A national museum of

● 15-year refurbishment project costing £80m has delivered new galleries – and an ever-growing army of visitors

It was a 15-year project to transform a Victorian visitor attraction into a “world-class museum” that has already seen visitor numbers more than treble and the building crowned as the nation’s most popular cultural centre.

Now the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh has unveiled the final phase of its £80 million regeneration – three new galleries for ancient Egyptian and East Asian treasures, as well as ceramics drawn from around world.

More than 1,300 objects will go on public display – 40 per cent for the first time in decades – from tomorrow after completion of a £3.6m project backed by nearly 500 different donors.

The three new galleries are expected to help visitor numbers soar well above the 2.3 million who flocked to the attraction last year. This compared to the 700,000 visitors the museum was attracting before the refurbishment project was announced in 2004 – six years after an extension to showcase Scottish treasures in the national collection was created.

Dr Gordon Rintoul, director of the museum, who has overseen the 15-year project, said he was now targeting breaking the three million visitor barrier following completion of the work on the original building, which was previously known as the Royal Museum and dates back to 1866.

Highlights of the new Egyptian gallery, which spans 4000 years of history, include a royal coffin in which an unknown queen was buried which dates from the 16th century BC, and a decorative box made in honour of the Pharaoh Amenhotep, who ruled during the 15th century BC.

The collection of Chinese, Japanese and Korean treasures – which date from 1100 BC to the present day – include a Ming dynasty rice measure, a Manchu bridal outfit that was part of a collection amassed by King Edward VII, and Samurai armour from the 19th century.

Ceramics being showcased include an ancient Greek vase made in Athens around 630 BC and a funeral urn used by the Zapotecs – an indigenous pre-columbian civilisation.

Dr Rintoul said: “We’re not