Egyptian Museum (Tahrir)

In the 19th century, antiquities left Egypt by the shipload. The French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette founded Egypt's antiquities service in 1858 and a museum to keep finds in the country. After moving twice, the collection settled in the purpose-built museum on Tahrir Square in 1902.

The museum is strongest on the earliest and grandest periods: the Narmer Palette, often described as recording the unification of Egypt around 3100 BC; the seated statue of Khafre carved in hard diorite; the lifelike painted statues of Rahotep and Nofret; and the gilded furniture of Yuya and Tjuyu, Tutankhamun's great-grandparents.

The royal mummies moved to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in April 2021, in a televised procession known as the Pharaohs' Golden Parade.

Upstairs, one of the museum's least-known highlights is the royal burial treasure from Tanis in the Nile Delta, found by Pierre Montet in 1939–1940. The kings of the 21st and 22nd Dynasties were buried in silver coffins with gold masks and jewellery — a find as rich as Tutankhamun's, overshadowed because it was made as the Second World War began.

The museum also shows Fayum mummy portraits: lifelike faces painted on wooden panels in the first centuries AD and placed over the mummies of Egypt's Greek and Roman-era inhabitants. They are among the earliest realistic portraits to survive from the ancient world.