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Friday 15 Jan 2016 - 16:49 Makkah mean time-5-4-1437
(AP Image)
Cairo, (IINA) - Egypt unveiled on Thursday the Middle East’s first museum dedicated to fossils that showcases an early form of whales, now extinct and known as the “walking whale”, AP reported.
The unveiling is part of concentrated government efforts to attract much-needed tourists, who were driven away by recent militant attacks, and restore confidence in the safety of its attractions.
Egypt took significant security measures in the new museum, which is located in the desert at the Valley of Whales, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) southwest of the capital, Cairo. Dozens of heavily armed military officers in black balaclavas stood guard alongside plainclothes policemen.
Egypt's vital tourism industry has suffered from the political instability that followed the uprising against Hosni Mubarak in 2011. It took a further hit after a Russian airliner flying out of Sharm El-Sheikh crashed on October 31.
Nevertheless, the construction of the Fossils and Climate Change Museum was covered by a 2 billion euros ($2.17 billion) grant from Italy, according to Italian Ambassador Maurizio Massari.
Its centerpiece is an intact, 37-million-year-old and 20-meter-long skeleton of a legged form of whale that testifies to how modern-day whales evolved from land mammals.
“When you build something somewhere so beautiful and unique, it has to blend in with its surrounding … or it would be a crime against nature”, the museum’s architect Gabriel Mikhail said, pointing to the surrounding sand dunes. “We are confident visitors will come”, he added.
The Valley of Whales’ museum is also home to prehistoric tools used by early humans and various whale fossils exhibited in glass boxes corroborating the evolutionary transition of the early whales from land to water creatures.
In a related context, Environment Minister Khaled Fahmy cautioned against interpreting the museum’s opening as a “full endorsement of the theory of evolution”, which conflicts with Islam. “That is an entirely different matter”, he said. “We are still tied to our Islamic belief system”.
AG/IINA
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