Museum · Modern · 2001
The life behind one of the Arab world’s most familiar voices
Cairo
The Umm Kulthum Museum opened in 2001 in a building attached to Manasterly Palace on Rawda Island. Through clothes, photographs, letters, recordings and personal objects, it offers a compact and intimate account of the Star of the East.
Get to know this place
Museum · Modern · Built 2001
At the tip of Rawda Island, the Umm Kulthum Museum connects a familiar voice with the objects that accompanied its owner. It occupies a building attached to Manasterly Palace, part of a Ministry of Culture project begun in 1998 to preserve her personal possessions and artistic archive.
Clothing, glasses, medals, photographs and letters sit alongside audiovisual material about performances and travels. The museum’s intimate scale shifts attention from the public figure on stage towards the details of her life and her relationship with the era in which she sang.
Details worth pausing for
Stage costumes, glasses and personal objects
Photographs, documents and correspondence
Recordings and audiovisual material
Hours, prices and practical details
Prices in EGP and subject to change. Confirm with the venue before visiting.
Tips and things to know
Combine it with the Nilometer and Manasterly Palace.
Tuesday is the weekly closure according to the Cultural Development Fund schedule.
About one hour is usually enough.
Good to know
Address and directions
Manasterly Palace, Al-Malek Al-Saleh Street, Rawda Island, Manial, Cairo
Nearest landmark: Manasterly Palace and the Nilometer
Nearest metro: El-Malek El-Saleh
From El-Malek El-Saleh metro, take a short taxi to the southern tip of Rawda Island and the Manasterly complex; the museum is inside.
Get directions ↗The places closest to Umm Kulthum Museum, to make a day of it.
Manasterly PalaceA quiet Nile-side palace preserving 19th-century decoration50 m · about 1 min on foot
Rawda Island NilometerA thousand-year-old structure built to read the Nile50 m · about 1 min on foot
Saint George Greek Orthodox ChurchA round dome above Old Cairo.650 m · about 8 min on foot
Distances and times are estimates from where each place sits on the map; the actual route may differ.
Stops close to each other, in an order we tried. Follow it as it is, or make it your own.
Photo: Roland Unger · CC BY-SA 3.0
A suggested route · Music
For lovers of the golden age: from the home of the Prince of Poets Ahmed Shawki, to Umm Kulthum’s museum in Manial, the Arab Music Institute and Naguib Mahfouz’s world near al-Azhar, ending with a Tanoura night at Wikalat al-Ghouri.
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