Cairo museum to combine thousands of Egyptian artifacts

Cairo museum to combine thousands of Egyptian artifacts: "Cairo museum to combine thousands of Egyptian artifacts
Monday, June 27, 2005
By Lee Keath, The Associated Press

CAIRO, Egypt -- A giant museum with a glowing alabaster facade, its roof in alignment with the nearby pyramids, will house King Tut's mummy and treasures along with thousands of other artifacts.

The design is finally set for the Grand Museum of Egypt, which is intended to gather -- in one spot at the foot of the pyramids -- some 100,000 artifacts, many of which have been sitting in warehouses for decades.

Egypt is negotiating with the Japanese Bank for International Development for a loan for the $500 million project and plans its own fund-raising drive. The $40 million that Egypt hopes to raise from a current tour of King Tutankhamun artifacts in the United States will go toward the project.

Officials hope to start building on the site this year and to complete construction by 2009, the Supreme Council for Antiquities said.

The museum will be set embedded in a desert plateau at the edge of the Nile Valley, a little more than a mile from the Great Pyramids, according to the model, designed by the Irish firm heneghan.peng.architects.

The dramatically angled roof is aligned with the monuments: A line drawn from one edge of the roof would touch the tip of the pyramid of Cheops -- the largest of the three -- and the other edge points toward peak of the smaller Khefre pyramid.

The 600-yard facade of the building will be covered with translucent alabaster. 'At night, this will be illuminated and glow,' said Yasser Mansour, the head of the Egyptian government's technical committee for the project.
A large triangular gate in the facade leads into the museum."