The first museum building was located in the Bulak quarter, on the banks of the Nile, in the house where Mariette settled with his family. There he opened four exhibition halls of Egyptian antiquities. The number of valuable finds, including gold jewelry, was constantly growing.

Mariette died in 1881, the sarcophagus with his body was buried in the garden of the Bulak Museum. Ten years later, the collection will move to Giza, to the old residence of Khedive Ismail, Marietta’s sarcophagus will follow there, and only in 1902 will his dream of creating a museum in the center of the capital, Cairo, finally come true. The building was built on El Tahrir Square by a French architect.

In the garden of the new museum, Mariette will find her last resting place, above his marble sarcophagus, located on the left side of the entrance, his bronze statue will rise in full growth, in a traditional Egyptian costume of the late 19th century, in an Ottoman fez on his head. Around – the busts of the world’s largest Egyptologists, among them – a sculptural portrait of the outstanding Russian scientist of the early twentieth century, V. S. Golenishchev. Marietta’s findings are also exhibited in the garden – the sphinx of Thutmose III made of red granite, the obelisk of Ramses II and other works of monumental art. A huge lobby, about a hundred rooms located on two floors, one hundred and fifty thousand exhibits and thirty thousand items in storerooms covering the five thousand-year history of Ancient Egypt – this is what the Cairo Museum is.

His collection is unique. Passing from hall to hall, the visitor makes an unforgettable journey into the mysterious world of ancient civilization, the cradle of human culture, striking in the abundance and magnificence of its man-made deeds. The exhibits are arranged thematically and chronologically. On the first floor – masterpieces of stone sculpture from limestone, basalt, granite from pre-dynastic to Greek-Roman times. Among them is the famous statue of Pharaoh Khafre, the builder of the second largest pyramid in Giza, made of dark green diorite with light veins, a sculptural composition of Pharaoh Mycerin, shown surrounded by goddesses.

The sculptural group of the married couple of Prince Rahotep and his wife Nofret made of painted limestone is striking in its beauty and subtlety of execution. The wooden statue of Kaaper, called the “Village Headman”, is amazing: at the time of the discovery, the workers of Marietta were struck by the similarity of the features of the statue with the face of the headman of their village.

A separate hall is dedicated to the treasures of Queen Hetepheres, the mother of Pharaoh Cheops, who built the most famous pyramid. Among them are an armchair, a huge bed, a stretcher covered with gold leaf, a casket decorated with inlaid stones in the form of butterfly wings, with twenty silver bracelets. There are also massive sarcophagi of various eras made of red and black granite, pharaohs’ boats made of precious woods, pharaohs’ granite sphinxes. In a separate room – the colossi of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten and the statue of his wife Nefertiti, whose fame and beauty can only compete with Gioconda Leonardo da Vinci. Here is a far from complete list of what a visitor can see on the first floor of the exposition.

The undoubted masterpiece of the collection is the treasures of Tutankhamun, which became a sensation at the beginning of the 20th century. It is not even the abundance of gold that is striking, although Tutankhamun’s mask alone weighs eleven kilograms, but the highest quality of jewelry work with noble metal, precious stones and the most valuable woods. Tutankhamen’s jewelry, including wide gold necklaces inlaid with turquoise, lapis lazuli and coral, massive earrings, pectorals with mythological scenes, have no equal. The furniture is made with special elegance, even the huge gold-studded arks, inside of which the sarcophagus was placed, delight with the subtlety of their workmanship. Full of lyricism is the scene on the back of Tutankhamen’s chair, showing a loving couple of young rulers of a vast country.

Priceless are bowls made of silver and electrum in the form of a flower or with floral motifs found in the tomb of Undjedbauenjed, commander Psusennes I, vessels for ritual libations, golden figurines of goddesses, golden funeral masks of pharaohs. Unique are two sarcophagi made of silver, which was especially valued in Egypt.

In a separate room, where a special temperature and humidity are maintained, the mummies of many famous pharaohs of Egypt are kept. They were found in the necropolis of Qurna in 1871 by the brothers Abd el-Rasul, who for many years kept the secret of their discovery and profited from the treasure trade. From time to time, under the cover of night, they were pulled out of the cache and sold on the black market.