Minister of Culture Farouq Hosni will open by the end of January a second exhibition hall at the Egyptian Museum in al-Tahrir Square, downtown Cairo, to display 11 mummies that date back to the Ancient Egyptian era.

Wafa Sadiq, the museum's director, said the new hall will showcase 11 mummies, four of which are still under treatment. The mummies include those of kings and priests of Ancient Egypt that were unearthed in Upper Egypt's al-Deer al-Bahari in Luxor.

The mummies which belong to the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st dynasties were excavated late in the 18th century and were kept at the museum's basement. The first exhibition hall at the museum was opened in 1993 and contains 10 royal mummies.