Cairo (AFP)
An unprecedented parade of 22 mummies of kings and queens of ancient Egypt, including Ramses II and Hatshepsut, will take the streets of Cairo on Saturday evening to reach the new home of the pharaohs, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC).
The journey of about seven kilometers between the Cairo Museum, where the mummies have rested for over a century, and the NMEC will last about 40 minutes, aboard Pharaonic-style tanks, under heavy police surveillance.
The area around Tahrir Square, where the historical museum is located, will be closed "to vehicles and pedestrians" on Saturday evening to make way for the procession which will begin around 6:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. GMT), according to the Interior Ministry.
"The whole world is going to watch this. It is an important 40 minutes in the life of the city of Cairo," famous Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass told AFP.
Access to the parade being limited for security reasons, Egyptians will be able to watch it on television or on the internet.
In chronological order, the pharaoh Seqenenre Tâa (16th century BC) will lead the way, closed by Ramses IX (12th century BC).
The event will be punctuated by musical performances by several Egyptian artists.
The NMEC, which occupies a large building south of Cairo, partially inaugurated in 2017, is due to open on April 4.
But the mummies will not be on public display until April 18.
- "The outcome" -
The Director General of Unesco Audrey Azoulay, who will be present during the parade, said in a statement Friday that the move of the mummies to the NMEC was "the culmination of a long work to better preserve them and better display them" .
"Before our eyes scrolls the history of Egyptian civilization," added the head of the UN organization which participated in the creation of the NMEC.
Discovered near Luxor (south) from 1881, most of the 22 mummies had not left Tahrir Square since the beginning of the 20th century.
Since the 1950s, they were exhibited there in a small room, without clear museographic explanations.
The mummies will each travel in a chariot bearing the name of the sovereign and equipped with shock absorption mechanisms, in an envelope containing nitrogen to preserve them.
At the NMEC, they will appear in more modern boxes "for better temperature and humidity control than in the old museum", explains to AFP Salima Ikram, professor of Egyptology at the American University of Cairo, specialist of mummification.
They will be presented individually alongside their sarcophagi, in a setting reminiscent of the underground tombs of kings, with a biography and objects linked to the sovereigns.
According to Mr. Hawass, the new presentation of the mummies is aimed at "education" and not "sensationalism".
The macabre nature of the mummies has in the past put off more than one visitor.
"I will never forget when I took (Princess) Margaret, sister of Queen Elizabeth II, to the museum: she closed her eyes and ran away," he says.
-Cursed by the pharaohs-
After years of political instability linked to the popular revolt of 2011, which dealt a heavy blow to tourism, Egypt is seeking to bring back visitors, in particular by promoting culture.
In addition to the NMEC, Egypt is due to inaugurate within a few months the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) near the pyramids of Giza, which will house Pharaonic collections.
"The GEM has the (treasure of) King Tutankhamun, the star. If you don't put mummies in NMEC, nobody is going to go," said Mr. Hawass, referring to the objects found in the tomb of the famous pharaoh in 1922.
The grand parade, announced by authorities using online videos, caused a stir on social media.
Under the hashtag in Arabic # malédiction_des_pharaons, many Internet users have associated the recent disasters in Egypt with a "curse" which would have been caused by the displacement of the mummies.
In one week, Egypt experienced the blockage of the Suez Canal by a container ship, a train accident that left 18 dead in Sohag (south) and the collapse of a building in Cairo which resulted in death of at least 25 people.
The "curse of the pharaoh" had already been mentioned in the 1920s after the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, followed by the deaths considered mysterious of members of the team of archaeologists.
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