The Egyptian Museum Cairo and Midan Tahrir

Midan Tahrir is home to the Egyptian Museum Cairo, the Arab League, the American University in Cairo, and upscale international hotels. This Cairo travel guide will tell you all about this important area.

Midan Tahrir, Cairo

Midan Tahrir, which is also known as "Liberation Square," or Tahrir Square, is the large public square at the center of modern Cairo. It also gives you passage to the streets and institutions nearby.

The Egyptian Museum Cairo, the Arab League, the American University in Cairo, and the Hilton and Intercontinental Hotels are situated here as well. There are also several government offices here, including those that you can go in order to renew your visa. The Cairo Metro's center is under Midan Tahrir. In addition, many buses and taxis stop frequently at Tahrir Square.

Tahrir Square has a relatively open view, which can be welcome to the confused tourist. It can give you the opportunity to look around and get your bearings within this bustling city.

The most prominent building bordering Tahrir Square is the rather aged Nile Hilton, which sits between the Square and the Nile Corniche. Just to the north and across from the hotel is the can't-be-missed Egyptian Museum, built of reddish-pink stone.

Just south of the Nile Hilton Hotel is the Arab League Building, which has seen better days. Across the busy Sharia Tahrir, the imposing Mogamma Building houses 18,000 employees of the Egyptian bureaucracy and also has convenient visa renewal offices.

Sharia Tahrir then crosses the Nile over the Tahrir Bridge and into Gezira, the island suburb. Then, it goes to Giza and the Pyramids, a distance of several miles, so walking would be a problem for most. Next to the Mogamma Building is the small, attractive Mosque of Omar Makram. Here, many state and business funerals are hosted. Slightly further south is the Intercontinental Hotel.

To the east of Tahrir Square are several large office buildings and stores with neon signs. Crossing busy Qasr al-Ainy will get you to the American University of Cairo campus.

Getting around Tahrir Square

To best get around the Tahrir Square area, you should probably use the interconnected underground pedestrian tunnels that link the Metro station to various points in and around the Square.

Not only can this save you a lot of time, but it saves you from having to negotiate the heavy traffic and the current remodeling project of the Square itself.

The Egyptian Museum Cairo

The Egyptian Museum Cairo is officially known as the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities and sits on the northern edge of Midan Tahrir. It is one of the world's great museums. It houses an extensive collection of Egyptian antiquities. The Cairo Museum, as it is also known, has at least 136,000 items on display. Many hundreds of thousands more wait in storage. More yet are added each year to storage as ongoing excavation and discovery finds new items.

The main collection will eventually be transferred to a new Grand Egyptian Museum Cairo, which will sit within close proximity to the Giza Pyramids. The new location will likely be much more user friendly with better labeling and documentation, which is sometimes poor in the current facility for even prime exhibits.

This new museum springs from the Egyptian Antiquities Service, which was established by the Egyptian government in 1835. It's an attempt to limit loading of antiquities sites and artifacts. It first officially opened in 1858 with a collection by French archaeologist Auguste Mariette. He was also employed by Isma'il Pasha to organize the collection. The collection was housed in an annex of the Bulaq palace of Ismail Pasha in Giza beginning in 1880 and then moved to its present location in 1900, which is within a structure on Tahrir Square in Cairo's city center.

Egyptian Museum Highlights

Funerary mask of Tutankhamen
The tomb of Tutankhamen, who was also known as "the boy king," was discovered in 1922, and was gradually excavated over the next few years. Many of the objects discovered therein were brought to the Egyptian Museum Cairo for display.

A few objects found their way into foreign collections, while several, including the inner sarcophagus and the body itself, remained in the small tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Several items from the Tutankhamen collection are still on tour to museums in North America and Europe.

The Royal Mummies, Upper Floor
This exhibit has a separate admission charge of LE 100 (2007) and no photographs are allowed. Many pharaohs of the New Kingdom Period and beyond are displayed here in the Royal Mummy Hall. This is at the corner of the first-floor lobby. About 10 Royal Mummies are displayed in temperature and pressure controlled glass cabinets. Unfortunately, these mummies are not identified by the name of the period to which they belong, nor is any other chronological information given.

Shopping in the Egyptian Museum
There's a bookstore and several small gift stores within the Egyptian Museum Cairo; these are open during museum hours and sit within the main entrance hall to the museum. The prices can be somewhat inflated. One should also take care that the proprietors do not pass off a grimy equivalent of the display copies customers think they are purchasing.

Admission for adults is LE 40, and for children, 20 (2007).

Eating at Midan Tahrir

Midan Tahrir offers many convenient dining options for the traveler. Just opposite the American University in Cairo, there are the familiar restaurants of McDonald's, Pizza Hut and KFC.

The basement of the annex to the Hilton on Tahrir Square offers a variety of international eateries in a food court type of setting. Here you can choose from Egyptian, American hamburgers, etc. Prices are reasonable and the setting is comfortable.

'Cilantro', 31 Mohamed Mahmoud St., opposite AUC is a popular hangout for AUC students and is a modern coffee chain. Customers can purchase sandwiches, salads and other familiar dishes. Wi-Fi is available and credit cards are accepted.

Staying Safe at Midan Tahrir

The roads are very busy and congested, and Egyptian motorists are not always as careful as tourists assume they might be. They almost never honor red lights. Therefore, to be safe, be careful crossing the roads.

In other ways, though, Tahrir Square is generally considered one of the safest areas for tourists to stay and visit, because it is full of heavily guarded government offices, the American University of Cairo, and international hotels and cultural institutions. It is also a frequent gathering spot for those of political ilk to stage protests, which can become violent. Therefore, if protests are happening, one should avoid this area.

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