Egypt's first site museum is to be opened today by Mrs Suzanne Mubarak
and Bernadette Chirac, wife of French President Jacque Chirac, during their
two-day visit to Egypt by invitation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Nevine El-Aref previewed the Imhotep Museum built at
Saqqara in commemoration of the ancient Egyptian architect Imhotep and the
renowned French Egyptologist Jean Philip Lauer.
The museum complex, with its gleaming white marble façade, stands
at the foot of the Saqqara Plateau. The complex, three years in the building
on a budget of LE20 million 
, offers a new perspective on site museums and could set an
example for others planned by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) at
other archaeological sites.
According to the site management programme launched by the SCA four years
ago, such complexes will offer highly efficient storage space and will
replace the haphazard storehouses which were regularly subject to theft. The
artefacts will be housed in a suitable atmosphere to prevent
deterioration.
The idea of such museum was floated in 1990, but the location chosen
would have distorted the landscape and was considered inappropriate. The
project was kept under wraps until 1997, when construction began on a new
site...
