1 Pound Museum of Egyptian Antiquities

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo — the institution commemorated here — was founded in 1902, making this coin a centennial issue. The museum's collection had previously been housed in Boulaq and then briefly at Giza before the purpose-built Tahrir Square building opened, a facility designed by the French architect Marcel Dourgnon after an international competition in 1895. At the time of this issue, the museum held over 120,000 objects, a figure that had long overwhelmed the building's original storage capacity.