Graeco-Roman Museum, Alexandria

Alexandria's Graeco-Roman Museum, founded in 1892 and reopened in 2023, holds about 40,000 objects from the Ptolemaic and Roman eras. A foreign adult ticket costs about 200 EGP, and it is open 9 am to 5 pm.

Founded in 1892, Alexandria's Graeco-Roman Museum is one of Egypt's oldest specialist museums and has by far the biggest collection of Ptolemaic and Roman antiquities from Alexandria and the rest of Egypt. It shut for a long restoration in 2005 and reopened in 2023 with rebuilt galleries, new lighting and English labels throughout.

Its roughly 40,000 objects span the years from Alexander's conquest in 331 BC to the Arab conquest in 641 AD. Highlights include the terracotta Tanagra figurines, a colossal head of Serapis from the Serapeum, porphyry busts of the Tetrarchs, Roman mosaics lifted from Alexandrian villas, Egyptian-style statues of Ptolemaic queens (some thought to be Cleopatra VII) and a large coin collection. For centuries Alexandria was the mint of the eastern Mediterranean.

A separate hall covers Greco-Egyptian religion: the blended cult of Serapis, the magical papyri, and the sacred Apis and Buchis bulls honoured by both traditions.

What to see

• The colossal head of Serapis
• Porphyry Tetrarch busts
• Mosaics from Alexandrian villas
• Ptolemaic queens, possibly Cleopatra VII
• The Greco-Roman coin collection

Visiting

• Opening hours: 9 am – 5 pm
• Tickets: about 200 EGP for foreign adults
• Best time: combine it with Kom el-Dikka, one block away
• Nearby: Kom el-Dikka, Alexandria National Museum, Pompey's Pillar