Audio guides to be introduced in Egypt Museum

From November 2009 onwards, visitors to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo will be able to view the exhibits with the aid of a new audio guide. For the first time, the system is being introduced at this famous museum at the capital. Dr. Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) said that the audio guide will be launched to reduce the noise made by hundreds of tour guides; in the past, the overlapping voices of the numerous tour guides taking their groups simultaneously through the halls of the museum have caused an increase in noise levels and sound pollution.

This coincides with the museum development project that will create a new route for people visiting the museum. The museum entrance will remain the main gate, but the exit will be at the museum’s western side where visitors will find a large bookstore, a cafeteria and facilities. Hawass said the development project will also organize the museum’s basement in order to accommodate lecture halls, a temporary exhibition hall and study corners.

Built in 1835 by the government, the Egyptian Museum is home to several mummies and remains of a huge number of pharaohs of from the 18th to the 20th Dynasty. These mummies were found in Thebes.

The first group of royalty found in Deir el Bahari (Queen Hatchepsut’s site) cache includes the mummies of Seqenenre, Ahmose I, Amenhotep I, Tuthmosis I, Tuthmosis II, Tuthmosis III, Seti I, Ramses II, Ramses III. The next group found in the tomb of Amenhotep II includes the mummies of King Amenhotep II, Tuthmosis IV, Amenhotep III, Merenptah, Seti II, Siptah, Ramses IV, Ramses V, Ramses VI, and the remains of three women and a child.

This museum showcases over 120000 objects; some of the most remarkable pieces include the artifacts from the tombs of kings and members of the royal families of the Middle Kingdom found at Dahshur in 1894.The contents of the royal tombs of Tuthmosis III, Tuthmosis IV, Amenhotep III and Horemheb and the tomb of Yuya and Thuya. Artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun, with more than 3500 treasures in total, have about half of them (1700 objects) still displayed in the Egyptian museum.

In previous years, when King Tut’s exhibition dubbed Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs toured the US, museum visitors had the pleasure of using the audio tour with narration by Omar Sharif. The show was organized by AEG Exhibitions, an affiliate of AEG Live Events – the creator and producer of the supposed last concert tour of the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson.