KING TUTANKHAMUN'S BED AND CHARIOT GO BACK TO THE PYRAMIDS AS THEY ARE MOVED TO NEW GRAND EGYPTIAN MUSEUM

The still unfinished new Grand Egyptian Museum is at the foot of the pyramids and is set to open in 2018

Will eventually house the collections of the current brimming museum

Gilded bed and a funeral chariot from Tutankhamun's tomb were transferred on Tuesday

The young pharaoh's mummy will remain in his tomb as it is too fragile to transport

The first of the many wondrous artefacts found in Egyptian boy king Tutankhamun's tomb were transported carefully through Cairo's streets on Tuesday to their new home near the Giza Pyramids.

The still unfinished new Grand Egyptian Museum at the foot of the pyramids will eventually house the collections of the current brimming museum in the city's Tahrir Square.

A gilded bed and a funeral chariot from Tutankhamun's tomb - discovered by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922 - were transferred on Tuesday, well packed in wooden containers complete with materials to protect them from both heat and vibration.

The new museum, just west of the Giza pyramids (pictured) will extend over 47 hectares (116 acres) and contain some 24,000 square metres (258,300 square feet) of permanent exhibition space

In one of the galleries of the new complex, technicians wearing white gloves gingerly unwrapped the precious objects.

Relocating the two pieces forms part of a joint programme with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to restore, pack and transport 71 items from the existing museum to the new facility, an antiquities ministry statement said.

'During the next weeks and months we're going to transfer regularly more than 1,000 remaining objects in Cairo museum to be restored and prepared for the exhibition here in the first half of 2018,' said Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Enany.

'Today is a big event... today we start transferring big objects,' he said.

The Grand Egyptian Museum had been scheduled to open in 2015, but construction has lagged as expenses mounted to more than $1 billion.

The museum is now scheduled to open partially in 2018.

Eventually, the vast complex will house more than 100,000 relics including the 4,500 pieces of Tutankhamun's treasure discovered in the southern Valley of the Kings in Luxor.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4535190/King-Tuts-bed-chariot-paraded-Cairo-new-home.html#ixzz4iMWm0uhE

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