Egyptian Museum

What’s actually here now

The big thing to understand before you go: the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square is no longer the Tutankhamun museum. The entire collection — the gold mask, the nested coffins, the throne, all of it — moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza when that fully opened in November 2025. The royal mummies of Ramses II and Hatshepsut left even earlier, in the 2021 “Pharaohs’ Golden Parade”, and now sit in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Old Cairo. If your mental image of this museum is the famous mask in a glass case, that image is now in Giza.

What stays is, in some ways, the more interesting half. Roughly 170,000 objects still fill the cramped, century-old building: the Narmer Palette in Hall 43, marking the unification of Egypt over 5,000 years ago; the seated diorite statue of Khafre; the painted limestone Rahotep and Nofret, whose inlaid eyes are unsettlingly alive; and the gilded funerary gear of Yuya and Thuya, Tutankhamun’s great-grandparents, which survived largely intact. The 1902 building itself — dusty, overstuffed, hand-typed labels — is part of the experience, and a deliberate contrast to the GEM’s airy galleries.

The ticket, the timing, the verdict

Foreign-adult entry is EGP 550 (about £8), students with ID half that, and under-5s free; a photo permit is roughly EGP 300 more. Like every official Egyptian site now, it’s card-only at the gate — bring a debit or credit card, not just cash. Opening hours are 09:00 to 17:00 daily, with the ticket office shutting about an hour before and reduced hours during Ramadan. It’s on the north side of Tahrir Square: the easiest approach is an Uber, or the metro to Sadat station, which surfaces right in the square. Allow two to three hours; labelling is thin, so a guide or a good app earns its keep here far more than at the GEM.

Do the GEM first and properly — that’s where the spectacle now lives. Come to Tahrir if you have a half-day spare and you’re the sort of traveller who wants to stand in front of the Narmer Palette and the building where Egyptology grew up. If you’re choosing one and time is tight, the old museum is the one to drop. Pair it with Coptic Cairo or the Khan el-Khalili bazaar, both a short Uber away, rather than stacking it against the GEM on the same day — seeing both museums back to back blurs into a very long day of glass cases.