Project News

I am appointed to the Chief Advisor/ Coordinator of the project of the Grand Egyptian Museum Conservation Center (GEM-CC) Phase II. The project has begun the Phase I as a preparation phase from June 2008 and has supported the Egyptian counterparts to establish the GEM-CC. From this July, the Phase II has been launched to continue the technical cooperation for the next five years.

The project office is located at the outskirt of the famous Three Great Pyramids in Giza. The Tahrir Square where the January 25th Revolution was centered is distanced about 40 to 50 minutes from our office. Within the site of the office, the new national archaeological museum of Egypt, Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) will be constructed. After the completion of the museum, all of the museum collection will be conserved and preserved at the GEM-CC which is located in the museum site. The great part of the cost of museum building construction, exhibition, interior and landscape design, and ICT development will be covered by the Japan's Official Development Assistance (ODA) known as Yen loan. In addition, capacity development of GEM-CC staffs is provided through this technology transfer project.

The project aims to develop the capacity of conservation, science, archaeology, database experts all of whom have essential role to manage a museum, through training courses given by Japanese experts both in Egypt and Japan. The best conservation experts in Japan are involved in our project as lecturers of the training courses.

Through passing on the Japanese conservation knowledge and techniques to the Egyptian experts, and further they are utilized to improve collection environment for a long term, I believe that the new museum will be one of the best museums in the world not only because of its size and collection itself, but also the quality of the museum design and conservation environment. I hope that the GEM will be an internationally well-recognized museum managed by Egyptian experts in near future.

I have lived in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. There are not many countries like Egypt which has such rich cultural heritage. Egypt has more than four thousand years of history and cultural heritage. I hope that the Egyptian have more opportunity to familiarize themselves with their history and culture through their cultural heritage through the GEM museum collection.

Hideyuki Suzuki
Chief Advisor/ Coordinator
JICA- GEM-CC Project