Mallawy Museum in Minya has received 3,500 visitors over the past two months since re-opening in September, according to the director general of the museum Ahmed al-Laithy.
The museum has seen a significant increase in the number of visitors since it was re-opened, compared to previous rates before being robbed and destroyed in 2014, Al Borsa news website quoted al-Laithy as saying.
The director general of the museum added in a statement to Borsa, 3,000 out of 3,500 visitors were local students and the rest were foreign and local visitors. Previous rates stood at 50 visitors per month.
Tours organized by travel agencies to visit archaeological sites nearby — such as Bani Hassan, Tal El-Amarna and Tuna El-Gabal — have started to visit the museum as well, after it was reopened.
The museum organized crafts workshops and educational activities for students, which attracted a larger number of visitors from Minya schools, he said.
The one-storey Mallawy Museum was robbed in August 2014 and its doors and walls were destroyed. The remains of artifacts after the robbery were transferred to the Ministry of Antiquities storerooms.
The ministry said it had retrieved 930 robbed artifacts out of 1,089 stolen pieces.
The presentation of artifacts in the museum has been updated from the previous display methods, as the new one is intended to be more informative.
The cost of the museum's development stood at LE11 million, LE4 million of which were provided by the Antiquities Ministry.
To cover the cost of the museum's restoration, the Minya governorate provided LE3 million and the Italian government LE4 million.
