Unesco yesterday pledged to help restore a renowned museum dedicated to Islamic history in Cairo that was devastated by a bomb last week, with officials expressing "shock" at the scale of the damage.

The Museum of Islamic Art was across the street from the truck bomb that targeted the Egyptian capital's security headquarters on January 24. It killed four people and caused damage to buildings for hundreds of metres around, smashing the museum's facade and sending debris crashing onto exhibits.

Egypt's Antiquities Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said 164 of the 1,471 items on display were damaged, of which 90 could be reassembled or restored. He said that most of the 74 irreparably damaged items were glass and porcelain, smashed to powder.

On a tour of the building yesterday, a UN team said shattered glass littered the floor while fragments and steel slabs from the broken windows lay all over.

"It was an outstanding museum and to see it now, inside at least, totally destroyed is a big shock for us," Unesco museums sections head Christian Manhart said.

The UN cultural agency had already set aside emergency funds of $100,000 on the same day of the blast and said further technical and financial help would follow after detailed reports were filed.

Ibrahim said the US government would provide one million Egyptian pounds (about $150,000) while a well-known actor, Mohammed Sobhy, said he was giving 50,000 pounds (around $7,200).

Ibrahim said Egypt's National Library and Archives in the same building with the museum was also damaged. In addition, the blast smashed windows and caused other damage to historic mosques in the neighbourhood.

The 133-old museum hosts more than 92,000 pieces from periods ranging from the seventh-century pre-Islamic era to the end of the 19th century. The collection includes carpets, coins, ceramics, jewellery, manuscripts, marble carvings and woodwork.-Reuters