Visitor centre to be set up at Al-Azhar Park

State Information Service

A visitors' centre and a five-storey museum to house monuments representing Cairo's history from the Pharaonic era to the modern age will be established at Al-Azhar Park.

A memorandum of understanding was inked Wednesday in this respect between Zahi Hawas, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), and Luis Monreal, the General Manager of the Agha Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC).

Emerging from the meeting, Hawas said the memo falls within the framework of cooperation between the SCA and AKTC. Under the memo, the AKTC will, in tandem with the SCA, establish a temporary center for overhauling monuments of the Saladin Citadel along with the visitors' center and the museum.

About 1,500 antiques have been selected from the stores of the Saladin Citadel, the Museum of Islamic Arts and the Coptic Museum to be transferred to the new museum.