Tuesday, June 19, 2007

More on the new Al Arich, Sinai, museum

Another look at the new Al Arich museum.

The Museum of Al-Arich, located in the Egyptian city of the same name, was opened to visitors early this month. The museum took three years to build, at a cost of US$ 8 million. It brings together 2,000 pieces from different periods of Egyptian history, and also vestiges of the crossing of the Sinai by the Holy Family.

Egypt has a new museum to tell its millennial history. Early this month, the Egyptian city of Al-Arich, located in the Sinai Peninsula, opened a museum that brings together 2,000 items from the Pharaonic, Greco-Roman, Coptic, Byzantine, and Muslim periods. The official inauguration will take place in the following weeks. The Al-Arich Museum took three years to build, and its premises cost 45 million Egyptian pounds, the equivalent of US$ 8 million. Statues, busts, icons, coins, lanterns, and manuscripts from all periods of Egyptian history are now showcased at the site.

In the museum, modern techniques were adopted in order to highlight the value of the objects. "Our goal is not only to make a simple exhibit of the pieces. We want visitors to understand the culture linked to our heritage," says the director general at the Egyptian Authority for Regional Museums, Ahmed Charaf. The museum spans an area of 19,000 square metres, with indoor and outdoor sections. In the open air, in an arch-shaped garden, there is also an amphitheatre.

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