The Egyptian Museum is among the oldest sections of the Royal Art Collection. Following a recommendation by Alexander von Humboldt, the section was founded in 1828 under King Frederick William III. From 1842 to 1845, a Prussian expedition travelled through Egypt and uncovered 1,500 objects from Mohamed Ali. It was in 1850 that the Egyptian Museum moved to its new premises at the Neues Museum, on Museum Island.

The museum’s collection has been continuously augmented by acquisitions, donations and finds from expeditions. Significant excavations were carried out in Amarna from 1911 to 1914, with these finds now constituting the museum’s finest treasures. World War II led to severe damage of the Neues Museum, with a vast section of its assembled material destroyed by a fire. What remained from the exhibits was removed for safekeeping, and following the war’s end, the collection was divided and scattered throughout the world. Some of the works returned from the then-USSR in 1958 and were placed in the Bode Museum. These exhibits concentrated primarily on religion and culture during the reign of the Pharaohs, and provided a major insight into the beliefs and perceptions of Egyptians. These displays revealed gigantic reliefs from pyramid temples of 3000 BC and pieces from burial chambers, as well as grand statues of kings and gods, various sarcophagi, painted coffins and mummy masks. A selection of installations enhanced perspectives on ancient Egyptian culture and everyday life, while the displays from the Papyrussammlung, or Papyrus Collection, focused on examples of classic Egyptian literature and illustrated books of the dead, as well as manuscripts from Christian and Arab times.

The Egyptian Museum’s sections were integrated into the Charlottenburg and first exhibited in 1967 in the former Royal Guardhouse, overlooking the Charlottenburg Palace. In January 1991, the collections were officially reunited, but the museum was closed in 1998 due to renovation works. Formerly set in the Masterplan Museum Island, the Egyptian Museum was to move back to the Neues Museum and reopen when the current reconstruction was to be completed. The collection in Charlottenburg closed in March 2005 and returned to Museum Island. Funded by the Kuratorium Museumsinsel, the collections reopened in August 2005 on the upper floor of the Old Museum.

The massive collection of the Egyptian Museum features masterworks of different epochs of ancient Egypt, such as statues reliefs and monumental pieces of Egyptian architecture documenting the different periods of ancient Egypt from 4000 BC to the Roman Age. In addition to the world-renowned bust of Queen Nefertiti, the original color of which has been preserved without restoration since the Amarna period, the artworks on display feature the sculptured portraits of a royal family and royal court members.