The unhealthy man from ‘The Mummy’ sneaked into the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum | Culture | EUROtoday

The GEM, the Grand Egyptian Museum, has lastly been inaugurated, the brand new jewel within the crown of the monumental and vacationer points of interest of the nation of the Nile, hailed as “the fourth pyramid” and the biggest middle on this planet devoted to a single civilization of antiquity. The reality is that, after a lot postponement (the primary stone was laid 23 years in the past), many people didn’t imagine that the GEM was really inaugurated till we noticed the photographs of President Abdel Fattah al Sisi greeting the dignitaries who had been unloading their automobiles in an extended line of high-end automobiles subsequent to the brand new museum, amidst trumpets and fanfares. Having gotten there, it could have been very sturdy to have one other sit-in.

The opening ceremony, which I adopted on line, was usually Egyptian, with an incredible deployment of sources, particularly human ones – there is no such thing as a scarcity of individuals: lots of of extras dressed as historical Egyptians and with a cane-lamp completed within the form of a pyramid that can trigger a sensation at Ikea -, and the overloaded lavishness that the nation’s authorities have accustomed us to on massive events. As in the event that they had been reopening the Suez Canal or the New Library of Alexandria, with which the GEM, in Arabic al-Mathaf al Misriyy al-Kabir, which stands a stone’s throw (2 kilometers) from the pyramids of Giza, has some similarities.

The gala was lengthy and motley and made one consider that scholar’s warning: “It is the duty of Egyptology to awaken the dead, not send the living to sleep.” I bear in mind from the ceremony the drones drawing Egyptological icons within the sky (like Tutankhamun’s masks or his coffin), the fireworks, the dervishes and the lasers dotting the pyramids; the 2 majestic orchestras performing a program of nice eclecticism (Debussy, Rimsky-Kórsakov, conventional Nubian music), or the singers—identified faces of the star system Egyptian—that adopted each other between aerial panoramic views of the museum and travelings for its inside, particularly the grand staircase of statues and the grand foyer (all the pieces is massive on the GEM). I actually favored the half by which it was represented, bathing the complete patio of the GEM in blue mild, the submerged Alexandria, the previous metropolis below water, a lot of whose stays, rescued by Frank Goddio’s staff of divers, the museum displays in its rooms. The presence of creatures comparable to nereids or mermaids that floated in house added a dreamlike and fairy dimension.

But above all, with the permission of Rania of Jordan and her pink costume, I’m left with the thrilling look of pharaonic kings and queens each outdoors the brand new middle, which occupies the world of ​​70 soccer fields, and in different monumental factors with which the pageant was linked (the Sphinx, the Bent Pyramid, the temple of Abu Simbel, that of Deir el Bahari, that of Luxor or that of Philae). I assumed I acknowledged Ramses II, Tutankhamun (chubby and with a thick golden scarab on his chest), Akhenaten, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Nefertari, Cleopatra… However, what stunned me most was seeing among the many members of one of many recreated royal courts, the one deployed in Giza, a princess identical to Anck-Su-Namun!, the fictional concubine of Seti I and secret lover of the nice priest Imhotep in The mummy, the 1999 model of the traditional.

It is troublesome to say if the woman on the ceremony, who was carrying a big ankh, the Egyptian Ansada cross of life, appeared by pure probability just like the actress Patricia Velasquez from the movie, the unhealthy man of the story, or somebody determined to wink on the most recalcitrant Egyptomaniacs. But the very fact is that the looks of the princess with lengthy straight raven hair, a haughty, angular and sensual face and a golden costume (much less daring than the one within the opening scene of the movie, thoughts you) induced a shock and introduced you into the ceremony in a approach that the official speeches didn’t.

If you suppose the strangest hallucination was that all of a sudden the screens took us to Japan to see a gaggle of extras dressed as Egyptians dancing in Kyoto. Or that we then moved to Sydney, New York (subsequent to the Statue of Liberty) and Rio de Janeiro (the Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado Hill, which regardless of how arduous he tried, didn’t appear like a colossus of Memnon) to seek out different musicians and dancers. The factor about Japan is defined, in fact, as a result of the nation has put some huge cash into the development of the museum (800 million). Paris was additionally featured (Eiffel Tower and accordions), maybe as a advantageous allusion to France returning to Egypt the claimed Dendera Zodiac – whose plundering Champollion himself criticized – which fortuitously the Louvre thieves haven’t taken, which might have been troublesome to elucidate to the Egyptians.

Also stunning had been the continual allusions to peace, not as a result of it isn’t a pleasant want in these troubled instances however as a result of if Ancient Egypt was not one thing, it’s a peaceable civilization. In truth, Ramses II would have been shocked (and the phrase is price it) to listen to how the battle of Kadesh was talked about within the ceremony – in the midst of which the pharaoh had himself represented on the partitions of his temples crushing enemies mercilessly along with his chariots – to rejoice the peace treaty with the Hittites, “the first of its kind in history.” Some ultralights additionally flew over the pyramids with banners proclaiming “Welcome to the land of peace” and the idea of Maat, justice and steadiness was alluded to, whereas Al Sisi solemnly declared that the one strategy to construct civilizations is peace.

It has been identified that the large present was not solely to mark the inauguration of the GEM – which is predicted to draw 5 million guests a yr, growing tourism by 20% – however to rejoice the complete civilization of Egypt, promote its cultural riches (together with Coptic and Muslim) and ship a message to the world not solely about hope and the need for peace however in regards to the nation’s financial muscle. In this regard, the photographs of the brand new administrative capital below building and its Iconic Tower of just about 400 meters, rival of the GEM obelisk, the one suspended one on this planet, had been vital. It was additionally eloquent that together with the projections of the nice monuments, the nice accommodations of Egypt had been proven, such because the Gezirah Palace or the Old Cataract in Aswan.

Among the previous acquaintances who didn’t miss the inauguration, the previous ministers of tradition Faruk Hosni (below whom the brand new museum was conceived) and Khaled El Anany (immediately the model new new director of UNESCO) and the inevitable Zahi Hawass, who took the chance to emphasise that the guts of the GEM is Tutankhamun’s treasure, the almost 6,000 objects present in his tomb and that now, transferred from the previous Egyptian Museum within the sq. Tahrir, are on show of their entirety for the primary time, together with the 2 unhappy fetuses, the unborn kids of Tut and Ankhesenamun (on whose identify Anck-su-Namun relies, by the way in which), deposited within the tomb. For a number of days now (the opening of the complete museum to the general public was on Tuesday and the attendance has been extraordinary) guests can already see Tut’s two rooms (7,000 sq. meters), however the opening ceremony allowed us to see some pictures of how the gathering has been put in: in an setting stuffed with gloom and thriller, and references to tomb KV62, with the star items (masks, sarcophagi, chariots, the king’s model, the canopic chapel, the black watchmen, the determine of the pharaoh on a panther) very highlighted within the massive house.

References to Tutankhamun within the ceremony had been quite a few. It was much less predictable that there could be Howard Carter because it occurred, though the inauguration opted for the legend and to offer the credit score for the invention of the tomb to the Egyptian boy Hussein Abd el-Rassul, who would have discovered step one resulting in the tomb. Images of the little water service and the well-known pictures of Carter engaged on the grave had been proven. And lastly one other youngster, this one among flesh and blood, Asher, turned the protagonist of the ceremony, discovering with childlike amazement all of the wonders of the museum, that are many: 100,000 objects from the Predynastic to the Roman interval, together with the 2 photo voltaic boats of Cheops.

Some of us discover it troublesome to simply accept the change from the previous and romantic museum in Tahrir Square, from 1902, by which now we have skilled so many issues, to the brand new, glowing, very fashionable and huge GEM. But in case you put your self within the Egyptian perspective, that museum of neoclassical workmanship (which stays open, though very relieved of the very best objects) was nonetheless an expression of a colonial previous. It is sufficient to bear in mind the quite a few references to the European heroes of Egyptology or Auguste Mariette’s personal tomb within the backyard (or the celebration on the pediment, in Latin, of Khedive Abbas II, puppet of the British). With the brand new museum, which locations such worth on Tutankhamun’s treasure, whose discovery marked the paradigm shift in Egyptology and the complete assumption that the antiquities of Egypt are the nation’s indeniable heritage, we’re coming into a brand new period by which Egyptians can take a look at their nice pharaonic museum as one thing fully theirs, and really feel very proud.