Egyptian Museum of Antiquities gets makeover to compete for tourists
The Egyptian Museum of Antiquities in downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square is undergoing a facelift that tourism officials and curators hope will allow it to compete with the Grand Egyptian Museum, soon to open its doors to visitors.
With the Grand Egyptian Museum, Egypt's much anticipated new antiquities museum set to open its doors to visitors before the year's end, many are wondering what will happen with the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, which has been one of the country's main tourist attractions.
Located at downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square, the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities is an impressive Beaux-Arts building dating to the turn of the 20th century. Despite its popularity among tourists and Egyptian museum-goers, the museum has been subject to criticism due to multiple shortcomings, not least among which is its cramped display space, which helps cause overcrowding.
This has led some critics to liken it to a "warehouse" for Egyptian treasures. The limited space has also meant that many of the antiquities discovered in recent years have had to be stored in the museum's basement, often exposing them to conservation threats.
Poor acoustics are another of the museum's weaknesses. Although visually appealing, its high ceiling and large atriums have undermined the museum's acoustical environment by magnifying the noise in the exhibition halls, causing an echo and excessive reverberation. Furthermore, reaching the museum is in itself a challenge as visitors have to battle central Cairo's notorious traffic to get there.
