Alexandria National Museum

Alexandria National Museum

After being fully renovated by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, the 1929 Italian-style mansion, situated on Fouad Street, houses the Alexandria National Museum. The museum opened to the public in 2002, and displays 1,800 pieces of art spanning Alexandria’s transformation from prehistoric and Pharaonic times to the later Graeco-Roman, Coptic and Islamic periods.

On the Graeco-Roman floor, a section of the museum is dedicated to the recent underwater excavations in Alexandria Eastern Harbour and in Aboukir Bay. Here, some of the important pieces excavated under the direction of Franck Goddio in collaboration with the Supreme Council of Antiquities can be seen. It includes the famous Stele of Heracleion, the almost identical twin of the Naucratis stela exhibited in Cairo and a 2.20m statue of a Ptolemaic Queen dressed as Isis. From Alexandria’s Eastern Harbour are displayed the priest of Osiris holding a canopic jar and two sphinxes, one of which is a representation of Ptolemy XII, father to Cleopatra VII. Other exhibits include ritual offerings, ustensils, gold and jewelry.