Nubian Museum Aswan
When was the Nubian Museum built?
The Nubian museum was built and opened its doors to visitors on 23 November 1997. After the Nubian Monuments Rescue Project was implemented, the Egyptian government in cooperation with UNESCO decided to establish the Nubia Museum in Aswan as a result of the Nubian Monuments Rescue Project. through an international appeal, as part of an international campaign under the protection of UNESCO. Many countries, institutions, and museums have participated in the creation of the Nubia Museum to house objects found in Nubia in the last two centuries and recent discoveries.
Nubian Museum Architecture
Do not miss the beautiful architecture of the Nubian Museum of Aswan. Due to the amount of material recovered from tombs, temples, and settlements, UNESCO was encouraged in the 1980s to design a new Nubian museum in Aswan, where the objects could be preserved and exhibited. The museum is located on the road to the airport, opposite the Fatimid cemetery, its sandstone building incorporates the characteristics of traditional Nubian architecture, which blend in well with its rocky surroundings.
The museum is dedicated to the history of Nubia, the area stretching from Aswan in the north through Sudan in the south. Designed as an innovative interpretation of traditional Nubian architecture, the museum won an Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2001. It is a celebration of Nubian history and culture from its beginnings to the construction of the dam.
The museum is organized along a chronological path that illustrates the development of the region from prehistoric times to the present day through art and artifacts. It also boasts life-size models showing traditional Nubian costumes and a permanent exhibition documenting the international efforts made during the construction of the Aswan dam to save the ancient monuments of Nubia from the waters of Lake Nasser.
The scheme attracts visitors through the museum building and into an outdoor exhibition area designed to represent the Nile Valley. This area includes a cave that houses prehistoric animal drawings and also features the traditional Nubian house, an open-air theatre for five hundred people and Fatimid tombs. There is also a canal that symbolizes the River Nile, surrounded by local flora and fauna. Don’t forget to take a walk inside this partially open-air museum where you’ll find yourself wandering through a prehistoric cave with rock art, ancient Egyptian statues, obelisks and columns and even a complete Nubian house. The total area of the museum and its surroundings is 50,000 square meters.
The walls and floors of the interior spaces are covered with local material, in this case, pink granite, while the ceiling of the exhibition areas is openly made of wooden grilles, offering maximum flexibility for the installation of lights and services. In 28 showcases, the museum has been built with international high technology specialized in the lighting system to preserve the objects and therefore the entire lighting of the museum.
The collection of 2076 pieces has been carefully chosen to represent the different phases of Nubian history, civilization, and heritage. Thus the rooms exhibit objects and artifacts from the prehistoric period through the ancient Nubian civilization, to the Christian and Islamic periods and then to modern times. The main exhibition hall has as its imposing centerpiece a colossal statue of Ramesses II from his temple of Gerf Hussein, who were too poor to be saved in its entirety. The Nubia Museum contains masterpieces of artifacts found on sites now submerged during the UNESCO rescue campaign. The museum contains a variety of monumental objects from different parts of Egypt, collected in Nubia during the first half of the 20th century.
Among the most important objects in the collection are:
- The reconstructed shrine dug into the rock of Usersatet by Qasr Ibrim
- Mummified mutton of Khnum with a golden mask of the Temple of Khnum on Elephantine
- Statuette of eminent Nubians found in Karnak
- Relief sculptures from the temple of Ramses II in Gerf Hussein and the chapel of Horemheb in Abu Oda
- A Meroitic lion and other objects of Qasr Ibrim.
These are just some of the elements of a large collection of the museum that you should not miss!