A £5m redevelopment at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum to showcase the museum’s world famous collections from ancient Egypt has been given planning permission by Oxford City Council.

Work will begin immediately to transform the Egyptian galleries on the ground floor in the original Ashmolean building on Beaumont Street.

The four existing galleries will be refurbished and a fifth will be created by transforming the Ruskin Gallery, which is currently used as the Ashmolean shop.

The Egyptian galleries will close on January 1 with the new galleries expected to open in 12 months’ time.

The go-ahead for the plan comes exactly a year after the ‘new Ashmolean’ was opened by the Queen following its £61m extension.

The new-look ancient Egyptian section is being designed by Rick Mather, the architect responsible for the award-winning museum extension, featuring six floors and a rooftop cafe.

Museum director Dr Christopher Brown said: “This exciting project will transform the Egyptian collections, one of the most important and most popular parts of the Ashmolean.

“The work will address the problems of the old galleries, which have crowded displays, poor lighting and limited environmental controls. Rick Mather’s design will allow us to display material that, for reasons of conservation, has not been seen for up to half a century.”

The scheme will complete the museum’s new Ancient World Floor, made up of galleries spanning the world’s great ancient civilisations, including Egypt, Rome, Classical Greece and China.

The Egyptian collection is among the finest in the UK. Built up over 300 years, it now contains about 40,000 objects, with some of the exhibits recognised as the finest outside Cairo.

The shrine of Taharqa, the largest free standing Egyptian building in the UK, and the mummies are still among the museum’s biggest attractions.