On Tahrir Square in the heart of the capital of Egypt is the neoclassical Cairo Museum, built in the neoclassical style, based on artifacts collected by its first leader, a French national, Auguste Mariette. It was he who discovered this treasury in 1858, and at first it was located in a completely different building, and already in 1902 the present one was built.
The Cairo Museum, whose exhibits are numerous, occupies one hundred halls. About a hundred thousand rarities arranged in chronological order are exhibited in it. Visitors fall into the history of one of the most ancient civilizations of the earth, stretching over three millennia.
At the very entrance, they are met by huge sculptures of the pharaoh Amenhotep III and Tii - his wife, who, contrary to tradition, has the same size as the statue of her husband.
Cairo National Museum is considered the largest repository of exhibits of ancient Egyptian art. His pearl is the tomb of Tutankhamun, which is exhibited on the second floor. It was found in 1922 in the famous Valley of the Kings, located near Luxor. This find is considered an archaeological masterpiece, a sensation of the 20th century, because the tomb of this pharaoh is the only tomb that was not plundered and appeared before people in its original form.
The transportation of the treasures of the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun to the Cairo Museum lasted about five years, there were so many of them: the total number of all items was more than three and a half thousand, including jewelry, household utensils and jewelry.
In several halls in which the treasures of the tomb are exhibited, four wooden gilded arks are installed, in which in ancient times the stone sarcophagus of the pharaoh Tutankhamun, which is now located in the Valley of the Kings, was stored. The Cairo Museum exhibits three sarcophagi, one of which, made of solid cast gold, weighs 110 kilograms. There, visitors can see the death mask of the young ruler, which, made of the same precious metal, it perfectly reproduces the face of Tutankhamun.
Another priceless treasure that the Cairo Museum exhibits is a gilded throne decorated with a scattering of precious stones, on which this pharaoh once sat. On his armrests are represented snakes, and on the side parts of the seat are lion heads. On the back of this throne is the figure of Tutankhamun himself and his beloved wife. In the same collection, half-decayed sandals and a shirt are on display - what the young pharaoh was wearing.
More recently, the Egyptian, or Cairo, museum opened a hall in which the mummies of other kings are located. Thanks to the specially created microclimate, here you can see Ramses II, Seti I, Thutmose II - only 11 pharaohs.
The most “expensive” section of the museum is works of art that have come down to us from the so-called Amarna time when Egypt was ruled by the “pharaoh-heretic” Amenhotep IV, the father of Tutankhamun. It was he who renounced the many gods of his ancestors and officially introduced the cult of the sun god Aton in the country. Thanks to his aesthetic requirements, a new, previously unprecedented artistic movement was born, which, unlike the restrained ancient Egyptian canonical art, is very similar to a kind of expressionism.
In general, the Cairo Museum is based on the "Service of Antiquities" organized by the Egyptian government, which in every way prevented the lawlessness that reigned at the archaeological site. However, the Cairo Museum owes its real birth to its first director, the Egyptologist Mariett, who came to Cairo from the Louvre in order to acquire papyrus. In love with this country, Auguste Mariette stayed here, devoting his life to creating a museum that would collect all the treasures found on ancient land.
His ashes rest there, in the courtyard of the museum.