Cairo: Egyptian Museum

The world's greatest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts. Roman mummy portraits show Greco-Roman Egypt. Wine vessels from all eras demonstrate Egypt's 5,000-year wine history. Tutankhamun's treasures are just the beginning.

What to do there

5 things to do

1. 1 Find the Jar Labeled by a Winemaker Named Aperershop Wine · Price: high

   The world's first wine labels aren't metaphorical. They're real clay jars, 3,400 years old, with the vintner's actual name inscribed in ink.

   Tutankhamun was buried with 26 wine jars — and each one carries what wine writers today still can't replicate: the name of the vineyard, the vintage year, the wine style, the volume in 'hin' (2 hin = 1 liter), and the name of the Chief Vintner. One jar reads: 'Year 4. Sweet wine of the House-of-Aton — Life, Prosperity, Health! — of the Western River. Chief Vintner Aperershop.' Another: 'Year 5... Chief Vintner Khaa.' Another: 'Year 9... Chief Vintner Sennufe.' Three men. Three great vintages. All named because they made wine worthy of eternity. These wine jars are housed at the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), Giza — in the Tutankhamun Galleries (2 dedicated halls, 7,500 sq meters). Book tickets ONLY online at visit-gem.com — EGP 1,450 per foreign adult (~$29 USD). Enter the galleries, look for the provisions section, and read the labels aloud — you are reading a winemaker's handwriting from 1340 BC.

   Backup: If galleries are crowded, visit on a Wednesday or Saturday evening (open until 9pm) when tourist traffic drops. The full Tutankhamun wine jars collection is exclusive to GEM — there is no substitute at Tahrir.

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2. 2 Taste the Wine That Confused Scholars for 3,000 Years Wine · Free

   Shedeh was ancient Egypt's most prized drink. Was it pomegranate wine? Fermented dates? In 2006, a Spanish lab cracked it — and the answer is in the sealed jars at the GEM.

   Among Tutankhamun's wine jars is a sealed amphora labeled 'Shedeh' — Egypt's supreme luxury drink, so prized that scholars argued for centuries about what it actually was. In 2006, Spanish scientists used mass spectrometry on the residue inside a SEALED Shedeh amphora from Tut's tomb — one that hadn't been opened since approximately 1325 BC. They found syringic acid: the definitive chemical marker of red grape wine. Shedeh was red wine. Egypt's most sacred drink, offered to gods, poured for pharaohs, debated by historians for millennia — was red grape wine. Find the Shedeh amphora in the Tutankhamun provisions display at the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), Giza (included with general admission EGP 1,450). Look at the label inscription and consider: every glass of red wine you've ever drunk is part of this 3,400-year lineage.

   Backup: If the specific Shedeh jar isn't immediately identifiable, any of the inscribed wine jars in the provisions hall demonstrates the same history. Ask a museum guide for 'irep' (the Egyptian word for wine) artifacts.

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3. 3 Stand Before the Narmer Palette — Egypt's Wine Story Starts Here History · Price: moderate

   The most important artifact in the Egyptian Museum at Tahrir isn't Tutankhamun's golden mask. It's a 5,000-year-old slate that marks the exact moment Egypt — and its wine culture — was born.

   The Narmer Palette is a 63-centimeter shield-shaped slab of dark greywacke, carved around 3,100 BC — 5,100 years ago. It records the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under King Narmer and contains some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. But here's the wine connection: in the royal tombs at Abydos, belonging to Narmer's immediate predecessors — King Scorpion I, Dynasty 0 — archaeologists found wine jars with grape seeds, skins, and residue. These are the OLDEST wine jars yet discovered in Egypt. The palette is displayed at the Egyptian Museum, Tahrir Square, Cairo (ticket: 550 EGP ~$11 USD, open 9am–5pm daily) in an elevated glass case immediately inside the main entrance. Walk directly to the center of the ground floor and read both sides — you are standing at the absolute beginning of recorded human civilization.

   Backup: If the ground floor is overwhelming, the audio guide (75 EGP, foreigners) gives a focused 20-minute introduction to the most significant pieces. The Narmer Palette is always highlighted.

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4. 4 Decode the Faces That Drank Wine Across Three Civilizations History · Free

   The Fayum mummy portraits look so alive you'd expect them to blink. Painted in Egypt, by Greek-trained artists, for Roman citizens — they are the visual proof of wine culture's most extraordinary fusion.

   These portraits date from roughly 100 BC to 200 AD — painted using encaustic: molten beeswax mixed with pigments, applied while hot, then hardened into a surface so durable the colors look completely fresh nearly 2,000 years later. The subjects are wealthy Greco-Egyptian landowners from the Fayum oasis who drank wine, with funerary iconography including goblets and wine kraters as symbols of eternal life. You're seeing a face painted in the hyper-realistic Greek portrait tradition, mounted on an Egyptian mummy wrapped in linen, following Egyptian afterlife beliefs, under Roman imperial rule. Three civilizations. One coffin. And wine — the element shared by all three cultures simultaneously. The portraits are located at the Egyptian Museum, Tahrir Square — upper floor, Room 14 (funerary art/Greco-Roman section, included in your 550 EGP admission). Move slowly through the room and ask yourself: when their wine ran out, did they import from Roman Italy? Did they grow their own? The answer is both.

   Backup: If Room 14 signage is unclear, ask any guard for 'the Fayum portraits' or 'Roman mummy faces.' They're one of the museum's star collections and staff know exactly where they are.

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5. 5 Witness the Mask of a Boy Who Chose Wine for Eternity Adventure · Free · Optional

   Tutankhamun's golden mask stayed at Tahrir while his wine jars moved to the GEM. Stand between them — in two different museums, 20 kilometers apart — and you'll understand everything about how Egypt prepared for death.

   When Egypt transferred all 5,398 Tutankhamun artifacts to the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, they kept two things in Tahrir: the innermost gold coffin, and the golden mask — the most recognized artifact in the history of archaeology. Here's what the exhibit labels won't say: Tutankhamun had one face and 26 wines. The mask tells you who he was to the world. The wine jars (at the GEM, 20km away) tell you what he wanted for eternity. He chose those three vintages — Year 4, Year 5, Year 9 — above his gold. The mask is displayed at the Egyptian Museum, Tahrir Square — upper floor, Tutankhamun Hall (included in your 550 EGP admission). After visiting the wine jars at the GEM, make the 20-30 minute drive back to Tahrir, stand in front of the golden mask, and think about Chief Vintner Aperershop's careful inscription from 1345 BC.

   Backup: This step works as a standalone if you're only visiting Tahrir (entry: 550 EGP). The golden mask is always the centerpiece of the Tutankhamun Hall on the upper floor — you cannot miss it.

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