Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

“GEM” Receives 202 Artifacts


Mon 13 Jan 2020 | 04:18 PM
Ali Abu Dashish

The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Al-Rimaya square received on Monday 202 artifacts- including 30 wooden pieces from Khufu’s second solar boat- coming from the Egyptian Museum, located in Tahrir square, amid tightened security measures by the Tourism and Antiquities police.

Major General Atef Moftah, the general supervisor of the GEM project explained that some of these pieces will be displayed at the grand staircase, while others will be displayed in the museum’s various exhibition halls, according to the period to which they belong.

On his part, Dr. Al-Tayeb Abbas, director-general of the GEM for archaeological affairs, noted that among most important pieces received by the museum are, statue in the shape of a Sphinx, another one of Amenhotep, son of Hapu, and a statue of Amenhotep III made from colored limestone, wearing the crown of war, in addition to another distinguished group of heavy artifacts.

The general director of executive affairs for the restoration and transportation of antiquities at the Museum Dr. Essa Zidan said that all the archaeological pieces were wrapped in a scientific style according to the nature and size of each monument, especially the wooden group of Khufu’s second solar boat.

It is worth mentioning that, GEM received about 942 wooden pieces from Khufu’s boat so far.

Antiquities and tourism ministry pays great attention to GEM project, as it represents one of the most prominent aspects of cooperation between Egypt and Japan.

The project is supported by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Higashi Nippon International University, headed by Dr. Sakuji Yoshimura.

Contributed by Nada Mustafa