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Egypt is building a $1B mega-museum – will it bring Egyptology home?

94 points by gmays 2y ago

bawolff 2y ago
Isn't egypt having significant financial troubles?
- nvr219 2y ago
  They will be having them after this
  - bawolff 2y ago
    I imagine the red sea shipping crisis and the new capital are probably a bigger part of the problem, but i cant imagine billion dollar museums are helping.
- casper14 2y ago
  Yes, likely because they overspend on things like 1B museums
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - dangus 2y ago
    It’s funny to me that people still think $1 billion is a lot of money for a government. 5 million people per year visit the MET in NYC, which is the 5th most popular museum in the world. Tickets are $30. Seven years of revenue is $1 billion. Almost 15 million people visit the Pyramids of Giza per year. Egypt is the 9th most popular tourist destination in the world. If only half of those people visit the new museum and spend $30 on admission that means they cross $1 billion in revenue in 5 years, and that assumes nobody buys a damn thing from the gift shop or donates to the endowment.
    - sinaid 2y ago
      And the fomos who will visit Egypt just to see the new shiny thing.
- netdur 2y ago
  Yes, Egypt has faced significant financial challenges. Recently, there have been substantial investments from the UAE, purchasing a city for $35 billion, with potential similar investments from Saudi Arabia. Despite these inflows, concerns about how these funds are managed, particularly regarding military influence, remain prevalent
  - akira2501 2y ago
    > from the UAE, purchasing a city for $35 billion Ras al-Hekma for those curious. It sounds like a terrible deal on all sides. It's a bad vehicle for UAE money, it leaves Egypt with "35% guaranteed profits" on a planned city, and the UN is busily green washing the entire affair to curry political favor. > concerns about how these funds are managed Egypt seems completely squeezed. It's uniquely impacted by both the war on Ukraine and Gaza with the IMF having to step in and give them $3 billion later upgraded to $8 billion in emergency relief. The money is going to evaporate. My concern is there won't be any local economy or businesses left under these policies when it all dries up.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      > Ras al-Hekma for those curious. It sounds like a terrible deal on all sides It actually makes sense. Most tourism in Egypt comes from Eastern Europeans (especially Russians and Ukrainians), for whom Sharm al-Sheikh is their Cabo. If you've looked at a map, it's also located in Sinai, where there's an ongoing Muslim Brotherhood turned IS insurgency (which also enflamed neighboring Gaza). Moving resort tourism to much more defensible Ras al-Hekma works, and the UAE being the New York of the region had enough capital to co-invest to develop it (also didn't hurt to help line up politicians pockets). And Egypt (with UAE, Saudi, and some Indian capital) has been building out alternatives like Siwa. I actually chatted a eco-lodge owner from Siwa while I was stuck at a layover in Istanbul Airport - a lot of their tourism it now targeting the domestic market, Gulf market, some western hippy types, and Indians. > My concern is there won't be any local economy or businesses left under these policies when it all dries up The Egyptian economy is stabilizing and UAE, Saudi, Chinese, and Indian money is flowing in as FDI [0], and pushing reforms accordingly. Heck, Egypt's GDP Growth Rate in FY22 was 6.6% according to the World Bank, and has always been between 2.5-6% post-coup. [0] - https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/can-egypts-economic-overhaul-stave-crisis https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/can-egypts-economic-overhaul-st...
- nextstepguy 2y ago
  Egypt's tourism revenues hit a record high of $13.6 billion in FY2022/2023. Spending less than 10% to increase the purpose of choosing this country as a destination sounds reasonable, but as long as the P&L balances, I don't see why not.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    The problem is the rest of the balance sheet is pretty red. The government is spending $60B it does not have to build a new capital, and has already taken IMF lending. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/world/middleeast/egypt-new-administrative-capital.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/world/middleeast/egypt-ne...
    - objektif 2y ago
      You need to worry about the rest of the spending. This project will bring many many times of its cost as profit over the years.
      - bobthepanda 2y ago
        I think it is pretty safe to have doubts about Egyptian government profit projections. They also said the same thing about doubling the Suez canal but revenues did not meet projections and now they are planning to expand it again. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-plans-expand-suez-canal-again-after-8-billion-project-fails-achieve-goals https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-plans-expand-suez-c...
      - bawolff 2y ago
        It won't if the rest of the country collapses from being overleveraged.
    - dangus 2y ago
      Egypt’s debt to GDP ratio is falling and is lower than the USA. https://www.statista.com/statistics/377984/national-debt-of-egypt-in-relation-to-gross-domestic-product-gdp/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/377984/national-debt-of-...
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  Egypt's one and only ever democratically elected president was overthrown by the current dictator, who is supported by the West. He doesn't have any incentive to fix any of Egypt's financial problems and is currently building a palace for himself away from the capitol with a gold throne
  - candiodari 2y ago
    The "one and only ever democratically elected president" also had zero incentive to fix any of Egypt's financial problems and ... frankly ... was a terrorist candidate. Sorry "islamist". Which is to say, he uses violence, massacres and even torture to achieve his political aspirations. The first thing he did when elected was cancel elections, give himself unlimited power. Ironically that was part of his downfall. Islamists believe there is only 1 islam. So did Morsi. And tried to ally Egypt to Iran. Tried to ally Egypt to the Syrian uprising (to ISIS, in other words). Islamic extremists in all these places, as it turns out, suddenly and violently disagreed with islam's "only one islam" fantasy, did not want to compromise and preferred to (physically) attack his government, with a few dozen dead as result. He lost control of that situation. And then it turns out the Egyptian army, government did not like their president cooperating with islamists elsewhere, including Hamas, who were attacking and killing people left and right, with Morsi's support. Also he got terrorists inside Egypt, the "muslim brotherhood" to torture and kill his political opponents. No offense, but Egypt, Egypt's people and the world dodged a SERIOUS bullet when this guy got deposed. A civil war would have been the minimum consequence of him remaining in power.
    - aprilthird2021 2y ago
      > he uses violence, massacres and even torture to achieve his political aspirations. > The first thing he did when elected was cancel elections, give himself unlimited power. Exactly like the current dictator of Egypt, El-Sisi the secularist, if you want to put things on that plane... You act like Egypt dodged a bullet by having their own elected leader killed brutally in a violent coup. But the bullet was fired, and is still being fired on them as they're now led by a leader who is not beholden to them at all. If Morsi was as terrible as you said and people hated him as much as you claim, he would have lost the next election. But there won't be a next election because the governments you didn't mention, who support the dictator, thought it would be better if Egypt never had another democracy so long as their political objectives are met. I happen to believe in democracy, and I believe it is the best tool against terrible leaders. You may disagree, but don't try to paint your enemies as violent and irrational when you are the one who thinks force should be used to overturn the will of the people.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  Yes. They have other boondoggles going as well, like a new alternative to Cairo: https://www.cnn.com/world/egypt-new-administrative-capital-spc-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/world/egypt-new-administrative-capital-s... Inflation at almost 30% and lending rates around that as well. Taxes are being increased by more than 30% as well, mandated by the IMF for past borrowing.
Arubis 2y ago
Is it called The British Museum?
- gbnvc 2y ago
  [dead]
ThinkBeat 2y ago
Mega projects seem to be popular lately. Perhaps MBS set a trend.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  His trends all suck, especially killing dissident journalists with American citizen children
- ysofunny 2y ago
  lately? I think that most cathedrals are historical mega projects
- cowsandmilk 2y ago
  MBS was a teenager when this project started; he had little influence here.
- rqtwteye 2y ago
  The museum makes a lot of sense. The new capital they are building seems a little crazier.
  - dyauspitr 2y ago
    All massive scale building is good. Even the unused ones, like Myanmars massive capital and china’s ghost cities. I remember when Reddit constantly whined about how Dubai was stupid to build a massive metropolis out in the middle of the desert.
    - TeaBrain 2y ago
      Dubai isn't a very good example. If anything, it just serves as a example of the ignorance of the comments you were reading. By the time Reddit came into existence, Dubai already had an impressive skyline and had been well established as a thriving trading and business hub. It's also not in the middle of the desert. Dubai is a seaport on the Persian Gulf. Dubai was also a well-known city in the region long before the building of the skyline. The ghost cities, Myanmar's capital and the new planned Egyptian capital are examples of trying to invent a city inorganically from scratch.
xbar 2y ago
Museums are good.
sho_hn 2y ago
I've followed this project for many years now. It's a magnificent building, I'm quite in awe. If you're German-speaking, there's a Die Welt documentary from a few years ago which features various people from the project.
- underlipton 2y ago
  Agreed. I really enjoy the recent trend of museums that sit at a comfortable balance between avant garde/modernist design and an attempt to embody the subject in an accessibly visual and conceptual way. The NMAAHC and NMAI in Washington, DC are a couple of other good examples (though, I'm biased because they're in my backyard). Of course, this is on a whole other level. It really does seem like something you'd fly internationally to visit.
thriftwy 2y ago
[flagged]
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  Egypt is an amalgam. Those people stayed and became Egyptians and interbred. That’s like saying Western Europeans have no claim to Western Europe because it was settled by people from the Caucasus who bred with the natives. Or that the British have no claim to the UK because they were taken over by Romans.
  - thriftwy 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - senderista 2y ago
      Not sure what you mean by "Europe", but Stonehenge was built by people who are much more closely related to modern Sardinians than to modern Britons.
      - gerdesj 2y ago
        "modern Sardinians" I'm no expert but that is going to need quite a citation. Bear in mind that the term "Briton" is quite tricky. Stonehenge as a thing has existed from roughly 3000BC onwards. The stones may have come from what is now Wales. The peoples involved are generally called Britons. Sardinia is an island in the Med. and although there will almost certainly be some small intermixing with what is now the UK and Eire, it will be small. Perhaps you are conflating Sardinia with Cornwall or something?
        senderista 2y ago
        To put it quite briefly, the British Isles (and most of Europe) were settled by "Early European Farmers"[0] emerging originally from Anatolia in the early Neolithic. Later in the Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age, Indo-European ("Western Steppe Herder") migrations[1] largely displaced or assimilated them, but today's Southern Europeans retain a significant amount of EEF ancestry (while WSH dominates in Northern Europe), and in Sardinia, for peculiar historical reasons, it actually forms a majority in most of the population. Stonehenge was begun in the late Neolithic by EEF inhabitants of Britain, but shortly afterward the Bell Beaker (WSH-related) migrations[2] began and the EEF population of Britain was almost entirely replaced within a few centuries[3]. The new migrants still kept working on Stonehenge however ("cultural appropriation"?) and its current state is due to them[4]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_European_Farmers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_European_Farmers [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Steppe_Herders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Steppe_Herders [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Beaker_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Beaker_culture [3] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2018/february/the-beaker-people-a-new-population-for-ancient-britain.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2018/february/the-beaker... [4] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2021/february/ancient-burials-stonehenge-cultures-merged-in-bronze-age.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2021/february/ancient-bu...
0max 2y ago
I got a feeling that this is gonna end up like Bibliotheca Alexandrina where the plans were too grandiose for what was actually accomplished
breck 2y ago
Very cool. Hope to check it out someday. The original Egyptian Museum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Museum) is my favorite of all time. They have so many artifacts that some items, thousands of years old, that might be the centerpiece of a museum in the far younger United States, were used as benches. I was there in 2011. One day I was the only visitor. I hung out in the Pharaoh room for a while. Just me and a couple of guys who used to rule the world (https://breckyunits.com/egypt.jpeg https://breckyunits.com/egypt.jpeg).
- stubish 2y ago
  Tourist numbers dropped after the '97 Luxor massacre, then after the first gulf war, and probably further after the second. It was reasonably busy when I visited several months before the second gulf war, but nowhere near as much as you should expect. There was a queue to see the famous gold death mask.
llm_trw 2y ago
Given the political instability in the region it just seems like a way to make life easier for looter in about 10 years.
- labster 2y ago
  Egypt is historically much more stable than its surrounding region, all the way back to the Late Bronze Age Collapse. A stable supply of water and being located at a center of intercontinental trade helps.
  - littlestymaar 2y ago
    Didn't help during the Arab spring though…
    - sinaid 2y ago
      Suez crisis too
      - littlestymaar 2y ago
        Suez crisis ended with a tactical defeat of Egypt but a strategic victory over UK and France because both the URSS and the US told us to get home, so I don't think it's a very apt example.
    - labster 2y ago
      Compared to other outcomes of the Arab Spring, Egypt looks pretty good. They didn’t get a true democracy but at least the state is functional.
      - sinaid 2y ago
        Goalposts are getting tatty from being moved about so much.
  - clwg 2y ago
    The water supply of the Nile is no longer as stable as it has historically been. Ethiopia's new dam threatens the downstream supply for Egypt and Sudan. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57734885 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57734885
rqtwteye 2y ago
I was there in 2022 and was told it would open in a month. Glad it's finally open. The original Egyptian Museum has a ton of artifacts but the presentation lacks seriously.
resolutebat 2y ago
> the museum itself is intended to change how the world sees Egypt, and how Egypt sees the world. Similarly grandiose claims were made for the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (2002), which has failed to do either. If anything, given Egypt's constant political and economic crisis, I'm surprised it's still even operational. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliotheca_Alexandrina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliotheca_Alexandrina
anonu 2y ago
Every now and then I get to run around the main loop in NYC's Central Park. Near the MET Museum there is an Egyptian obelisk, Cleopatra's Needle: https://www.centralparknyc.org/locations/obelisk https://www.centralparknyc.org/locations/obelisk. Ostensibly an Ottoman Empire gift to the US in the late 19th century... I wonder how many treasures have been plundered from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, etc... and spread across the world. Things like Cleopatra's Needle are generally OK because they serve the public good and have clear provenance, but many treasures in private homes and elsewhere may not, and should return to their rightful countries of origin. edit: my ethics
- jlawson 2y ago
  The people who control Egypt now conquered it 1400 years ago and deliberately destroyed all the cultures that existed before them. Ancient treasures created by those predecessor cultures are not owned by the people who destroyed the culture they come from. They literally have no connection. Not culturally, and to a large degree not even genetically. It would be like saying that ancient Native American art is rightfully owned by the Kennedy family. So that's the moral side. On the practical side - what a terrible idea, to send irreplaceable ancient human cultural artifacts to be kept in such an unstable, low-trust society. They will not be good stewards. If we care at all about people in future centuries and millennia being able to see these objects, they need to be kept in the most stable countries.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - AlotOfReading 2y ago
    There's significant population continuity between ancient and modern Egyptians. What's your purpose with even trying to make this argument?
    - keenmaster 2y ago
      You are correct, and there are genetic studies to back you up. Modern day Egyptians have substantial continuity from ancient Egypt. Even in Ancient Egypt, there was trade and mixture with people from the Levant, but that didn’t massively change Egyptian genetics. As for your question, you probably suspect the answer - many people will discredit Middle Easterners (including North Africans if you consider them distinct), past and present, inadvertently or not, intentionally or unintentionally. They are the modern day scapegoats, and nothing good can come from scapegoats right? The biggest boogeyman in particular is the Arab. Muslim Egyptians, which are the vast majority of Egyptians, have a minority % of Arab ancestry. Oh God forbid, people of a shared faith but different ethnicity occasionally intermix. /s
stubish 2y ago
"For 100 years, Egypt’s scientists have watched as their nation’s story was largely told by institutions from Europe and the United States." Really? I thought Egyptology had been under iron control for at least 30 years, to the point of researchers complaining anything not following the ministry's narrative got shut down (I don't know if they were justified complaints or if the ministry was wrong per se). From when I toured Egypt a few decades ago, I remember talking to a sculptor who made ends meet selling cheap, mass produced statuettes to tourists (his actual sculptures were quite good, but not something for a tourist like me to take home). He showed me the coffee table book he worked from when he needed to copy an artifact. We pointed out that one of the originals he pointed to was literally just down the road in the Karnak Museum. He pointed out that he couldn't afford the entrance fee. There was no local pricing. I could understand needing to make money with its economic problems, but doing it in a way that kept the history from its poor majority seemed callous. I suspect this mega complex will be no better, not wanting the unwashed to offend the sensibilities of the wealthy tourists.
- michael9423 2y ago
  Yes, archeology in Egypt is tightly controlled by the ministry and people like Zahi Hawass. The roots of egyptology are in Europe, Napoleon founded it. Egyptology has been an industry for Egypt for a long time, because Egypt depends on it. It has not much to do with what we consider science in the west. The "scientific advancements" in egyptology are merely careful narratives to bring more tourists. In this case of the new museum, the irony is that the money comes from Japan, and the infrastructure and architecture from Germany. The purpose of the museum is more tourists, they do not care about their own population gaining knowledge about their own history.
Log_out_ 2y ago
2030 muslim brotherhood takes over and burns the museum down as unislamic
- eynsham 2y ago
  What change do you see in the institutional power of the army that would allow that to happen? And why do you think the Muslim Brotherhood would be so much more radical than it was under Morsi?
  - Log_out_ 2y ago
    The army and governments moved out of kairo into there own city, a retreat in all but name. And isil and the likes set new standards of purity, one must outcompete as a radical to be taken serious. Add to that bread price spikes made by putin.. Then again, i honestly don't care, the past is scanned ans thus eternal. Im more worried for the future..
    - eynsham 2y ago
      I don’t see how the move out of Cairo really indicates a loss of control anywhere else. It’s not like all the army bases in the Sinai or Alexandria or anywhere else are going anywhere. And there are good reasons to leave Cairo otherwise—for example, the severe mismanagement of the Cairene urban environment, traffic, &c. As for the second point, there have always been Islamists more radical than the Muslim Brotherhood, and Daësh if anything has less power now than it did at its peak.
adultSwim 2y ago
It's time to return Egyptian artifacts back to Egypt.

94 points by gmays 2y ago

bawolff 2y ago

Isn't egypt having significant financial troubles?

nvr219 2y ago
They will be having them after this
- bawolff 2y ago
  I imagine the red sea shipping crisis and the new capital are probably a bigger part of the problem, but i cant imagine billion dollar museums are helping.
casper14 2y ago
Yes, likely because they overspend on things like 1B museums
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- dangus 2y ago
  It’s funny to me that people still think $1 billion is a lot of money for a government. 5 million people per year visit the MET in NYC, which is the 5th most popular museum in the world. Tickets are $30. Seven years of revenue is $1 billion. Almost 15 million people visit the Pyramids of Giza per year. Egypt is the 9th most popular tourist destination in the world. If only half of those people visit the new museum and spend $30 on admission that means they cross $1 billion in revenue in 5 years, and that assumes nobody buys a damn thing from the gift shop or donates to the endowment.
  - sinaid 2y ago
    And the fomos who will visit Egypt just to see the new shiny thing.
netdur 2y ago
Yes, Egypt has faced significant financial challenges. Recently, there have been substantial investments from the UAE, purchasing a city for $35 billion, with potential similar investments from Saudi Arabia. Despite these inflows, concerns about how these funds are managed, particularly regarding military influence, remain prevalent
- akira2501 2y ago
  > from the UAE, purchasing a city for $35 billion Ras al-Hekma for those curious. It sounds like a terrible deal on all sides. It's a bad vehicle for UAE money, it leaves Egypt with "35% guaranteed profits" on a planned city, and the UN is busily green washing the entire affair to curry political favor. > concerns about how these funds are managed Egypt seems completely squeezed. It's uniquely impacted by both the war on Ukraine and Gaza with the IMF having to step in and give them $3 billion later upgraded to $8 billion in emergency relief. The money is going to evaporate. My concern is there won't be any local economy or businesses left under these policies when it all dries up.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > Ras al-Hekma for those curious. It sounds like a terrible deal on all sides It actually makes sense. Most tourism in Egypt comes from Eastern Europeans (especially Russians and Ukrainians), for whom Sharm al-Sheikh is their Cabo. If you've looked at a map, it's also located in Sinai, where there's an ongoing Muslim Brotherhood turned IS insurgency (which also enflamed neighboring Gaza). Moving resort tourism to much more defensible Ras al-Hekma works, and the UAE being the New York of the region had enough capital to co-invest to develop it (also didn't hurt to help line up politicians pockets). And Egypt (with UAE, Saudi, and some Indian capital) has been building out alternatives like Siwa. I actually chatted a eco-lodge owner from Siwa while I was stuck at a layover in Istanbul Airport - a lot of their tourism it now targeting the domestic market, Gulf market, some western hippy types, and Indians. > My concern is there won't be any local economy or businesses left under these policies when it all dries up The Egyptian economy is stabilizing and UAE, Saudi, Chinese, and Indian money is flowing in as FDI [0], and pushing reforms accordingly. Heck, Egypt's GDP Growth Rate in FY22 was 6.6% according to the World Bank, and has always been between 2.5-6% post-coup. [0] - https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/can-egypts-economic-overhaul-stave-crisis https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/can-egypts-economic-overhaul-st...
nextstepguy 2y ago
Egypt's tourism revenues hit a record high of $13.6 billion in FY2022/2023. Spending less than 10% to increase the purpose of choosing this country as a destination sounds reasonable, but as long as the P&L balances, I don't see why not.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  The problem is the rest of the balance sheet is pretty red. The government is spending $60B it does not have to build a new capital, and has already taken IMF lending. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/world/middleeast/egypt-new-administrative-capital.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/world/middleeast/egypt-ne...
  - objektif 2y ago
    You need to worry about the rest of the spending. This project will bring many many times of its cost as profit over the years.
    - bobthepanda 2y ago
      I think it is pretty safe to have doubts about Egyptian government profit projections. They also said the same thing about doubling the Suez canal but revenues did not meet projections and now they are planning to expand it again. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-plans-expand-suez-canal-again-after-8-billion-project-fails-achieve-goals https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-plans-expand-suez-c...
    - bawolff 2y ago
      It won't if the rest of the country collapses from being overleveraged.
  - dangus 2y ago
    Egypt’s debt to GDP ratio is falling and is lower than the USA. https://www.statista.com/statistics/377984/national-debt-of-egypt-in-relation-to-gross-domestic-product-gdp/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/377984/national-debt-of-...
aprilthird2021 2y ago
Egypt's one and only ever democratically elected president was overthrown by the current dictator, who is supported by the West. He doesn't have any incentive to fix any of Egypt's financial problems and is currently building a palace for himself away from the capitol with a gold throne
- candiodari 2y ago
  The "one and only ever democratically elected president" also had zero incentive to fix any of Egypt's financial problems and ... frankly ... was a terrorist candidate. Sorry "islamist". Which is to say, he uses violence, massacres and even torture to achieve his political aspirations. The first thing he did when elected was cancel elections, give himself unlimited power. Ironically that was part of his downfall. Islamists believe there is only 1 islam. So did Morsi. And tried to ally Egypt to Iran. Tried to ally Egypt to the Syrian uprising (to ISIS, in other words). Islamic extremists in all these places, as it turns out, suddenly and violently disagreed with islam's "only one islam" fantasy, did not want to compromise and preferred to (physically) attack his government, with a few dozen dead as result. He lost control of that situation. And then it turns out the Egyptian army, government did not like their president cooperating with islamists elsewhere, including Hamas, who were attacking and killing people left and right, with Morsi's support. Also he got terrorists inside Egypt, the "muslim brotherhood" to torture and kill his political opponents. No offense, but Egypt, Egypt's people and the world dodged a SERIOUS bullet when this guy got deposed. A civil war would have been the minimum consequence of him remaining in power.
  - aprilthird2021 2y ago
    > he uses violence, massacres and even torture to achieve his political aspirations. > The first thing he did when elected was cancel elections, give himself unlimited power. Exactly like the current dictator of Egypt, El-Sisi the secularist, if you want to put things on that plane... You act like Egypt dodged a bullet by having their own elected leader killed brutally in a violent coup. But the bullet was fired, and is still being fired on them as they're now led by a leader who is not beholden to them at all. If Morsi was as terrible as you said and people hated him as much as you claim, he would have lost the next election. But there won't be a next election because the governments you didn't mention, who support the dictator, thought it would be better if Egypt never had another democracy so long as their political objectives are met. I happen to believe in democracy, and I believe it is the best tool against terrible leaders. You may disagree, but don't try to paint your enemies as violent and irrational when you are the one who thinks force should be used to overturn the will of the people.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Yes. They have other boondoggles going as well, like a new alternative to Cairo: https://www.cnn.com/world/egypt-new-administrative-capital-spc-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/world/egypt-new-administrative-capital-s... Inflation at almost 30% and lending rates around that as well. Taxes are being increased by more than 30% as well, mandated by the IMF for past borrowing.

Arubis 2y ago

Is it called The British Museum?

gbnvc 2y ago
[dead]

ThinkBeat 2y ago

Mega projects seem to be popular lately. Perhaps MBS set a trend.

aprilthird2021 2y ago
His trends all suck, especially killing dissident journalists with American citizen children
ysofunny 2y ago
lately? I think that most cathedrals are historical mega projects
cowsandmilk 2y ago
MBS was a teenager when this project started; he had little influence here.
rqtwteye 2y ago
The museum makes a lot of sense. The new capital they are building seems a little crazier.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  All massive scale building is good. Even the unused ones, like Myanmars massive capital and china’s ghost cities. I remember when Reddit constantly whined about how Dubai was stupid to build a massive metropolis out in the middle of the desert.
  - TeaBrain 2y ago
    Dubai isn't a very good example. If anything, it just serves as a example of the ignorance of the comments you were reading. By the time Reddit came into existence, Dubai already had an impressive skyline and had been well established as a thriving trading and business hub. It's also not in the middle of the desert. Dubai is a seaport on the Persian Gulf. Dubai was also a well-known city in the region long before the building of the skyline. The ghost cities, Myanmar's capital and the new planned Egyptian capital are examples of trying to invent a city inorganically from scratch.

xbar 2y ago

Museums are good.

sho_hn 2y ago

I've followed this project for many years now. It's a magnificent building, I'm quite in awe. If you're German-speaking, there's a Die Welt documentary from a few years ago which features various people from the project.

underlipton 2y ago
Agreed. I really enjoy the recent trend of museums that sit at a comfortable balance between avant garde/modernist design and an attempt to embody the subject in an accessibly visual and conceptual way. The NMAAHC and NMAI in Washington, DC are a couple of other good examples (though, I'm biased because they're in my backyard). Of course, this is on a whole other level. It really does seem like something you'd fly internationally to visit.

thriftwy 2y ago

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dyauspitr 2y ago
Egypt is an amalgam. Those people stayed and became Egyptians and interbred. That’s like saying Western Europeans have no claim to Western Europe because it was settled by people from the Caucasus who bred with the natives. Or that the British have no claim to the UK because they were taken over by Romans.
- thriftwy 2y ago
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  - senderista 2y ago
    Not sure what you mean by "Europe", but Stonehenge was built by people who are much more closely related to modern Sardinians than to modern Britons.
    - gerdesj 2y ago
      "modern Sardinians" I'm no expert but that is going to need quite a citation. Bear in mind that the term "Briton" is quite tricky. Stonehenge as a thing has existed from roughly 3000BC onwards. The stones may have come from what is now Wales. The peoples involved are generally called Britons. Sardinia is an island in the Med. and although there will almost certainly be some small intermixing with what is now the UK and Eire, it will be small. Perhaps you are conflating Sardinia with Cornwall or something?
      - senderista 2y ago
        To put it quite briefly, the British Isles (and most of Europe) were settled by "Early European Farmers"[0] emerging originally from Anatolia in the early Neolithic. Later in the Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age, Indo-European ("Western Steppe Herder") migrations[1] largely displaced or assimilated them, but today's Southern Europeans retain a significant amount of EEF ancestry (while WSH dominates in Northern Europe), and in Sardinia, for peculiar historical reasons, it actually forms a majority in most of the population. Stonehenge was begun in the late Neolithic by EEF inhabitants of Britain, but shortly afterward the Bell Beaker (WSH-related) migrations[2] began and the EEF population of Britain was almost entirely replaced within a few centuries[3]. The new migrants still kept working on Stonehenge however ("cultural appropriation"?) and its current state is due to them[4]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_European_Farmers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_European_Farmers [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Steppe_Herders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Steppe_Herders [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Beaker_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Beaker_culture [3] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2018/february/the-beaker-people-a-new-population-for-ancient-britain.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2018/february/the-beaker... [4] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2021/february/ancient-burials-stonehenge-cultures-merged-in-bronze-age.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2021/february/ancient-bu...

0max 2y ago

I got a feeling that this is gonna end up like Bibliotheca Alexandrina where the plans were too grandiose for what was actually accomplished

breck 2y ago

Very cool. Hope to check it out someday. The original Egyptian Museum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Museum) is my favorite of all time. They have so many artifacts that some items, thousands of years old, that might be the centerpiece of a museum in the far younger United States, were used as benches. I was there in 2011. One day I was the only visitor. I hung out in the Pharaoh room for a while. Just me and a couple of guys who used to rule the world (https://breckyunits.com/egypt.jpeg https://breckyunits.com/egypt.jpeg).

stubish 2y ago
Tourist numbers dropped after the '97 Luxor massacre, then after the first gulf war, and probably further after the second. It was reasonably busy when I visited several months before the second gulf war, but nowhere near as much as you should expect. There was a queue to see the famous gold death mask.

llm_trw 2y ago

Given the political instability in the region it just seems like a way to make life easier for looter in about 10 years.

labster 2y ago
Egypt is historically much more stable than its surrounding region, all the way back to the Late Bronze Age Collapse. A stable supply of water and being located at a center of intercontinental trade helps.
- littlestymaar 2y ago
  Didn't help during the Arab spring though…
  - sinaid 2y ago
    Suez crisis too
    - littlestymaar 2y ago
      Suez crisis ended with a tactical defeat of Egypt but a strategic victory over UK and France because both the URSS and the US told us to get home, so I don't think it's a very apt example.
  - labster 2y ago
    Compared to other outcomes of the Arab Spring, Egypt looks pretty good. They didn’t get a true democracy but at least the state is functional.
    - sinaid 2y ago
      Goalposts are getting tatty from being moved about so much.
- clwg 2y ago
  The water supply of the Nile is no longer as stable as it has historically been. Ethiopia's new dam threatens the downstream supply for Egypt and Sudan. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57734885 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57734885

rqtwteye 2y ago

I was there in 2022 and was told it would open in a month. Glad it's finally open. The original Egyptian Museum has a ton of artifacts but the presentation lacks seriously.

resolutebat 2y ago

> the museum itself is intended to change how the world sees Egypt, and how Egypt sees the world. Similarly grandiose claims were made for the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (2002), which has failed to do either. If anything, given Egypt's constant political and economic crisis, I'm surprised it's still even operational. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliotheca_Alexandrina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliotheca_Alexandrina

anonu 2y ago

Every now and then I get to run around the main loop in NYC's Central Park. Near the MET Museum there is an Egyptian obelisk, Cleopatra's Needle: https://www.centralparknyc.org/locations/obelisk https://www.centralparknyc.org/locations/obelisk. Ostensibly an Ottoman Empire gift to the US in the late 19th century... I wonder how many treasures have been plundered from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, etc... and spread across the world. Things like Cleopatra's Needle are generally OK because they serve the public good and have clear provenance, but many treasures in private homes and elsewhere may not, and should return to their rightful countries of origin. edit: my ethics

jlawson 2y ago
The people who control Egypt now conquered it 1400 years ago and deliberately destroyed all the cultures that existed before them. Ancient treasures created by those predecessor cultures are not owned by the people who destroyed the culture they come from. They literally have no connection. Not culturally, and to a large degree not even genetically. It would be like saying that ancient Native American art is rightfully owned by the Kennedy family. So that's the moral side. On the practical side - what a terrible idea, to send irreplaceable ancient human cultural artifacts to be kept in such an unstable, low-trust society. They will not be good stewards. If we care at all about people in future centuries and millennia being able to see these objects, they need to be kept in the most stable countries.
- deleted 2y ago
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- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  There's significant population continuity between ancient and modern Egyptians. What's your purpose with even trying to make this argument?
  - keenmaster 2y ago
    You are correct, and there are genetic studies to back you up. Modern day Egyptians have substantial continuity from ancient Egypt. Even in Ancient Egypt, there was trade and mixture with people from the Levant, but that didn’t massively change Egyptian genetics. As for your question, you probably suspect the answer - many people will discredit Middle Easterners (including North Africans if you consider them distinct), past and present, inadvertently or not, intentionally or unintentionally. They are the modern day scapegoats, and nothing good can come from scapegoats right? The biggest boogeyman in particular is the Arab. Muslim Egyptians, which are the vast majority of Egyptians, have a minority % of Arab ancestry. Oh God forbid, people of a shared faith but different ethnicity occasionally intermix. /s

stubish 2y ago

"For 100 years, Egypt’s scientists have watched as their nation’s story was largely told by institutions from Europe and the United States." Really? I thought Egyptology had been under iron control for at least 30 years, to the point of researchers complaining anything not following the ministry's narrative got shut down (I don't know if they were justified complaints or if the ministry was wrong per se). From when I toured Egypt a few decades ago, I remember talking to a sculptor who made ends meet selling cheap, mass produced statuettes to tourists (his actual sculptures were quite good, but not something for a tourist like me to take home). He showed me the coffee table book he worked from when he needed to copy an artifact. We pointed out that one of the originals he pointed to was literally just down the road in the Karnak Museum. He pointed out that he couldn't afford the entrance fee. There was no local pricing. I could understand needing to make money with its economic problems, but doing it in a way that kept the history from its poor majority seemed callous. I suspect this mega complex will be no better, not wanting the unwashed to offend the sensibilities of the wealthy tourists.

michael9423 2y ago
Yes, archeology in Egypt is tightly controlled by the ministry and people like Zahi Hawass. The roots of egyptology are in Europe, Napoleon founded it. Egyptology has been an industry for Egypt for a long time, because Egypt depends on it. It has not much to do with what we consider science in the west. The "scientific advancements" in egyptology are merely careful narratives to bring more tourists. In this case of the new museum, the irony is that the money comes from Japan, and the infrastructure and architecture from Germany. The purpose of the museum is more tourists, they do not care about their own population gaining knowledge about their own history.

Log_out_ 2y ago

2030 muslim brotherhood takes over and burns the museum down as unislamic

eynsham 2y ago
What change do you see in the institutional power of the army that would allow that to happen? And why do you think the Muslim Brotherhood would be so much more radical than it was under Morsi?
- Log_out_ 2y ago
  The army and governments moved out of kairo into there own city, a retreat in all but name. And isil and the likes set new standards of purity, one must outcompete as a radical to be taken serious. Add to that bread price spikes made by putin.. Then again, i honestly don't care, the past is scanned ans thus eternal. Im more worried for the future..
  - eynsham 2y ago
    I don’t see how the move out of Cairo really indicates a loss of control anywhere else. It’s not like all the army bases in the Sinai or Alexandria or anywhere else are going anywhere. And there are good reasons to leave Cairo otherwise—for example, the severe mismanagement of the Cairene urban environment, traffic, &c. As for the second point, there have always been Islamists more radical than the Muslim Brotherhood, and Daësh if anything has less power now than it did at its peak.

adultSwim 2y ago

It's time to return Egyptian artifacts back to Egypt.