that Egypt is the sustainable tourist gateway that the whole world aims to enter and establish praising the Grand Egyptian Museum, which will allow Egypt to become a major worldwide hub for Pharonic history and a must-visit place for Egyptologists. The museum aims at taking grasp of the diversity of Egypt's heritage of monuments and arts needed to be shown in one place in one location to maintain and preserve this huge legacy, H.E argued.
Egyptian minister of antiquities, Dr. Mamdouh El-Damaty has announced during a guided-visit to the new Grand Egyptian Museum, accompanied by H.E Shaikha Mai, that a special hall will be dedicated to the friendly countries’ civilizations, such as that of Dilmun, which will be the first to be exhibited in this future museum hall. The move reflects the strong deeply-rooted historical relations between the civilizations and between the two brotherly countries.
During the guided- tour, H.E Shaikha Mai bint Mohammad Al- Khalifa viewed the latest building developments of the Grand Egyptian Museum, noting that the Egyptian Government is setting aside a piece of land near the pyramids in Giza on which to build this state of the art museum to tell the story of one of the world’s most popular archaeological heritage. The present Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square in Cairo, inaugurated in 1902, will remain an authentic sculpture arts museum.
The site chosen for the Grand Egyptian Museum is only 2km from the legendary pyramids. Nested between the ancient Great Pyramids and the modern city of Cairo, at the junction between dry desert and the fertile floodplain, the Grand Egyptian Museum is a portal to the past. The design for the Grand Egyptian Museum was reached as a result of an international architectural competition initiated by the ministry of culture. The international competition was carried out under the patronage of UNESCO, and under the supervision of the International Union of Architects (UIA). With unanimous agreement and conviction, the entire jury members awarded the first prize to the design created by the Architectural Firm of Heneghan Peng from Ireland, which was announced in an official press conference held in July 2003. The new museum is being built on the Cairo-Alexandria Road, overlooking the Giza pyramids.
