What the Grand Egyptian Museum will look like

The GEM is built on a slope and straddles the 162 foot difference in levels between the Nile valley, where you enter, and the Giza plateau, where the main galleries are situated. There are sculpture gardens in the museum park, while a massive statue of Ramses II greets you upon entry into the main atrium. From here, the Grand Staircase, which leads from valley level to plateau, will be lined with 87 statues of kings and gods.

The main galleries lead left from the staircase and are divided into four eras: pre-dynastic (up to 3100 B.C.) and Old Kingdom (the pyramid builders), Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom (Tutankhamun, Ramses and Co) and Greco-Roman. These chronological galleries are then organized according to themes, unlike in the old museum: Beliefs and Eternity (religion), Kingship and Power (rulers), and Society (the rest of us). At the end, visitors are led right back to tall glass windows, which look out toward the pyramids and drive home the magnificence of Ancient Egypt—the grand finale of a chronological show celebrating one of the world's greatest civilizations.

To the right of the staircase are the Tutankhamun galleries where, for the first time, the contents of the tomb will be shown in their entirety. There is also a separate children’s museum within the museum, which will use state-of-the-art visual tricks to explain Egypt’s ancient world to kids. An especially cool note about the Tut galleries: the relics are displayed in the exact order that Carter came across them in the tomb.