The Greco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, Egypt, was reopened in October 2023 after being closed for almost 18 years for restoration. This museum is one of twenty that opened in recent years in Egypt. Its reopening seeks to revive its historical significance since it is the only Egyptian museum specializing in Greek and Roman history. It is the first building in Egypt to be designed for a museum. It is also regarded as the link between Alexandria’s ancient history and the Greek and Roman civilizations and is one of the most outstanding museums in the Mediterranean region due to the diversity of displayed artifacts.

The museum’s history and the idea of establishment

The reason behind the museum’s establishment was the multiple excavations in the city, which made the Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Botti suggest building a museum to save these archeological discoveries from being destroyed. The establishment began on June 1, 1892, and it was opened for the first time to the public on September 26, 1895, during Khedive Abbas Helmy II's reign. After the museum’s establishment, Giuseppe Botti became the first museum director.

Following many archeological discoveries in recent years at Alexandria, expanding the museum became a necessity to display the newly discovered artifacts. Consequentially, the museum was closed in 2005 for development, specifically to build an upper floor, increase the number of halls, and change how the antiques were displayed in order to be based on the historical sequence from the 5th century BC to the 6th century AD.

The restoration process and exhibited artifacts

The museum is located on the oldest street in Alexandria. It was built on 5200 meters and initially included 11 halls. Following the museum's restoration, it now consists of 3 floors and is divided into 27 halls: a library containing 12,000 of the rarest books in the world, a hall dedicated to the museum's founders, and the museum garden.

The artifacts on the ground floor were arranged chronologically from Alexander the Great's arrival in Egypt until the Byzantine era. The ground floor also contains other sections, such as gift stores and artifact restoration laboratories. The upper floor consists of four halls for research purposes: the Education Hall, the Archive and Registration Hall, the Study Hall, and the Egypsotica Hall. The first floor includes antiques exhibited thematically and contains multiple halls, such as the Serapeum, the Nile Hall, the Red Land, Industry and Trade, Coins, Alexandrian Art, the Agora, the Kom El-Shuqafa area, and Alexandrian sculptures. These themes are divided into three categories: an illustration of everyday life, the religious beliefs in Alexandria during the Roman and Ptolemaic eras, and the reigning state and political life in Egypt. This floor includes other facilities such as cafes, the museum’s library, and a lecture hall.

The renovating process included multiple aspects, for instance, adding new sections, restoring the building’s interior and exterior by adding an iron structure to improve its strength, adding showcases, installing new lighting and security systems, and painting the interior walls and the neoclassical facade.

The museum exhibits thousands of artifacts from approximately 11 centuries, representing a broad spectrum of civilizations. Some of these pieces were placed in the museum’s garden. The museum’s huge collection includes ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Coptic, and Byzantine civilizations, most notably three head statues of Alexander the Great, one of which is in its natural size, the two stelae of Naukratis and Herakleion-Thonis at the museum’s entrance on the ground floor, and hundreds of statues of Ptolemaic and Roman rulers, including a colossal head of Emperor August and a statue of Ptolemy XII, a head of Ptolemy IV Philopator, and Cleopatra II.

Must-see artifacts

Even though I have visited the museum several times since its reopening, the wide range of artifacts continues to astound me. The highlight of my visits was seeing one of the Fayium mummies displayed attached to its portrait, which I wrote about in my previous article. These mummies and their paintings emerged from Egyptian religious beliefs exemplified in mummification with the Greco-Roman painting style.

One of the most remarkable architectural elements displayed in the museum is a reconstruction of a Basilica from the fourth century of the Byzantine period, which evolved from Christian Greek culture and the artistic production of the Eastern Roman Empire.

The massive collection of Tanagra sculptures dates back to the fourth and third centuries BC and showcases daily life during the Ptolemaic period. The museum also features a modern-day replica of a Roman dwelling, which gives visitors a look into how people lived in Alexandria. Finally, an extraordinary statue of a Ptolemaic queen that resembled the Egyptian goddess Isis was found submerged near the coast of Alexandria along with other antiques in 1960 by the Egyptian diver Kamel Abu Al-Sadat.