Nubian Museum

The Nubia Museum in Aswan houses finds made during excavations carried out as part of UNESCO’s International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, threatened by the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s. Besides showcasing many of the more than 3,000 objects found during the excavations, the Museum serves as a focal point for Nubian history and culture, its collections presenting the history of Nubia from prehistory to the present day.

Designed by the Egyptian architect Mahmoud El-Hakim, with landscaping by Werkmeister & Heimer Landscape Architects (Germany) and Leila Masri of Sites International, the Museum’s exhibitions were designed by Mexican architect Pedro Ramerez Varquez. The Nubia Museum occupies a 50,000 square-metre site on the banks of the Nile at Aswan, 7,000 square metres of which are given over to the Museum building. Designed to evoke traditional Nubian village architecture and finished in local sandstone and pink granite, the Museum was one of the winners of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2001.