My Neighbor… The Grand Egyptian Museum

I live next to the Grand Egyptian Museum. I used to see it every day, growing before my eyes — from an ambitious idea to a majestic reality preparing for a rebirth moment that the whole world awaits. I watched how the entire area around it transformed into a dazzling and unique tourist model. Yet, the moment I truly felt its value was not in Giza, but in Berlin.

This past July, I attended the first international promotional event for the Grand Egyptian Museum, organized by the German University in Cairo. There, I witnessed a scene I will never forget: long lines of Germans standing outside the hall just to see the museum’s model and a few displayed replicas. They waited in curiosity and wonder. Just the miniature exhibits were enough to fascinate them. What I saw and heard in Germany made it clear that the museum is not merely a cultural project—it is a human milestone that will transform the world’s perception of Egypt and its civilization.

At the event, Dr. Ahmed Ghoneim, Director of the Grand Egyptian Museum, Egyptian Ambassador to Berlin Dr. Mohamed El-Badri, and Dr. Ashraf Mansour, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the German University in Cairo, all spoke about the future—about research, innovation, and creating new cultural content born in Egypt and shared with the world.

When I returned to Cairo, I followed how the German Embassy treated the museum as a center of knowledge creation and cultural exchange. Then came the grand opening in Cairo, confirming everything I had witnessed in Berlin. The entire world was watching—presidents, kings, global media, cultural institutions, and think tanks. The opening moment became a global trend, as if the planet itself had paused that night to witness the birth of a new era beginning at the Pyramids Plateau.

Now, every time I walk past it, I feel as if I live beside a radiating source of civilization for all humanity. The Grand Egyptian Museum is more than a monument; it is a project of humanity, of memory, of the future—one that restores our innate right to marvel at a civilization that continues to live and inspire through time.