Today in Cairo, the Grand Egyptian Museum opens, albeit partially. It is promoted as the largest museum in the world dedicated to a single civilization, with more than one hundred thousand artifacts on display. The structure, dedicated to ancient Egypt, has been under construction for twenty years and has cost over a billion dollars. The galleries housing the treasures of Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb are not yet open, but visitors can already access the main galleries, partly to test the building’s capacity.

Ancient Egypt is probably the most well-known and publicized subject of archaeological research in Africa. However, as Le Monde Afrique points out in a series dedicated to this field, other important excavations and cataloging efforts are underway on the continent, challenging the notion that Africa is a “land without history.”