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Under strict police surveillance, the “Golden Parade” of the pharaohs, aboard vehicles that imitate the hearse of the time, traveled in 30 minutes the seven kilometers that separate Tahrir Square, where the historical museum is located and where they rested. mummies for a century, and NMEC.
Both Tahrir Square, recently decorated with an ancient obelisk and four goat-headed sphinxes, and its surroundings were closed “to vehicles and pedestrians,” according to the Interior Ministry. Upon arrival, the kings and queens were greeted by 21 cannons.
Egyptians were able to follow the parade of 18 kings and four queens on state television, which featured a carefully choreographed opening ceremony. Various Egyptian artists participated in the event with musical performances.
“This great spectacle is further proof of the greatness of a unique civilization that reaches the bottom of history,” Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al Sisi reacted on Twitter.
In chronological order, the Pharaoh Sekenenré Taá (16th century BC), of the 17th dynasty, opened the procession, closed by Ramses IX (12th century BC), of the 20th century.
NMEC, which occupies a large building south of Cairo, partially opened in 2017, will open its doors on Sunday, April 4, but the mummies will not be on public display until April 18.
UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay, present at the parade, said in a statement Friday that the transfer of the mummies to NMEC was “the culmination of a long effort to preserve and better display them.”
“The history of Egyptian civilization parades before our eyes,” added the leader of the UN organization, which participated in the creation of NMEC.
Most of the 22 mummies, discovered near Luxor in southern Egypt since 1881, have not left the museum in downtown Cairo, located in the famous Tahrir Square, since the early 20th century.
Since the 1950s, they have been exhibited side by side in a small room, without clear museum explanations for the visitor.
The mummies were each transported in a special tank bearing the sovereign’s name and equipped with shock absorption mechanisms, in a capsule containing nitrogen to preserve them.
At NMEC, they will be exhibited in more modern coffins “for better temperature and humidity control than in the old museum,” Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University of Cairo, a specialist in mummification, told AFP.
The mummies will be presented individually, together with their sarcophagi, in an environment that resembles the underground tombs of the kings, and each one will feature a biography and objects related to the sovereigns.
After years of political instability following the popular uprising in 2011, which seriously affected tourism in the country, Egypt is looking for ways to encourage the return of visitors, in particular by promoting culture.
In addition to NMEC, Egypt will open in a few months the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), near the pyramids of Giza, which will house pharaonic collections.
According to Walid al Batuti, advisor to the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, the parade “shows that after thousands of years, Egypt retains great respect for its leaders,” he told Nile TV International. The grand parade, announced by authorities through online videos, caused a sensation on social media.
Using the Arabic hashtag #maldicao_dos_faraos, many netizens associated the recent catastrophes in Egypt with a “curse” that would have been caused by the displacement of the mummies.
In a week, Egypt suffered the blockade of the Suez Canal by a freighter, a railway accident that left 18 dead in Sohag (south) and the collapse of a building in Cairo that killed at least 25 people.
The “curse of the pharaoh” had already been evoked in the 1920s, after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, followed by the mysterious deaths of members of the team of archaeologists.
