UNESCO’s Director-General Audrey Azoulay meets with Egyptian tourism minister Khaled El-Enani in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Tourism
Director-General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay arrived in Cairo on Friday with a delegation to attend the historic event that will see ancient Egyptian royal mummies moved in a parade in the streets of the capital on Saturday.
Egypt is planning to move 22 royal mummies, including 18 kings and four queens, from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square to their final residence at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation in Egypt’s first Islamic capital, Al-Fustat.
Azoulay, who is in Egypt on a four-day visit, was accompanied by Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled El-Anany during a tour of the Egyptian Museum.
El-Anany and Azoulay inspected the process of the parade which will take the mummies to Old Cairo amid tight security measures, a tourism ministry statement read.
The historic parade has captured the world’s attention and is set to be attended by actors and key figures.
El-Anany and Azoulay also visited the developed Yuya and Tjuyu hall, as well as the hall of Tutankhamun, known as King Tut or the Golden King.
They inspected the hall of the royal mummies that are set to be moved and the artefacts that will take their place in the hall.
Azoulay and her delegation are scheduled to visit many archaeological sites in Egypt, the ministry said, without disclosing further details.
The 22 mummies taking part in the parade were discovered in two cachettes. The first was unearthed in 1881 at Deir El-Bahari in Luxor’s West Bank in tomb TT320.
The 18 kings are Seqenenre Taa; Ahmose I; Amenhotep I; Thutmose I, II III and IV; Seti I and II; Ramses II, III, IV, V, VI and IX; Amenhotep II and III; and Merenptah.
The four royal queens are Ahmose-Nefertari, Tiye, Meritamun, and Hatshepsut.
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