The Prison Museum at the Citadel of Salah El-Din offers a different kind of historical experience, revealing part of the history of prisons in Egypt in the modern era. Located inside the Citadel of Salah El-Din Al-Ayyubi, the museum retains its corridors and cells, giving visitors a sense of the place and the conditions associated with it across different periods of its history.

The current prison was built under Khedive Ismail in 1874 and later expanded under Khedive Tawfiq. The museum consists of a corridor about 50 metres long, lined on both sides by cells in eastern and western sections, along with rooms once used for torture, some of whose scenes have been recreated with wax figures. The best known is the Rings Room, designed by the French engineer Lumian in 1932 on the model of a room in the Bastille prison in France.

A visit to the Prison Museum is a chance to explore a lesser-known part of the Citadel’s history, alongside the other landmarks and museums inside the Citadel. The museum is in the Citadel area of the El Khalifa district, and Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities information gives visiting hours as 8am to 4pm.

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