Assiut Museum — the regional collection at the university
Last verified on site: 12 March 2026, by Salwa El-Naggar. Next scheduled verification: early June 2026. Two galleries open during the ongoing partial redisplay; gallery III scheduled to reopen August 2026.
What you are looking at
The Assiut Museum is the working museum of the Faculty of Arts of Assiut University, sitting on the southern edge of the main campus on the western edge of Asyut city. The collection is built around the material excavated from the rock-cut tombs of the Asyut necropolis (the cliff above the present-day cemetery of el-Hawawish on the western side of the city) and the Meir necropolis in the desert to the north-west. The university has held its excavation concession at Asyut since 1998 and the museum is the principal display point for the published finds; movable material from Meir is also displayed here rather than in the SCA storage at Mallawi.
The museum is small by national-museum standards — four galleries totalling approximately seven hundred square metres — but it is the most concentrated single display of Middle Kingdom provincial material from the Asyut and Meir necropoles anywhere in the world. The recent partial redisplay (2024–2026) has cleared the gallery III material into storage while the cases are rebuilt; galleries I and II remain open, and gallery IV (the small Coptic-period room) is open on a reduced schedule.
What is open during the redisplay and what is in each room.
| Gallery | Status | Content |
|---|---|---|
| I — Old & Middle Kingdom from Asyut | Open | The wooden coffin of Mesehti (Eleventh Dynasty) and its famous wooden model army; the Middle Kingdom stelae from the tomb of Hapidjefa; a small selection of canopic chests. |
| II — Middle Kingdom from Meir | Open | Stelae, statuettes and selected wall fragments from the Senbi-Ukhhotep tomb group; the bilingual hieratic ostraca from B1. |
| III — Late Period and Greco-Roman | Closed for redisplay until August 2026 | Will redisplay the Saite-period bronze figurines and the small Roman portrait corpus. |
| IV — Coptic-period material | Open Sunday–Wednesday only | The textile fragments from the cemetery of Deir Rifa; a small group of Coptic ostraca; the wooden lintels from a sixth-century house. |
The model army of Mesehti — two ranks of soldiers, one in red Egyptian livery and the other in dark Nubian livery, each forty centimetres tall and carved in wood — is the museum's signature object. It is the most-reproduced single piece of Middle Kingdom funerary equipment in the modern study of pharaonic Egypt and is the reason most visitors come to the museum.
On the ground
Opening hours: 09:00–14:00 Sunday to Thursday in the standard schedule; 17:00–21:00 in the evening summer schedule from mid-June to mid-September. Closed Friday all day; closed Saturday morning. The museum is on the Assiut University campus; visitors enter through the south gate of the campus and walk approximately four hundred metres to the Faculty of Arts building.
At the last verification (12 March 2026), the foreign adult ticket was EGP 80, the student ticket EGP 40, the Egyptian national ticket EGP 5. The photography permit is EGP 30. The museum does not have a guidebook in print; the small printed leaflet at the entrance is in Arabic only. An English-language audio tour is in preparation for the post-redisplay reopening.
The standard Asyut day plan combines the museum with the Meir necropolis visit — Meir in the morning under permit, museum in the afternoon. From the museum a short taxi takes the visitor to the office at El-Walidiyya for an editorial appointment if one has been arranged.
Can I see the gallery III material that is currently in storage?
Not generally. Researchers with a stated scholarly purpose can apply through the Assiut University Faculty of Arts research office for permission to inspect specific objects in the storage area; the standard reply window is fifteen working days.
Are there guided tours?
The museum runs Arabic-language student-led tours on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons during the university term. English-language tours are available by prior arrangement; ask at the entrance on arrival or write to the desk for a referral.
Is the model army of Mesehti always on display?
Yes. The model army has been on continuous display in gallery I since 2003 and is not affected by the gallery III redisplay.
Can I combine the museum with the White and Red Monasteries in Sohag?
Not comfortably on a single day; the drive from Asyut to the Sohag monasteries is two hours. The standard combined plan uses Asyut as overnight, museum on day one, Sohag on day two.
Is the museum accessible for visitors with limited mobility?
Partly. The ground floor (galleries I and II) is step-free from the south entrance of the Faculty of Arts. Gallery IV is on the first floor reached by stairs only; there is no lift. The current redisplay does not include accessibility upgrades.
Reading list
- El-Khadragy, M. The Tomb of Hapidjefa I at Asyut. Assiut University Press, 2007. Foundational re-publication of the largest Middle Kingdom tomb at Asyut.
- Kahl, J. Ancient Asyut: The First Synthesis after Three Hundred Years of Research. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007. Standard modern overview.
- El-Naggar, S. (ed.). Assiut Museum Catalogue — Gallery I Provisional. Verdi Heritage Studies subscriber monograph, 2025.
- Assiut University Faculty of Arts. Annual Reports of the Asyut Excavation Project. 1998 onward.
Recent revisions.
| Date | Editor | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-03-12 | S. El-Naggar | Gallery III redisplay timeline updated; reopening rescheduled from May to August 2026. |
| 2025-12-04 | S. El-Naggar | El-Naggar 2025 catalogue added to subscriber archive. Audio-tour project announced. |
| 2025-08-19 | S. El-Naggar | Summer schedule confirmed; evening hours through to 21:00 in operation. |
| 2025-03-02 | S. El-Naggar | Gallery III closed for redisplay; gallery IV moved to reduced schedule. |
The Asyut day links the Meir morning to the museum afternoon.
Library and Field subscribers can request an editorial appointment at the El-Walidiyya office on the same day.