When will Egypt's new, state-of-the-art, mega-museum open?
The current Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square will soon be relegated to second place.
After 116 years of being the storehouse and showcase of Egypt's most fabulous ancient treasures, the museum will soon be passing the baton over the the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM).
The GEM, currently under construction near the Giza Pyramids, is set to become Egypt's largest and primary museum.
Every few weeks we hear of more artefacts being transported from either the current Egyptian Museum or other storage facilities throughout Egypt to the new GEM. Already the GEM is holding over a tenth of its planned 100,000 pieces.
At the moment, the GEM is still very much a construction site, however some secure storage facilities and the conservation lab are operational, as you can see.
Projected finish dates for the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) have come and gone several times.
It was initially set to open in August this year, but is now scheduled for a 2018 inauguration.
In August Egypt's Minister of Antiquities, Mamdouh El-Damaty, announced that the museum will be managed independently of the government to ensure that it is free of bureaucratic restraints and political influences.
This is the same way in which the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria's library and museum, which opened in 2002, is managed.
Pictured is one of the conservators in the GEM carefully cleaning a statue of Osiris, god of the Underworld.
In the legend of Osiris, the god overcame death, conceived a son, Horus, and then became Lord of the Underworld. The Egyptians saw the emergence of their crops after the flooding Nile receded as symbolic of his miraculous rebirth. Green became the colour of new life and cyclical renewal.
Osiris was often shown as a mummified man with green skin. In this statue of a green-skinned Osiris, he wears his distinctive Atef crown, with his hands (emerging from the mummy wrappings) holding the flail and crook, symbols of divine kingship.