The Egyptians
    Overview
    Some dates
    Archaeological sites
    Egyptian Art
    World's museums
    Coinage
    Language and Writing

 Photo credit:

(1)Association
  Les amis de l'Egypte ancienne

(2)Alain Guilleux
  Photos Egypte  

 All rights reserved.

It will not surprise anyone: almost all the Egyptian monuments and sites are located in Egypt. A very evident exception: the obelisks, one of which stands in the heart of Paris, Place de la Concorde, making it the oldest monument in the city. Others are located in Rome, London, New York, Istanbul.

Since Egyptians did not founded colonies around the Mediterranean sea, if you can’t go and see them on the spot, you can just visit museums. Without much regret, however, because, except for the worldwide famous National Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which holds treasures such as Tut-Ankh-Amun, the royal mummies, etc., egyptian museums, though very numerous, are often smaller than many others located in UK, France, Germany, USA, Italy.

If we consider only the number of items they own (as shown below, but all of them are not on display, by far), the most important museums are:

Museum	Nb of items
Egyptian Museum, Cairo	120 000
British Museum, London	110 000
Ägyptisches Museum and Neues Museum, Berlin	80 000
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London	80 000
The Louvre Museum, Paris	50 000
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia	42 000
Museum of Fine Arts à Boston	40 000
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New-York	36 000
Museo Egizio, Torino	32 500
Oriental Institute, Chicago	30 000

We chose to introduce, without pretending to exhaustivity

• the major museums of Egypt, of course,
• also of course, the French museums,
• museums of neighboring countries,
• those of the USA, which are not only extremely rich but have also websites of high quality.

And for the record, a few other museums in Europe.

We’ll mention also some very fine "virtual museums". Many museums’ websites display also samples of their collections on illustrated and well documented pages.

Finally, do not neglect Auction Houses, which periodically exhibit in many cities remarkable private collections which are about to find a new owner. A unique opportunity to watch them for a few hours, (before each sale, a public and free exhibition is open for possible buyers) - before they disappear again, for an average of twenty years.

 Virtual museums     

More than two million items from ancient Egypt are kept throughout the world, in nearly a thousand public museums. Gathering them all in an international virtual museum, this is the goal several projects are aiming at:

- The Global Egyptian Museum, conducted under the auspices of the International Committee for Egyptology (CIPEG) of International Council of Museums the Committee (ICOM-UNESCO) and hosted at the Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT).

 Museums of Egypt     

Of course, tourists mainly visit the archaeological sites, and lack of time in most cases, only relatively few museums. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo is then THE must. Among the others:

On the outskirts of Cairo,
  the Imhotep museum at Saqqara
 the solar boat museum in Giza
 the Museum of Memphis

In Alexandria,
  the Greco-Roman Museum
 the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Museum

At Luxor,
  the Luxor Museum
  the Museum of Mummification

Around Aswan,
  the Nubian Museum
 the Museum of Elephantine

For more adventurous people, visiting oases and outlying regions, let’s mention those of Bahariya, Kharga, Dakhla, Ismailia ... and that’s about it. You may find a list of about fifty other museums on sites like Wikipedia, and especially Desheret... or, going back to the source, the Supreme Council of Antiquities website.

 French Museums     

French archaeological museums are displayed on our website in the section "museums and sites," which contains an interactive map and an alphabetical list by city name. The list below is extracted from this one, mentionning only museums that display Egyptian collections.

Amiens (80000)  Musée de Picardie
Auch (32000)  Musée des Amériques
Avignon (84000)  Musée Calvet
Beaufort-en-Vallée (49250)  Musée Joseph Denais
Besançon (25000)  Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie
Boulogne-Sur-Mer (62200)  Chateau-musée
Bourges (18000)  Musée du Berry
Cannes (06400)  Musée de La Castre
Châteaudun (28200)  Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Histoire Naturelle
Cherbourg (50100)  Museum d'Histoire Naturelle
Colmar (68000)  Museum d'Histoire Naturelle et d'Ethnographie
Compiègne (60200)  Musée d’art et d’archéologie Antoine Vivenel
Dole (39100)  Musée des Beaux-Arts
Doullens (80600)  Musée Lombart
Figeac (46100)  Musée Champollion
Fontaine Chaalis (60300)  Musée Jacquemart André
Grenoble (38000)  Musée de Grenoble
Guéret (23000)  Musée d'Art et d'Archéologie
Laon (02000)  Musée d'Art et d'Archéologie
Le Mans (72000)  Musée de Tessé
Le Puy-en-Velay (43000)  Musée Crozatier
Lille (59000)  Musée des Beaux-Arts
Limoges (87000)  Musée des Beaux-arts
Lyon (69001)  Musée des Beaux-Arts
Marseille (13002)  Musée d'Archéologie Méditerranéenne
Montargis (45200)  Musée du Gâtinais
Moulins (03000)  Musée Anne de Beaujeu
Montpellier (34000)  Musée Languedocien
Nîmes (30000)  Musée Archéologique
Orléans (45000)  Musée Archéologique
Paris (75001)  Musée du Louvre
Perpignan (66000)  Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle
Rennes (35000)  Musée des Beaux-Arts
Riom (63200)  Musée Francisque Mandet
Roanne (42300)  Musée Joseph Déchelette
Rouen (76000)  Musée des Antiquités
Saint-Omer (62500)  Musée de l'Hôtel Sandelin
Toulouse (31400)  Musée Georges Labit
Varzy (58210)  Musée Auguste Grasset


 In neighboring countries     

Belgium

•  Musée du Cinquantenaire , Bruxelles
  
•  Le Grand Curtius , Liège
  
•  Musée royal de Mariemont , Morlanwelz

Germany

•  Berlin Ägyptisches Museum , Berlin
•  Neues Museum , Berlin
  
•  Bonn university museum , Bonn
  
•  Museum fuer Kunst und Gewerbe , Hamburg
  
•  Kestner-Museum , Hannover
  
•  Roemer and Pelizaeus museum , Hildesheim
  
•  Aegyptisches Museum Georg Steindorff der Universitaet Leipzig , Leipzig
  
•  State museum of egyptian art , Munich

Italy

•  Museo delle antichità egizie di Torino Archaeological museum of Torino
  
•  Museo Archeologico Firenze Archaeological museum of Firenze
  
•  Museo Gregoriano Egizio , Gregorian Egyptian museum of Vatican, Rome
•  Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna , Civic Archaeological museum of Bologna
  
•  Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Parma , State Archaeological museum of Parma
•  Museo di Scultura Antica Giovanni Barracco , Museum of Ancient Sculpture Giovanni Barracco, Rome
•  Museo Nazionale Romano - Palazzo Altemps, Rome

Netherlands

•  Allard Pierson Museum , Archaeological museum of Amsterdam university
  
•  Rijksmuseum van Oudheden , State Archaeological museum of Leyden

Spain

•  Museu Egipci de Barcelona , Egyptian museum of Barcelona
  
•  Museo Nacional de Arqueología Madrid , State archaeological Museum of Madrid (closed in 2012)
  
•  Abadia de Montserrat, Abbey of Montserrat

Switzerland

•  Antikenmuseum Basel , Basel archaeological museum
  
•  Historisches Museum , Bern
  
•  Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Genève, Museum of Art and History, Geneva
  
•  Fondation Martin Bodmer , Cologny (Geneva)
  
•  Musée d’Yverdon et région , Yverdon-les-Bains
  
•  Musée d'ethnographie Neuchâtel , Neuchatel

United Kingdom

•  British Museum , London
  
•  Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology , University College, London
  
•  The Manchester Museum , University of Manchester,
  
•  Ashmolean Museum , Oxford
•  The Fitzwilliam Museum , Cambridge
  
•  Museum of Egyptian Antiquities , Swansea
  
•  National Museum of Scotland , Edimburg

 In the USA     

 Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University , Atlanta, Georgia

 Museum of Fine Arts , Boston, Massachusetts

 Glencairn Museum , Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvani)

 Buffalo Museum of Science , Buffalo, New York

 Robert Hull Fleming Museum. University of Vermont , Burlington, Vermont

 Oriental Institute Museum of the university of Chicago , Chicago, Illinois

 Cleveland museum of art , Cleveland, Ohio

 Kimbell Art Museum , Fort Worth, Texas

 Art Museum of The University of Memphis , Memphis, Tennessee

 Institute of Egyptian Art & Archaeology , Memphis, Tennessee

 Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York

 University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology , Philadelphia Pennsylvania

 Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt , Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

 Brooklyn Museum , Brooklyn, New York

 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts , Richmond, Virginia

 Museum of Ancient Civilizations. San Francisco State University , San Francisco, California

 Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum , San Jose, California

 Cantor Arts Center’s, Stanford University , Stanford, Californie

 Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian’s museums of asian art , Washington D.C.


 Elsewhere in Europe     

We’ll admit easily that if you go to Athens, it will not be first to visit Egyptian antiquities. Yet the collections of some European countries we did not mentioned above are far from negligible! Let’s mention some of them, even if they may seem unexpected:

Austria

•  Kunsthistorisches museum Wien , Museum of Art and History of Vienna

Croatia

•  Arheoloski Muzej - Archaeological Museum , Zagreb

Denmark

•  Nationalmuseet Copenhagen , Copenhagen
•  Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek , Copenhagen

Greece

•  National Archaeological Museum , Athens

Ireland

•  National Museum of Ireland , Dublin

Poland

•  Archaeological Museum , Poznan

Portugal

•  Museu Nacional de Arqueologia (National Museum of Archaeology) , Lisbon
•  Museu Calouste Gulbenkian , Lisbon

Russia

•  National Museum of the Hermitage , Saint Petersburg

Sweden

•  Medelhavsmuseet (Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities) , Stockholm
•  Victoriamuseet för egyptiska fornsaker (Victoria Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. Museum Gustavianum) ,Uppsala

... and finally also

in Australia

•  Nicholson Museum. University of Sydney , Sydney

in Canada

•  Royal Ontario Museum , Toronto

in Turkey

•  Museum of the Ancient Orient , Istanbul