Gayer-Anderson Museum (Bayt al-Kritliyya)
π Location: Beside the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Islamic Cairo Β Β· Β πΊ Focus: Ottoman domestic life Β Β· Β ποΈ Tickets: ~120 EGP foreign adults
The Gayer-Anderson Museum occupies two adjoining Ottoman houses built in 1540 and 1631 and joined together by a narrow staircase β known in Cairo as Bayt al-Kritliyya ("the House of the Cretan Woman"). They might have been demolished in the 1930s like so many of their neighbours, but Major John Gayer-Anderson, a British army doctor turned eccentric oriental scholar, was granted permission to live in them in 1935 in exchange for restoring the buildings and the antique collection inside.
When he left Egypt in 1942, the houses passed to the state with all their furnishings, and they remain one of the finest examples of an Ottoman-period merchant's home preserved anywhere β with original mashrabiya lattice screens, painted wooden ceilings, marble floors, a beautiful courtyard sabil, a domed reception qa'a (sitting hall), a women's hidden gallery overlooking the male visitors below, and a roof terrace with sweeping views of the spiral minaret of Ibn Tulun next door.
Film buffs may recognise it: parts of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) were shot inside.
Highlights
- Domed qa'a with its octagonal marble fountain
- Original mashrabiya screens overlooking the courtyard
- Roof terrace looking onto the Ibn Tulun spiral minaret
- Painted Ottoman wooden ceilings
- Connection (literal door) to Ibn Tulun Mosque
Visiting
- Opening hours: 9 am β 5 pm
- Tickets: ~120 EGP foreign adults
- Best time: combine with Ibn Tulun Mosque next door
- Nearby: al-Saliba Street, Cairo Citadel