Cairo, Apr 5 (IANS): The main hall of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) in Cairo, which contains 1,500 artefacts, has opened for visitors.

On Saturday evening, Egyptian authorities moved 22 Pharaonic mummies from the Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo to the NMEC in a festive, remarkable parade known as "The Pharaoh's Golden Parade", reports Xinhua news agency.

The royal mummies belong to 18 kings and four queens from the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties that ruled ancient Egypt over 3,000 years ago.

They include mummies of famous ancient Egyptian King Ramses II and Queen Hatshepsut.

President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi inaugurated the main hall and the mummies hall in the NMEC.

The mummies hall will be opened on April 18 to coincide with the International Day for Monuments and Sites, also known as World Heritage Day.

With joint efforts of the Unesco and the Egyptian government, the NMEC's foundation stone was laid in 2002 and its temporary exhibition hall was opened in 2017.

The 22 royal mummies of the Pharaoh's Golden Parade were discovered in two cachettes, the first of which was unearthed in 1881 and the second in 1898, both in Upper Egypt's monument-rich province of Luxor.