I asked the most famous Egyptian archaeologist, Zahi Hawasswho visited Portugal at the beginning of the year, explained how figures from so many millennia ago, such as Tutankhamun, Nefertiti or Hatshepsut, are nowadays names that practically everyone knows around the world. The answer was: “because Ancient Egypt has more magic than any other civilization in the world. If you ask a child on the streets of Lisbon to tell you what Egypt is, they will tell you the Great Pyramid of Khufu [Quéops]known to everyone. Or the Sphinx will say, about which I revealed the secrets. Or he will talk about Tutankhamun and the mummies. So this is really natural, because Ancient Egypt is amazing. It is a civilization that brings excitement, magic and mystery to everyone.”
The civilization of Ancient Egypt, with all its magic, now has a new space of excellence to be seen and appreciated, as this Saturday the Grand Egyptian Museum opens (GEM, its acronym in English), located next to the Pyramids of Giza, not far from Cairo, and the Nile, a river that in the same interview with DN, Hawass described as “a source of life for Egypt”, today as in the past.