Egypt's first national museum, opened in 1902 on Tahrir Square, with around 170,000 objects.
Stand at the Narmer Palette, meet the crystal eyes of Rahotep and Nofret, then climb to the gold mask of Psusennes I.
Tutankhamun has moved. His gold mask left Tahrir for the Grand Egyptian Museum in late October 2025, and the royal mummies have been at NMEC since 2021. The Egyptian Museum itself is open daily, 9 am to 5 pm. Official hours and pricesChecked October 2026
What moved, spelled outTut at the GEM, the royal mummies at NMEC
Ticket in the price?We say what every from-price covers
Free cancellationUp to 24 hours before, on every tour here
Licensed EgyptologistsGuides booked in advance, not at the gate
Tours
Choose your Egyptian Museum tour
In the centre, a private half-day with an Egyptologist and the entry ticket already paid. Either side, the
cheapest way to get there and a full Cairo day with every entry fee included. Every card opens a full tour page.
The from-price is a private car to Tahrir and back; the Egyptologist and the entry ticket are options you add at checkout. Good if you want to set your own pace inside.
What's included
Private air-conditioned car, hotel pickup and drop-off
An Egyptologist leads your group through Tahrir's best rooms in about three hours, from the Narmer Palette to the Tanis gold. Hotel pickup and the entry ticket are in the price.
What's included
A private Egyptologist guide for your group
Entry ticket to the Egyptian Museum
Hotel pickup and drop-off by air-conditioned minivan
Memphis Tours fits Tahrir, the Citadel's Alabaster Mosque, Coptic Cairo and Khan el-Khalili into one private day. Every entry fee and a local lunch are in the price.
Two questions sort it out. Is the entry ticket in the price or extra? And do you want Tahrir on its own,
or with the Citadel, the pyramids or the royal mummies on the same day?
The Egyptian Museum ticket is 550 EGP for foreign adults and 275 EGP for students in 2026, paid by
card at the door; under-6s go free. Children up to 11 pay a child rate on every tour here, and every tour cancels free up
to 24 hours before.
Before you book
Tut has moved. The museum hasn't.
For a century, Tutankhamun's gold mask was the reason people came to the pink building on Tahrir Square. It is not
there anymore. The Tutankhamun hall closed on 20 October 2025, and the mask and coffins went to the
Grand Egyptian Museum next to the Giza pyramids, which opened on 1 November 2025. The royal mummies left
earlier: 22 kings and queens rode to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat on 3 April 2021.
Many tour listings still promise both. Read them with that in mind.
What is left is most of the collection, around 170,000 objects, and the best Old Kingdom sculpture anywhere: the
Narmer Palette, King Djoser, Khafre on his throne with the falcon behind his head, Rahotep and Nofret. Upstairs, the
royal tombs of Tanis fill the old Tut room with gold, including the mask and silver coffin of Psusennes I, and the
burial of Yuya and Thuya still has its gilded masks and mummies. Visitor numbers have dropped from 7,000 a day to
under 2,000, which makes Tahrir the quietest great museum in Cairo.
1902
The year Khedive Abbas Helmy II opened Marcel Dourgnon's building.
It turns 125 in November 2027, and it has been on UNESCO's tentative list since 2021.
Old KingdomTanis goldYuya and ThuyaAmarna
The central atrium under its skylight, with the biggest statues lined up at the far end.
01
Is Tut here?
No. His mask and coffins have been at the Grand Egyptian Museum since late October 2025.
02
Any mummies?
The royal ones are at NMEC. Yuya and Thuya and the animal mummies are still at Tahrir.
03
What does it cost?
550 EGP for a foreign adult in 2026, card only. Students pay half.
04
Who should skip it?
Anyone with one museum slot who came for Tutankhamun. Go to the GEM.
Your visit
How a museum visit runs
About four hours door to door on a half-day tour, two to three of them inside. This is the shape of it.
01
Pickup at your hotel
Your driver meets you in the lobby. From Downtown or Zamalek it is a short hop; from Giza, plan on the traffic.
15 to 60 minutes
02
Security and tickets
An X-ray at the garden gate and another at the door. Tickets are sold by card; big bags go to the cloakroom.
15 to 30 minutes
03
The ground floor
Stone sculpture in rough date order: the Narmer Palette, Djoser, Khafre, Rahotep and Nofret, then the Amarna room and the colossi.
About 90 minutes
04
Upstairs gold
The Tanis treasures, the burial of Yuya and Thuya, coffins, jewellery and the animal mummies.
Card only at the window since June 2023: Visa, Mastercard or Meeza. No cash.
The Cairo Pass (US$130, five days, paid in cash dollars or euros) is reported to cover Tahrir; it does not cover the GEM.
On a tour, check whether the ticket is in the price. On the cheapest listings it is an option.
Phone photos are free. No flash and no tripods; filming for work needs a permit.
Bags larger than 40 by 40 cm go to the cloakroom, and bags can be searched.
No knives or other sharp objects. Never bring a drone to Egypt without clearance.
Licensed guides can talk inside the halls. Unlicensed "guides" at the gate cannot, and should not be hired.
No dress code, but covered shoulders and knees are the respectful norm in Cairo.
Comfortable shoes: stone floors, stairs and two big floors to walk.
Carry water. Not every gallery is cooled, and upstairs gets warm from May to September.
A hat helps in the garden queue on summer afternoons. Full list in the tickets and hours guide.
Tahrir SquareSadat metroLines 1 and 2 stop right under the square, a few minutes' walk from the gate.
Grand Egyptian Museum20 to 25 kmAbout 30 to 45 minutes by road to Giza, where Tutankhamun is now.
NMECAbout 7 kmFustat, 15 to 30 minutes south, home of the royal mummies.
Time inside2 to 3 hoursEnough for both floors and the highlights; 90 minutes at a push.
Ticket550 EGPForeign adult, 2026, card only. Half price for students.
Refund24 hoursFree cancellation up to a day before on every tour here.
Where it is
Finding the museum
On Tahrir Square, downtown
Midan el-Tahrir, Downtown Cairo: the entrance is on the north side of the square, next to the Nile Ritz-Carlton
The museum sits on the busiest square in Cairo, a few hundred metres from the Nile. The metro is the easy way in:
Sadat station is under the square. Uber and Careem drivers know the gate. The one thing to ignore is the man who
tells you the museum is closed today and offers to walk you somewhere better. It is open every day.
Sadat metro (Lines 1 and 2): a few minutes on foot
Khan el-Khalili: about 3 km, 10 to 20 minutes by taxi
4.9★★★★★ 34 reviews · Private half-day Egyptian Museum tour Viator rating
★★★★★
We had a wonderful guide, Hassan Ghanem, for our visit to the old Egyptian Museum. He is an Egyptologist, and his knowledge and love of his subject really added to our experience. Even if you have seen the GEM, this museum is well worth a visit.
★★★★★
We’d been unsure of whether we would need a guide in the old Egyptian museum but are very glad we did as the labels are limited and we got so much more out of it through having someone explaining the objects and history.
★★★★★
What I really appreciated was how she paced the tour [...] never rushing us, always checking in to make sure we had time to take photos, wander a bit, or just absorb the magic of the place on our own.
★★★★★
After exploring the pyramids, Saqqara, and Memphis, the museum really brought everything together, helping us connect the dots and see the full picture of Egypt’s fascinating history.
★★★★★
We had a great guide who was a curator at the Egyptian Museum so clearly knew what he was showing us. Thoroughly recommend this one.
★★★★★
[...] first thing is to make sure you know what museum you’re going to as we learned there was the old and the new museum. [...] The building had a lot of character and charm as well as several great exhibits.
★★★★★
Our guide, Osama, was extremely knowledgeable, especially during our visit to the Egyptian Museum, where his explanations brought the ancient artifacts to life.
★★★★★
Our tour guide Mahmoud was great. He took us all around and knew his history. He took us to the major things in the museum and let us explore after.
★★★★★
You get a diverse picture of Cairo, historical, cultural, and religious with a great lunch in an historic restaurant in the Khan Al-Kalili Market/Bazaar area.
Where Tut went
Add the Grand Egyptian Museum
Tahrir for the Old Kingdom and the Tanis gold, the GEM for Tutankhamun. Two museums, two days.
Tutankhamun's gold mask now lives at the Grand Egyptian Museum, a short drive from the pyramids. Memphis Tours covers both in one private day, with the tickets, lunch and an Egyptologist included. Keep it for a different day from Tahrir: the two museums are about 25 km apart by road.
Most of what you read about this museum was written before November 2025. Here is what it is now, and how
to get the most from it.
What moved, and when
Moves out of Tahrir have been going on for years. The last of Tutankhamun's chariots left for the Grand Egyptian Museum in 2018,
and by June 2025 only 26 of his objects were still downtown, the gold mask and the innermost coffin among them. The
Tutankhamun hall closed on 20 October 2025, the last pieces were packed, and the GEM opened in Giza on 1 November with
all 5,000 or so of the king's objects together for the first time. The royal mummies had gone four years earlier. On
3 April 2021, 22 kings and queens, Ramesses II, Seti I and Hatshepsut among them, rode through Cairo in the Pharaohs'
Golden Parade to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat.
Other pieces went to the GEM in batches of a few hundred, a few colossal statues included. One Egyptologist blogger put
the scale well: if Tahrir is a bucket of water, the GEM took an espresso cup.
Seated kings in hard dark stone fill the Old Kingdom rooms on the ground floor.
What is still here
The ground floor is the reason to come. The Narmer Palette, carved around 3100 BC, records a king of Upper Egypt
striking down an enemy and is often called the first historical document. The seated Djoser is the oldest
life-size statue known from Egypt. Khafre, builder of the second pyramid at Giza, sits in hard dark stone with
Horus at his neck. Rahotep and Nofret still look back at you with inlaid crystal eyes after 4,500 years. At the end
of the atrium, Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye sit side by side, seven metres tall, with three of their daughters at their
feet. The Amarna room keeps Akhenaten's strange long-faced statues.
Upstairs, the hall that held Tutankhamun now shows the royal tombs of Tanis, found intact in 1940: the gold mask
of Psusennes I, his silver coffin and the gold of Amenemope. Nearby, the burial of Yuya and Thuya, the parents of
Queen Tiye, has gilded masks, chairs, chests and the two mummies themselves.
The honest small print: several Viator listings for Tahrir still mention Tutankhamun's mask, the
royal mummies or a Mummy Room. None of those are at Tahrir today. Each of our tour pages says what you
will actually see and what the from-price covers.
Ground floor first
The building is laid out like a clock. Start left of the entrance with the Old Kingdom and walk clockwise through the
Middle and New Kingdoms to the late periods, then take the stairs. Labels are short, often old and sometimes missing, and
objects are packed into wooden cases from another century. That is part of the charm, and the reason a good guide pays
for itself here. Two to three hours is right. Arrive at 9 am, when the galleries are cool and empty, or after 3 pm, once
the coach groups have left for lunch at Giza.
The Grand Egyptian Museum, near the Giza pyramids, now holds the full Tutankhamun collection.
Guide, audio guide or alone?
Alone works if you have read up and like to wander; the audio guide costs 75 EGP at the door. A licensed Egyptologist
makes the most difference in the Old Kingdom rooms, where the objects are plain stone and the stories are not on the
labels. Book through a tour with the guide in the price, and skip anyone who offers their services at the gate. Our
guided tour guide compares the options, and the
highlights guide gives a room-by-room route.
The ground floor runs roughly in date order, clockwise from the entrance.
Straight answers to what people ask most about the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Is King Tut's mask still in the Egyptian Museum?
No. The Tutankhamun hall at Tahrir closed on 20 October 2025, and the gold mask and coffins moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza before it opened on 1 November 2025. Tahrir still has royal gold, mainly the Tanis treasures. See Egyptian Museum or GEM.
Where are the royal mummies now?
At the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) in Fustat. Twenty-two kings and queens, Ramesses II and Hatshepsut among them, moved there in the Pharaohs' Golden Parade on 3 April 2021. Tahrir still shows the mummies of Yuya and Thuya and a room of animal mummies. More in where the mummies are.
Is the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir still open?
Yes, every day from 9 am to 5 pm, with the ticket window closing at 4 pm. In Ramadan it closes at 4 pm. It did not close when the Grand Egyptian Museum opened, whatever a man at the gate may tell you.
How much is the Egyptian Museum ticket in 2026?
550 EGP for a foreign adult, 275 EGP for a foreign student with a valid card, and free under 6. Egyptians pay 30 EGP. Payment is by card only. The audio guide costs 75 EGP. Details in the tickets and hours guide.
Is the Egyptian Museum worth visiting after the GEM opened?
Yes, if you care about the Old Kingdom, the Tanis gold and a museum building from 1902. It costs about a third of the GEM ticket and is far quieter. If you have time for one museum and Tutankhamun is the reason you came, go to the GEM. The highlights guide lists what is still here.
Can you take photos inside the Egyptian Museum?
Yes. Phone photos are free. Flash and tripods are not allowed, and commercial filming needs a permit from the Ministry.
How long do you need at the Egyptian Museum?
Two to three hours covers the highlights on both floors. With 90 minutes you can see the ground floor and the Tanis room. Keen Egyptologists can spend half a day. A half-day tour with hotel pickup takes about four hours in total.
Do I need a guide for the Egyptian Museum?
You do not have to have one, but the labels are thin and the rooms are crowded with objects, so a licensed Egyptologist saves time. Book one in advance rather than at the gate. Compare the options in guide, audio guide or alone.
What is the difference between the Egyptian Museum and the Grand Egyptian Museum?
The Egyptian Museum is the 1902 building on Tahrir Square downtown, with around 170,000 objects, the Old Kingdom masterpieces and the Tanis gold. The GEM opened in November 2025 next to the Giza pyramids, about 25 km away by road, and shows the complete Tutankhamun collection.
Can I visit the Egyptian Museum and the GEM on the same day?
Yes, but it is a long day. Start at Tahrir at 9 am, then drive 30 to 45 minutes to the GEM for the afternoon. The GEM sells foreign visitors timed tickets online only, so book that slot first.
Which metro station is closest to the Egyptian Museum?
Sadat, on Lines 1 and 2, right under Tahrir Square. Take the exit for the museum and walk a few minutes to the gate on the north side of the square. The getting there guide covers Uber and taxis too.
Can I cancel an Egyptian Museum tour?
Every tour on this site cancels for a full refund up to 24 hours before the start. Museum tickets bought at the door are for the same day only.
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