Prime ministers, presidents and royalty descended on Cairo on Saturday to attend the spectacle-laden inauguration of a sprawling new museum built near the Pyramids to house one of the world’s richest collections of antiquities.

The inauguration of the $1 billion Grand Egyptian Museum, or GEM, marks the end of a two-decade construction effort hampered by the Arab Spring uprisings, pandemic and wars in neighbouring countries.

“We’ve all dreamed of this project and whether it would really come true,” Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly told a press conference, calling the museum a “gift from Egypt to the whole world from a country whose history goes back more than 7,000 years.”

Spectators, including President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, gathered late on Saturday before an enormous screen outside the museum, which projected images of the country’s most famous cultural sites as dancers in glittering pharaonic-style garb waved glowing orbs and sceptres.

‘New chapter for Egypt’

They were accompanied by Egyptian pop stars and an international orchestra decked out in white beneath a sky lit with lasers, fireworks and hovering lights that formed into moving hieroglyphics.

By opening the museum, Egypt was “writing a new chapter in the story of this ancient nation’s present and future,” Sisi said at the opening.

The audience included German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi, and the crown princes of Oman and Bahrain.

The museum’s most heavily promoted attraction is the expansive collection of treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb, uncovered in 1922, including the boy-king’s golden burial mask, throne and sarcophagus, and thousands of other objects.

A colossal statue of Ramses II that sat for decades in a downtown Cairo square bearing the pharaoh’s name now adorns the grand entry hall.

The complex’s sleek design, evoking the Pyramids, cuts a marked contrast to the dusty and often outmoded displays in the neoclassical Egyptian Museum that opened over a century ago in central Cairo overlooking Tahrir Square.

Old museum looted

The old museum suffered indignities in recent years, including the looting of several display cases during Egypt’s 2011 uprising, when antiquities theft was rife.

In 2014, the beard of Tutankhamun’s burial mask broke off when workers were changing the lights in the display case, then was clumsily glued back on. The following year, the mask was more properly restored and put back on display.

Officials hope the new museum can end a perception fueled by such events that Egypt has been remiss in caring for its priceless treasures, and add weight to its claims for Egyptian objects held in museums abroad to be returned.

“Is it a national shrine or a global showcase? A gesture of cultural sovereignty or a tool of soft power?” read an article in a special edition of state-run Al-Ahram Weekly devoted to the museum, which it called “a philosophy as much as it is a building.”

“The GEM is not a replica of the Louvre or the British Museum. It is Egypt’s response to both. Those museums were born of empire; this one is born of authenticity.”

The museum’s more than $1 billion price tag was funded in large part by Japanese development loans. Designed by an Irish firm, Heneghan Peng Architects, it covers some 120 acres, making it roughly the same size as Vatican City.

Officials are also betting that the museum, the latest in a series of mega-projects launched or completed since 2014, can accelerate a revival of tourism, a vital source of foreign currency for an economy battered by years of regional conflicts and economic uncertainty.

A series of galleries had been opened late last year, but many exhibits were not accessible to the public.

As season four drops on Netflix, The Witcher, despite mixed reviews, has registered a strong viewership, as a report suggests.

FlixPatrol, a site that monitors the performances of movies and shows, states the fantasy show is in second place on the streamer’s global charts.

In the wake of Henry Cavill’s exit as Geralt of Rivia, Liam Hemsworth, who replaced him, was vocal about the pressure of filling the void his predecessor left.

Offering insight into this, he previously told Collider, “Just the situation [of] coming into a series that’s already established a really passionate fanbase. I appreciate these fans, and I appreciate the fact that they care so much about it.”

He added, “I think if I wasn’t a fan myself, if I didn’t care about it, I wouldn’t have come on board.”

“The reason I came on board was because I was a fan, and because I thought that I could do justice to this character. I thought that could bring an interesting interpretation to this part of the story,” the star continued.

“I think what excited me the most was where Geralt is at this part of the story – his emotional state, and where he’s heading,” Liam concluded.

The Witcher season four is streaming on Netflix.

Kayla Nicole, ex-girlfriend of Travis Kelce, has seemingly thrown a major shade at Taylor Swift.

Swift and Kelce began dating in 2023 and announced their engagement in August 2025.

Now, Nicole took to Instagram and unveiled her dazzling look for Halloween.

Inspired by Toni Braxton’s legendary silver look from 2000 hit He Wasn’t Man Enough, Nicole’s outfit along with the song choice sent fans into frenzy.

The lyrics of the song goes like, “Listen, girl / Who do you think I am? / Don’t you know that he was my man? / But I chose to let him go / So why do you act like I still care about him?“

Fans and followers flooded the comments section with model Tatiana Elizabeth writing, “Will the real showgirl step to the front,” referring to Taylor Swift’s latest album The Life of a Showgirl.

However, another fans wrote, “The shade is real,” meanwhile third user noted, “We heard THE MESSAGE!”

Notably, Toni Braxton also joined and commented, “You killed it mama” with orange heart emoji.

It is worth mentioning that this comes after speculations that Swift’s famous track Opalite from her album The Life of a Showgirl is a shade to her fiancé Travis Kelce’s ex Kayla Nicole.