The neolithic cultures that had been in the Nile Valley for around six centuries cohered into the first dynasties of the Old Kingdom around 3,150 BC. Thereafter, an Egyptian civilisation arose with a distinctive artistic style, written language, and social organisation. This remained recognisable over a period of about 4,000 years, until a definitive break came with the Arab conquest of 641 AD.
What this means is that when Rameses II fought the battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC – the event that his statue celebrates – the first dynasty of the Old Kingdom was about as distant to him as the last dynasty of the New Kingdom is to us now.
That’s the span of time the museum was built to cover.
A second consideration is that the arid Egyptian climate preserved more or less everything, including papyrus and wooden objects that only survive in deserts. In any case, Egyptians used stone for their important buildings, and they covered it with information, all of which became legible with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799.
As a result, the sheer quantity of material gathered over that time, and the amount that it tells us, is astonishing. How does the museum make it intelligible for the visitor?
The principles behind the museum’s internal layout are explained by Mennatallah Heikal, design coordinator for project manager Hill International. The galleries, she says, are divided into historical epochs: pre-dynastic, Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom, followed by the Greco-Roman period.
Within the galleries, the artefacts are arranged into thematic streams, such as society, kingship, and religion. “If I want to concentrate on one aspect of life, say society and how it evolved, I would go in one direction,” she said. “If I want to study one era, I go in the other direction, so it’s a matrix.”
She adds that the division of themes follows the Egyptian association of the east where the sun rises with life, and the west with death.
For example, the urban centre of Thebes, which arose in the Middle Kingdom, had the temple complex of Karnak on the east bank of the Nile and the necropolis, including the Valley of the Kings, on the west. So in the chronological galleries, subjects dealing with funeral procedures and the afterlife are on the western side and those dealing with living society on the east.
Her job is to work with the Ministry of Antiquities to decide on the correct place for every artefact in the matrix. “We advise them on what would work well with the building and what wouldn’t, and whether it should be on the east or west.”