New museum hosts mummies of 22 Egyptian pharaohs

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians watch with excitement, one might say devotion, as a pharaonic procession passes by, just as their ancestors did more than 3,000 years ago. It is Saturday 3 April and the streets and squares of Cairo watch in awe as 22 pharaohs, 18 kings and 4 queens, of Ancient Egypt are transferred from their temporary home in the Egyptian Museum, where they have been resting for a century, to the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation (NMEC) in Al Fustat, south of the capital in the Coptic quarter, a mega-museum dedicated solely to the culture of the pharaohs from the Pharaonic era to the present day, including the Greco-Roman, Coptic, and Islamic eras as well as modern and contemporary.

In contrast to the ancient burials, which took place in hidden and secret passages of the Valley of the Kings and were only seen by the chosen few, this time, in addition to thousands of Egyptians and tourists, millions of viewers of the 300 television channels that broadcast it live will be able to see it.

The procession, which has come to be known as the Golden Parade of the Pharaohs, according to Egyptologist Hamdi Zaki, who was the Tourism Advisor for Spain and Latin America for many years, is headed by the pharaoh Seqenenre Taa and is closed by Ramses IX. Between them, in chronological order, are the outstanding mummies of Ramses II, his father Seti I, Tumotsis III, and the queens Hatshepsut and Ahmose Nefertari. Most of these mummies were discovered near Luxor, in southern Egypt, from 1881 onwards. Between pharaoh and pharaoh, the parade is enlivened by performances by Egyptian artists such as Mona Zaki, Sawsan Badr, Hussein Fahmy, and Yousra.

The parade starts at the emblematic Altahrir Square where they make several laps around the newly installed obelisk of Ramses II and continues with a walk through the streets of the city of Cairo. Of course, everything is done under heavy security measures not only out of respect for the pharaohs, but also because of the risk of COVID. Egypt has remarkably overcome the pandemic, for a country with more than 100 million inhabitants, there have been less than 12,000 deaths and the incidence is currently only 9.26 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Each pharaoh is carried in his sarcophagus by an ancient-style golden chariot made by Egyptian artists, imitating the chariots found in Tutankhamun's tomb but with modern technology, in a casing containing nitrogen, in conditions very similar to those of the urns in which they were kept in the museum. The vehicles transporting them are also fitted with a mechanism to prevent impacts. 

At the gates of the new museum, the illustrious pharaohs will be received by Egyptian President Abdelfatah El-Sisi and senior Egyptian authorities as well as archaeological experts, such as the renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass. "For the first time, the mummies will be presented in a beautiful way, for educational purposes," said Zahi Hawass himself.

The new museum in Fustat is an appetizer for the grandiose Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) project, near the pyramids, which will be inaugurated in the coming months and will house the Cairo Museum's pharaonic collections, including the famous treasure of King Tutankhamun. His tomb, discovered in 1922, contained the mummy of the young king and numerous objects of gold, ivory and alabaster.

Two new cultural and tourist attractions with which Egypt hopes to recover the good streak of tourist visitors it had until 2019, when it received 13.6 million tourists, with an increase that year of 21% over the previous one.

WATCH VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnL_SZ2P0YY&feature=emb_imp_woyt