Tourism in Lebanon - Museums

Museums

• Beirut National Museum is the principal museum of archaeology in Lebanon. The collection was begun after World War I, and the museum was officially opened in 1942. The museum has collections totalling about 100,000 objects, most of which are antiquities and medieval finds from excavations undertaken by the Directorate General of Antiquities. About 1300 artifacts are exhibited, ranging in date from prehistoric times to the medieval Mamluk period. The museum was designed in a French-inspired Egyptian Revival architecture and built with Lebanese Ochre limestone. It comprises a basement, a ground floor, a mezzanine floor and a terrace; the central block is covered by a glass roof, above the mezzanine, giving natural overhead light. The whole site is approximately 5,500 square metres (59,000 sq ft), and the exhibition floor space totals 6,000 square metres (65,000 sq ft). The immediately adjoining museum annexes and administrative offices occupy about 1,000 square metres (11,000 sq ft). The museum displays follow a chronological circuit beginning in Prehistory and ending in the Ottoman era. The circuit begins on the ground floor where 83 large objects are displayed, these include sarcophagi, mosaics statues and reliefs. The upper floor displays 1243 small and medium-sized artifacts arranged by chronological order and by theme in modern showcases with soft lighting and magnifying glasses that emphasize the aesthetic aspect of the artifacts.

• Gibran Museum, formerly the Monastery of Mar Sarkis, is a biographical museum in Bsharri, Lebanon, 120 kilometres from Beirut. It is dedicated to the Lebanese artist, writer and philosopher Khalil Gibran. Founded in 1935, the Gibran Museum possesses 440 original paintings and drawings of Gibran and his tomb. It also includes his furniture and belongings from his studio when he lived in New York City and his private manuscripts. The building which houses the museum and his tomb was bought by his sister in 1931 under Gibran's request, having spiritual significance as a monastery dating back to the 7th century when it was the Mar Sarkis (Saint Serge) hermitage. In 1975, the Gibran National Committee restored and expanded the monastery to house more exhibits and again expanded it in 1995.

• Archaeological Museum of the American University of Beirut is the third oldest museum in the Near east, after Cairo and Istanbul. The AUB Museum exhibits Levantine artifacts from the Early Stone Age to the Islamic period. The museum was formed in 1868 after Luigi Palma di Cesnola gifted a collection of Cypriot pottery to the newly formed American University of Beirut. Between 1902 and 1938 the Museum acquired collections from all around the Middle East. The museum remained closed during World War II and re-opened in 1948. It expanded in the 1950s and doubled its floor space with a refurbishment under curator D.C. Baramki which opened to the public in 1964. The collections are organized by chronology and themes with displays along the sides of the gallery displaying the evolution of pottery. Other displays include The Cesnola Collection; the museums first showing pottery from Cyprus from the Bronze Age to the Roman era. The Pre-Historic collection includes Paleolithic and Neolithic eras. The Ksar Akil collection was donated from the University of Boston team who excavated this archaeological site in 1948. The display shows a 23 m stratigraphic sequence of thirty seven layers illustrated by the flint tools belonging to several cultures detected.

• Sursock Museum is a museum of modern art in the Achrafieh district of Beirut, Lebanon. It belonged to Nicolas Sursock who bequeathed his villa to the city of Beirut after his death in 1961. The museum in an 18th century mansion built with strong Venetian and Ottoman architectural influences. It is located on Rue Sursock east of the Beirut Central District. The museum collection consists of 5,000 pieces, such as paintings, sculpture, ceramics, glassware, and iconography, dating from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Some of the local and international artists whose work are in the Museum’s permanent collection are Chafic Abboud, Rafic Charaf, Omar Onsi, and Aref Rayess, among many others. The museum is currently undergoing an expansion project that would increase the museum’s surface from 2,000 square meters to 7,000 square meters, and include additional exhibition rooms, a library, a bookshop, and music room.

• The Robert Mouawad Private Museum is a private residence in Beirut's Zokak el-Blat quarter that was turned into a museum by the Lebanese businessman Robert Mouawad. The palace was built in the neo-gothic style by the Lebanese politician and art collector Henri Philippe Pharaoun in 1911. The museum was inaugurated on May 11, 2006. It houses objects of value reflecting a mix of artistic oriental and occidental cultures, and a rare collection of books, Chinese porcelain, ceramics, and other significant objects. The palace's architecture and design reflects Pharaoun's infatuation with Islamic Art and decorative wooden panels that date back to the 19th century, especially after his repetitive travels to Syria. Other displayed artifacts include Byzantine mosaics, Roman marble sculptures, jars and jugs, historical columns, pottery, ancient weapons, unique carpets, sophisticated jewelry pieces, rare precious stones, Melkite Catholic icons, and preserved manuscripts.

• Museum of Lebanese Prehistory is the first museum of prehistory in the Arabic Middle East and was opened in June 2000 to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Saint Joseph University of Beirut. The founding of the museum followed from the work of Jesuit scholars who controlled prehistoric research in this part of the world until the 1950s. These had accumulated a large amount of artifacts and heritage, collected at the "Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines" of Saint Joseph University. This faculty established a research center in 1988 that developed with the creation of the Museum of Prehistory in June 2000. The museum houses an exceptional collection of animal and human bones, Neolithic pottery, stone tools and other ancient items recovered from over four hundred archaeological sites since the 19th century. The collections form a unique reference and were only accessible to specialists until the late 1990s. By exhibiting part of the collection to the public, the University has enabled people to investigate and discover the details and mysteries of prehistoric Lebanon. The museum occupies a total of 350 square metres (3,800 sq ft) on two levels.

• Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral museum is a crypt museum at the St. Georges Greek Orthodox Cathedral on Nejme Square. It is a relatively small museum that reveals layers of Christian heritage belonging to a series of seven churches built on the same exact site starting 2000 years ago. The current cathedral stands on layers of relics where at every stage of its existence its people attempted to enlarge and beautify it, adding more murals and icons. The museum is a crypt underneath the cathedral where oil lamps, pipes, clay and terra cotta pots, miniature statues, and crosses found in various digs are displayed. Glass panels cover some of the crypt's relics and a glass partition separates the crypt from the church's altar directly above it. A narrow metal walkway leads visitors through the twelve stops of the crypt displaying tombstones, mosaics, burial chambers, engravings on stones and columns, well-preserved skeletons, a covered canal, and part of an ancient paved road. The ruins and findings were excavated by Lebanese archaeologists before the cathedral underwent restoration; they aimed at locating the Byzantine church Anastasis, which according to ancient texts is believed to be near Beirut's famous law school before it was leveled by the 551 Beirut earthquake.

Other major museums:

• Ameen Rihani Museum
• M. Farroukh Museum
• Museum and Library of the Catholicosate of Cilicia
• Baalbek Museum
• Dahesh Museum of Art
• Lebanese Heritage Museum
• Expo Hakel Lebanon
• Robert Mouawad Private Museum Lebanon
• Byblos Fossil Museum
• Byblos Wax Museum
• Memory of Time Museum
• Sidon Soap Museum