Even before it opened this week, the Grand Egyptian Museum looked to be making history.
Egypt is finally allowing the public to view some of the 700,000 years’ worth of artifacts devoted to four eras of history and displayed in 12 enormous halls on a plot the size of 80 football fields, a project delayed for nearly two decades by war, an armed uprising and the pandemic.
Only a section of the museum covering over 5 million square feet opened Wednesday, with the rest of the facility to be inaugurated when authorities deem the time is right. When it is opened fully, it will be the largest museum dedicated to a single civilization.
The museum, which is just over a mile north of the Great Pyramids of Giza outside Cairo, expects nearly 4,000 visitors for its debut, Al-Tayeb Abbas, the museum’s deputy director, told NBC News.
“We are testing ourselves for the grand opening,” he said.
For renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, the opening is a dream come true.