A year after its establishment, Egypt's foreign ministry has selected Atia Radwan, head of the Museum Department at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), to be the administrative attache to the Antiquities Museum at the Egyptian Art Academy in Rome (EAAR). SCA Secretary General Mostafa Amin appointed Adel Abdel Satar, Radwan's deputy, to replace Radwan.

The museum is Egypt's first permanent antiquities exhibition abroad. The 220 square metre museum presents Egyptian civilisation from the days of the pharoahs through to the Islamic era.

Radwan told Ahram Online that the permanent exhibition, entitled "The Golden Ages of Egypt: Continuity and Change", will highlight the face of Egyptian arts by showing 205 artefacts carefully selected from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo as well as the Coptic, Islamic and the ceramic museums. The collection is exhibited thematically as "Life, Faith and Beyond."

The "Life" section is divided into three parts: governance, people and daily life. "Governance" displays famous Egyptian kings, including Khafre, Akhenaten and Alexander the Great. "People" has statues of nobles, priests and overseers as well as some of their funerary objects. "Daily Life" shows the life of workers and artisans, commerce and trade, ceramic and pottery production, weights and measures, ornaments and children toys and games.

Among the most important objects, Radwan said, are Tutankhamun's canopic coffinet, a Mamluk Quran decorated with gold foliage drawings, an 11th century painted Fatimid ceramic vase, and a painted manuscript featuring the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus on her lap.