It is a journey through time through over 4000 years of history that is undertaken by crossing the threshold of the "Collegio dei Nobili", the baroque palace in the heart of Turin that since 1824 has housed the Egyptian Museum, origin that makes it the oldest dedicated archaeological collection to ancient Egypt to the world. To compose it are the more than 40,000 exhibits kept here, 3,300 of which are exhibited along the chronological path divided into 15 rooms and arranged on 4 floors, the result of the imposing refurbishment and expansion work inaugurated in 2015. Further 11,000 objects are also visible in the deposits called " Material Culture Galleries ”, for an overall development of 2 linear kilometers and 10,000 square meters of surface - of which 600 are intended for temporary exhibitions - and include a conference and event room, cafeteria, bookshop, service areas and offices.

Thanks to its extraordinary collection of statues, papyri, sarcophagi, objects of everyday life and, of course, mummies - there are about 300 humans and animals - the Egyptian Museum is considered the main cultural and scientific institution in the field of Egyptian antiquities. outside the cradle of that civilization, that is, after its counterpart in Cairo.

A primacy consolidated in recent times not only with the development of an exhibition offer capable of attracting 850,000 visitors a year (in 2019 853,320 people visited the Museum), but above all, under the impulse of the president Evelina Christillin and the director Christian Greco, through an action of profound renewal in managerial and organizational terms, as well as by virtue of an increasingly intense scientific activity conducted by the human resources of the Museum. In fact, about fifty people are directly employed today - more than doubled in the last five years - of which half are dedicated to the research, collection and teaching area (including curators, registrars, restorers, etc.) while the same number are employed in the management and administration areas. , European development and funds, communication, marketing and external relations.

The economic and financial management of the Museum represents another of its strengths: with a production value close to 10 million euros, the Egyptian Museum has been able to give stability to a model that is now able to guarantee self-financing, achieving in the three-year period 2015/2017 management surpluses for a total of 1,833,360 euros (intended to support new internal projects). A result whose achievement was also helped by the impetus given to the circulation and marketing of some traveling exhibitions which, in the various stages carried out around the world, welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

However, research remains the element at the center of a scientific project that sees the Museum constantly engaged in the enhancement of the collection and in dialogue with the main national and international museum and research institutions: beyond the management of the museum space strictly understood, if thus concretely reaffirms its historical role as a point of reference for the world archaeological community, as confirmed by operations such as the start, in May 2015, of the joint Italian-Dutch excavation mission in Saqqara, alongside numerous research projects ( about 20 each year) carried out in collaboration with important national and international research centers, the restoration of over 1100 artifacts in 5 years (2015-2019) and the scientific publications by the scientific staff, a production that culminated in 2017 with the launch of RiME, the scientific journal of the Egyptian Museum.

In its almost 200 years of history, the Egyptian Museum has been transformed, renewed and rethought several times, trying to combine the needs of scientific research with those of public enjoyment. Starting from its own institutional profile, a terrain in which it distinguished itself for innovation when the Foundation Museum of Egyptian Antiquities of Turin was officially born on 6 October 2004, which represents the first experiment in the constitution, by the Italian State, of an instrument of museum management with private participation. The Foundation was established by the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities - which gave the museum collections to use for 30 years - together with the Piedmont Region, the then Province of Turin (today Metropolitan City), the City of Turin, the Compagnia di San Paolo and the CRT Foundation.

A decisive formal evolution for the subsequent structural transformation of the Egyptian Museum completed in April 2015 with the radical renewal of its spaces: a 50 million euro project supported by the founding members, the result of 5 years of refurbishment, restoration and mass in safety of the seventeenth-century building in via Accademia delle Scienze. It is a profound rethinking of the Museum that under the direction of

Christian Greco has given shape to a scientific project capable of competing with the great international museums. The museum itinerary reconstructs the history of the Museum and of the collections, the archaeological contexts of the objects on display but also the history of the missions, their organization, their way of operating, making use, in addition to the preserved finds, also of a precious rich archival heritage of photos and historical documents.

The desire to be characterized by a dynamic and constantly updated offer is also expressed in the heterogeneous calendar of organized public meetings, with periodic cycles of informative conferences, workshops, thematic visits, laboratories, etc. intended for the most varied audiences, from families to stakeholders, from tourists to industry scholars. Among them, in particular, a privileged place is reserved for students and in general for the new generations, in the wake of the natural teaching and training vocation of a Museum that welcomes about 6,300 classes for an average of over 100,000 children a year.

In compliance with government provisions to combat the Covid-19 epidemic, in 2020 the Egyptian Museum was closed to the public 180 days, recording in the 185 days of opening - which in any case saw a strong reduction in capacity starting from March - a decrease of more than 70% compared to 2019. Alongside the foreseeable decrease in admissions, however, the Museum has invested in digital public engagement, especially in the closing months, with a series of initiatives that have recorded significant growth in users involved through the institution's website and social channels. Among these it is worth mentioning "The Director's Walks", launched in March and viewed by over 1 million and 170 thousand users overall. Furthermore, on the closing days, the research and curation of the collections never stopped, leading to the creation of new contents dedicated to the scientific community, which earned the institution the prestigious Heritage Award / Europa Nostra 2020 Awards in the research category for the Turin Papyrus Online Platform (TPOP), a project created by the Egyptian Museum for the digitization and making available of its papyrological collection.