Tutankhamun’s Iconic Gold Death Mask Is Getting a New Home Near the Pyramids of Giza
Soon, the elaborately decorated artifact will be transferred to the brand new Grand Egyptian Museum, joining more than 5,000 other items from the boy king’s tomb
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For nearly a century, visitors have flocked to the Egyptian Museum on Cairo’s Tahrir Square to admire Tutankhamun’s funerary mask, the intricately decorated artifact designed to cover the mummified pharaoh’s face.
Starting this summer, they’ll be able to see the mask in its new home, the $1 billion Grand Egyptian Museum located in nearby Giza. Officials will soon transfer the mask to the massive new venue, where it will join more than 5,000 artifacts from the boy king’s tomb.
“Only 26 objects from the Tutankhamun collection, including the golden mask and two coffins, remain here [at the Egyptian Museum] in Tahrir,” says Ali Abdel Halim, director of the Egyptian Museum, to the Agence France-Presse (AFP). “All are set to be moved soon.”
Halim didn’t say when the death mask will be transferred, but the new Grand Egyptian Museum is scheduled to fully open to the public in early July after years of delays.
Some portions of the Grand Egyptian Museum have been open since November 2023, with an additional 12 exhibit halls opening last October. All told, the museum complex spans more than 5 million square feet and houses more than 100,000 artifacts, which makes it the largest museum in the world focused on a single civilization.
“We spent all this money to build the greatest museum in the world,” said Zahi Hawass, an Egyptologist who has twice served as Egypt's tourism and antiquities minister, to NBC News’ Keir Simmons, Charlene Gubash and Mithil Aggarwal in October. “You will see the objects for the first time in an incredible way.”
Tutankhamun's mask has been housed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo since 1934, 12 years after British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the pharaoh’s tomb. However, the 123-year-old Beaux Arts venue is small and starting to show its age, so officials decided to relocate Tutankhamun's treasures to the enormous, high-tech Grand Egyptian Museum.
At the new facility, the Tutankhamun artifacts will have their own dedicated, climate-controlled wing—one that’s large enough to display all of them together for the first time.
Last month, officials carefully transferred 163 Tutankhamun treasures to the new museum, according to an announcement from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. That delivery included the pharaoh’s elaborately decorated ceremonial chair, various pieces of jewelry and the canopic chest that held the jars containing Tutankhamun’s organs, reports Artnet’s Sarah Cascone.
The Egyptian Museum in Cairo, meanwhile, is not closing. Though it has lost Tutankhamun’s treasures and more than 20 mummies, it still has roughly 170,000 artifacts in its collection, per the AFP. Curators say they plan to replace the Tutankhamun artifacts with a new exhibition, though they haven’t shared many details.
