Tutankhamun
The Tutankhamun Galleries at the GEM
All 5,398 objects from the boy king's tomb are shown together for the first time since Howard Carter emptied it a century ago.
Check dates and availability ↗Tutankhamun at Tahrir compared with the GEM
| Egyptian Museum, Tahrir | Grand Egyptian Museum | |
|---|---|---|
| Objects displayed | About 2,000 | All 5,398 |
| Space | Shared upper-floor rooms | Two galleries, about 7,500 m² |
| Status | Tutankhamun gallery closed 20 Oct 2025 | Complete collection on display |
| The mummy | Never held here | Remains in tomb KV62, Valley of the Kings |
A century mostly spent in storage
Howard Carter's team removed 5,398 objects from KV62 between 1922 and 1932, and for most of the following century only around two thousand of them were ever on public view. The rest sat in storage at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, seen by specialists and almost nobody else. GEM was built with the space to change that. The Tutankhamun Galleries occupy roughly 7,500 square metres across two halls, laid out as two parallel wings some 180 metres long, and for the first time in history the entire assemblage is displayed together. A large proportion of what you see has simply never been shown to the public before.
The tomb, reassembled as a tomb
The galleries are not arranged as a treasury of highlights. They reunite the four zones of KV62 — antechamber, annex, burial chamber and treasury — so that the assemblage reads as a single archaeological record rather than a selection of famous objects. The narrative follows the king's upbringing, his court, his religious world, his burial and his beliefs about the afterlife. The gold mask, the nested coffins, the golden throne, the chariots and the jewellery are all here, but so are the sandals, the folding beds, the linen and the food, which is what makes the completeness worth the visit.
Photography rules are different in here
GEM allows personal, non-commercial photography and video throughout the museum, using cameras or phones, with no camera fee — but with one exception. The official ticketing platform states that photography is permitted except in designated areas within the Tutankhamun Galleries, and in areas where cameras are restricted only mobile photography is allowed. Museum-wide rules also prohibit flash, tripods, monopods, selfie sticks, drones, external lighting and live streaming. Commercial photography requires prior written approval and a fee. Signage marks the restricted zones, so watch for it rather than assuming the whole gallery is either open or closed to cameras.
The mummy is not in the museum
Visitors regularly arrive expecting to see Tutankhamun himself, and he is not here. His mummy remains in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, where it has stayed on the grounds that it forms an essential part of the original archaeological site. This also distinguishes him from the twenty-two other royal mummies that were moved out of Tahrir in 2021, which went to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat rather than to Giza. If seeing the king's body matters to you, that is a Luxor trip, not a Cairo one.
Budget these galleries separately
Treat the Tutankhamun Galleries as a visit within a visit. Most people arrive having already spent an hour on the obelisk, the Grand Hall and the six-floor climb of the Grand Stairs, and then find that two galleries of 5,398 objects need considerably more than the half hour left in their mental plan. An hour and a half is a realistic minimum if you intend to read anything, and one experienced visitor reports spending six hours here alone. These are also the busiest rooms in the building, so an early entry slot pays for itself here more than anywhere else in the museum.