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At the northern end of Midan Tahrir, the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities (daily 9am-5pm; during Ramadan 9am-3pm; GBPE20, students GBPE10, camera GBPE10, camcorder GBPE100; no flashes or tripods) feels almost as archaic as the civilization it records. Founded in 1858 by Auguste Mariette, who excavated the Serapeum at Saqqara and several major temples in Upper Egypt (and was later buried in the museum grounds), it has long since outgrown its present building, which now scarcely provides warehouse space for the pharaonic artefacts. Allowing one minute for each, it would take about nine months to view its 136,000 exhibits. Forty thousand more items lie crated in the basement, where many have sunk into the soft ground, necessitating excavations beneath the building itself. Yet for all the chaos, poor lighting and captioning, the richness of the collection makes this one of the great museums of the world. On entering the museum you'll probably be offered a guided tour , which generally lasts two hours (at around GBPE50 an hour), though the museum deserves at least six. The guides are extremely knowledgeable and they do help you to make sense of it all - if you are in a small group it really isn't that expensive. It's best to come on successive days or at the beginning and end of your trip, so as to get a fuller appreciation. A single visit of three to four hours suffices to cover the Tutankhamun exhibition and a few other highlights . The Amarna gallery on the ground floor and the selection of masterpieces on the other are all impressive, but everyone has their own favourites. A reasonable shortlist might include the cream of statuary from the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms ( Rooms 42, 32, 22 and 12 ) and the Nubian funerary cache ( Room 44 ) downstairs; on the first floor, the Fayoum Portraits ( Room 14 ) and model figures ( Rooms 37 , 32 and 27 ), and, of course, the Mummy Room ( Room 56 ) - though it costs extra. A Guide to the Egyptian Museum, sold at the bookshop, lists exhibits by catalogue number but doesn't identify their location, so unless you're keen to look things up (labels on most exhibits are perfunctory) it's of little practical use. Exhibits are in any case numbered on at least two different systems, so many exhibits have two numbers. Should you want running commentary, it's easy to tag along behind a tour group. The first-floor cafe-restaurant is entered via the souvenir shop from outside the museum.
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