Nubian Museum

Opened in 1997, the Nubian Museum in Aswan is dedicated to preserving and showcasing the rich history and culture of Nubia. Designed by architect Mahmoud El-Hakim, the museum’s distinctive architecture reflects traditional Nubian styles. It houses thousands of artifacts spanning various periods, including prehistoric, Pharaonic, Coptic, and Islamic eras. The museum also features a garden with a reconstructed Nubian house, prehistoric rock inscriptions, and an open-air amphitheater for cultural events. In 2001, it was awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

Planning your visit

The Nubian Museum exists because of what was lost. When the Aswan High Dam was built in the 1960s, Lake Nasser flooded Nubia — villages, temples and archaeological sites across a vast stretch of the Nile valley — and the Nubian population was relocated. An international rescue campaign moved what monuments it could and excavated what it could not save. This museum, opened in 1997, holds much of that recovered material and documents a culture that was displaced from its own landscape.

The collection runs from prehistoric rock art through the Pharaonic period, the Kingdom of Kush whose rulers conquered Egypt and ruled as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, and on to Coptic and Islamic Nubia. The garden holds a reconstructed Nubian house, prehistoric rock inscriptions relocated from flooded sites, and an open-air amphitheatre.

Mahmoud El-Hakim's building draws on Nubian vernacular architecture in local sandstone and won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2001 — the design is part of the argument the museum makes.

Bookable options generally pair the museum with Kalabsha Temple, itself relocated stone by stone above the new waterline, which makes the rescue story concrete. Private and group day tours from Aswan cover both. Current availability is listed below.