Tutankhamun's tomb on display in full for first time at Egypt's new £910m museum

Visitors to the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), described as the world's largest archaeological museum, will be able to view the entire contents of the intact tomb of the iconic pharaoh Tutankhamun, displayed together for the first time since it was discovered by British Egyptologist Howard Carter in 1922. Located near the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza, the GEM is packed with an incredible 100,000 artefacts from around 7,000 years of Egypt's history.

Among the contents from the boy king's tomb are his spectacular gold mask, throne and chariots. According to Dr Tarek Tawfik, president of the International Association of Egyptologists and former head of the GEM, since the discovery of the tomb 103 years ago, only about 1,800 pieces from a total of over 5,500 have been previously on display. "I had the idea of displaying the complete tomb, which means nothing remains in storage, nothing remains in other museums, and you get to have the complete experience, the way Howard Carter had it over a hundred years ago," Dr Tawfik said.

Costing some £910 million, the vast museum complex - spanning 5.4 million square feet, the size of 70 football pitches - is expected to attract up to eight million visitors a year and give a huge boost to Egyptian tourism, which has been hit by regional crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the Israeli-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine wars and instability in nearby Libya and Sudan.

Alongside the new Tutankhamun exhibit is a new display of the impressive 4,500-year-old funerary boat of Khufu - one of the oldest and best-preserved vessels from antiquity. A 3,200-year-old, 52-foot-long suspended obelisk of the powerful pharaoh, Ramesses II, and his massive 36-foot-high statue are also on show. The huge statue was relocated from near the Cairo railway station in 2006, as part of a complex operation in preparation for the new institution.

The exterior of the museum is adorned with hieroglyphs and translucent alabaster cut into triangular shapes, featuring a pyramid-shaped entrance.

Notable Egyptologists have argued that the GEM's establishment strengthens their demand for key Egyptian antiquities held in other countries to be returned, including the famed Rosetta Stone, which is displayed at the British Museum.

"It was my dream. I'm really happy to see this museum is finally opened!" Dr Zahi Hawass, Egypt's former minister of tourism and antiquities, told the BBC. "Now I want two things: number one, museums to stop buying stolen artefacts and number two, I need three objects to come back: the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum, the Zodiac from the Louvre and the Bust of Nefertiti from Berlin."

Dr Hawass has set up online petitions, attracting hundreds of thousands of signatures, calling for all three items to be repatriated.

The Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799, provided the key to deciphering hieroglyphics. It was found by the French army and was seized by the British as war spoils. The British Museum told the BBC that it had received "no formal requests for either the return or the loan of the Rosetta Stone from the Egyptian Government".