The National Museum of Damascus ( ar, الْمَتْحَفُ الْوَطَنِيُّ بِدِمَشْقَ) is a museum in the heart of
Damascus,
Syria. As the country's national museum as well as its largest, this museum covers the entire range of
Syrian history over a span of over 11 millennia.
It displays various important artifacts, relics and major finds most notably from
Mari,
Ebla
Ebla ( Sumerian: ''eb₂-la'', ar, إبلا, modern: , Tell Mardikh) was one of the earliest kingdoms in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located about southwest of Aleppo near the village of Mardikh. Ebla was an important center t ...
and
Ugarit
)
, image =Ugarit Corbel.jpg
, image_size=300
, alt =
, caption = Entrance to the Royal Palace of Ugarit
, map_type = Near East#Syria
, map_alt =
, map_size = 300
, relief=yes
, location = Latakia Governorate, Syria
, region = ...
,
[ three of Syria's most important ancient ]archaeological sites
An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and ...
. Established in 1919, during King Faisal's Arab Kingdom of Syria, the museum is the oldest cultural heritage institution in Syria.
Among the museum's highlights are, the Dura-Europos synagogue
The Dura-Europos synagogue (or "Dura Europas", "Dura Europos" etc.) was an ancient synagogue uncovered at Dura-Europos, Syria, in 1932. The synagogue contains a forecourt and house of assembly with painted walls depicting people and animals, and ...
,[ a reconstructed synagogue dated to 245 AD, which was moved piece by piece to Damascus in the 1930s, and is noted for its vibrant and well preserved wall paintings and ]frescoes
Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster ...
, as well as sculptures and textiles from central Palmyra
Palmyra (; Palmyrene: () ''Tadmor''; ar, تَدْمُر ''Tadmur'') is an ancient city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early secon ...
, and statues of the Greek goddess of victory from southern Syria. The museum houses over 5000 cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...
tablets, among them the first known alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
in history, written down on a clay tablet, the Ugaritic alphabet. The museum is further adorned by 2nd-century murals, elaborate tombs, and the recently restored Lion of al-Lat, which originally stood guard at the National Museum of Palmyra, but was moved to Damascus for safeguarding.
The museum temporarily closed its doors in 2012, after the Syrian Civil War engulfed Damascus and threatened its rich cultural artifacts. The museum authorities quickly unloaded more than 300,000 artifacts and hid them in secret locations to safeguard Syria's cultural heritage from destruction and looting. After six years, the museum reopened four of its five wings on October 29, 2018.
Location
The National Museum of Damascus lies in the west of the city, between the Damascus University
The University of Damascus ( ar, جَامِعَةُ دِمَشْقَ, ''Jāmi‘atu Dimashq'') is the largest and oldest university in Syria, located in the capital Damascus and has campuses in other Syrian cities. It was founded in 1923 through ...
and the Sulaymaniyya Takiyya
The Sulaymaniyya Takiyya ( ar, التَّكِيَّة السُّلَيْمَانِيَّة, at-Takiyya as-Sulaymāniyya), known in Turkish as , is a '' takiyya'' ( Ottoman-era Arabic name for a mosque complex which served as a Sufi convent) in D ...
, in the Shukri al-Quwatli
Shukri al-Quwatli ( ar, شكري القوّتلي, Shukrī al-Quwwatlī; 6 May 189130 June 1967) was the first president of post-independence Syria. He began his career as a dissident working towards the independence and unity of the Ottoman E ...
street.
History
The first museum was founded in 1919 under the supervision of the Syrian Ministry of Education at Al-Adiliyah Madrasa
Al-Adiliyah Madrasa () is a 13th-century madrasah located in Damascus
)), is an adjective which means "spacious".
, motto =
, image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg
, image_seal = Emblem of Damascus. ...
and housed a smaller collection until this was moved to its current location. The current building was built in 1936 next to Sulaymaniyya Takiyya
The Sulaymaniyya Takiyya ( ar, التَّكِيَّة السُّلَيْمَانِيَّة, at-Takiyya as-Sulaymāniyya), known in Turkish as , is a '' takiyya'' ( Ottoman-era Arabic name for a mosque complex which served as a Sufi convent) in D ...
. On the facade, it presents the front walls of the Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...
palace of Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi, which was removed from its location in the Syrian desert.
The discovery of Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi adding new attention to the collection of the Islamic period, the Directorate of Antiquities decided to incorporate the fragments of the palace into the museum. The front façade of the palace was transported to Damascus, before being carefully reconstructed as the National Museum's main entrance. The process took several years and the official opening was celebrated in 1950.[ By time, new halls and wings were added to the museum as its collection grew. In 1953, a three-storey wing was added to display more exhibits of the Islamic period, as well as contemporary Syrian art.][
In 1963, a new lecture hall and a library were added. This lecture hall was furnished as a 19th-century Ottoman-era Damascene reception hall, lavishly decorated and ornamented, as most Damascene palaces of that time.] Later additions were made in 1974 to house exhibits from the Paleolithic period. The most recent addition took place in 2004, when the temporary exhibition wing was reworked to display Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...
antiquities.[
]
Exhibits
Some of the museum's unique exhibits are the restored wall paintings of the Dura Europos Synagogue from the 3rd century AD, the hypogeum
A hypogeum or hypogaeum (plural hypogea or hypogaea, pronounced ; literally meaning "underground", from Greek ''hypo'' (under) and ''ghê'' (earth)) is an underground temple or tomb.
Hypogea will often contain niches for cremated human rem ...
of Yarhai from Palmyra
Palmyra (; Palmyrene: () ''Tadmor''; ar, تَدْمُر ''Tadmur'') is an ancient city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early secon ...
, dating to 108 AD and the façade and frescoes of the Umayyad period Qasr Al-Heer Al-Gharbi, which dates back to the 8th century and lies 80 km south of Palmyra. Many other important historical artifacts can be found in various wings; such as the world's first alphabet from Ugarit
)
, image =Ugarit Corbel.jpg
, image_size=300
, alt =
, caption = Entrance to the Royal Palace of Ugarit
, map_type = Near East#Syria
, map_alt =
, map_size = 300
, relief=yes
, location = Latakia Governorate, Syria
, region = ...
and many Roman era
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
mosaics. The exhibits are organised into 5 wings:
Prehistoric Age
Remains and skeletons from different Stone-Age periods, most notably the neolithic period, as well as objects and finds discovered in the basin of the Orontes River, the Euphrates
The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers''). Originating in Turkey, the Eup ...
and at Tell Ramad
Tell Ramad ( ar, تل رماد) is a prehistoric, Neolithic tell at the foot of Mount Hermon, about southwest of Damascus in Syria. The tell was the site of a small village of , which was first settled in the late 8th millennium BC.
The tell ...
in southwestern Syria.
Ancient Syria
Among other exhibits, there are tablets, cylinder seal
A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...
s and amulets
An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protects ...
from ancient sites such as Ebla
Ebla ( Sumerian: ''eb₂-la'', ar, إبلا, modern: , Tell Mardikh) was one of the earliest kingdoms in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located about southwest of Aleppo near the village of Mardikh. Ebla was an important center t ...
, Mari, Ugarit
)
, image =Ugarit Corbel.jpg
, image_size=300
, alt =
, caption = Entrance to the Royal Palace of Ugarit
, map_type = Near East#Syria
, map_alt =
, map_size = 300
, relief=yes
, location = Latakia Governorate, Syria
, region = ...
and sculptures from Tell Halaf
Tell Halaf ( ar, تل حلف) is an archaeological site in the Al Hasakah governorate of northeastern Syria, a few kilometers from the city of Ra's al-'Ayn near the Turkish border. The site, which dates to the 6th millennium BCE, was the firs ...
. The most important of these is an Ugaritan cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...
tablet, presenting the world's oldest existing alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
. The museum also houses the oldest known substantially complete piece of notated music.
Greek and Roman/Byzantine (classical) Age
This wing contains many classical Syrian artifacts. The displays include sculptures, marble and stone sarcophagi
A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...
, mosaics, jewelry and coinage from the Seleucid
The Seleucid Empire (; grc, Βασιλεία τῶν Σελευκιδῶν, ''Basileía tōn Seleukidōn'') was a Greek state in West Asia that existed during the Hellenistic period from 312 BC to 63 BC. The Seleucid Empire was founded by the ...
, Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
and Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
periods. The findings are from sites such as Palmyra, Dura Europos, Mount Druze
Jabal al-Druze ( ar, جبل الدروز, ''jabal ad-durūz'', ''Mountain of the Druze''), officially Jabal al-Arab ( ar, جبل العرب, links=no, ''jabal al-ʿarab'', ''Mountain of the Arabs''), is an elevated volcanic region in the As-Suwa ...
, and more, and most notably include many beautiful Byzantine era manuscripts and jewelry, as well as stone work, silk and cotton textiles from Palmyra, preserved by the desert sands.[
Among the most important exhibits from the classical era counts the 3rd century underground Palmyrene ]tomb
A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called ''immureme ...
, the Hypogeum of Yarhai
The Hypogeum of Yarhai is a hypogeum (underground tomb) from the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra which flourished in the second and third centuries AD. It is considered one of the finest examples of Palmyrene funerary art. It's a mass grave which wa ...
, considered one of the best examples of Palmyrene funerary art
Funerary art is any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead. The term encompasses a wide variety of forms, including cenotaphs ("empty tombs"), tomb-like monuments which do not contain human remains, and comm ...
. The hypogeum was originally found in Palmyra's Valley of the Tombs, and after its excavation moved to the museum in 1935. The hypogeum, which dates from 108 AD, currently is found in the underground part of the museum, and can be reached after taking the stairs from room 15. There are also many pieces of Palmyrene funerary reliefs
Palmyrene funerary relief busts were first produced in Palmyra in the middle of the first century BC a decorative slabs closing the burial niches inside underground tombs. The reliefs were carved into square pieces of limestone and depicted fig ...
in the museum found in the Palmyra hall.
Islamic Age
The facade of an Islamic palace has been moved and reconstructed as the museum's main entrance. Some of the contents of the palace are also located in the museum, including carvings.
It also contains many exhibits made of glass and metal, as well as coins, from different periods of Islamic art history. There are also scriptures, ranging from the Umayyad era to the Ottoman period
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
.
There is also a hall containing an example of a traditional Damascene home, which was obtained from an 18th-century house in the Old City of Damascus
The Ancient City of Damascus ( ar, دِمَشْق ٱلْقَدِيمَة, Dimašq al-Qadīmah) is the historic city centre of Damascus, Syria. The old city which is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, contains numerous ...
.
Contemporary art
This wing contains contemporary works of artists from Syria, the Arab world, and other countries.[
]
Gallery
File:Damascus-National-Museum.JPG, The museum's gate, an 8th-century Islamic palace
File:Damascus National Museum Statue in the Garden.jpg, The museum's garden
File:Damascus National Museum Stony Doors.jpg, The museum's garden showcasing doors and ornaments from ancient Syrian temples
File:Damascus National Museum Ancient Tub.jpg, The museum's garden showcasing column capitals and an ancient tub
File:The bird has flown Damascus Museum (4115517492).jpg, Detail of a Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
era mosaic
File:Fish Mosaic DAmascus Museum (4114748111).jpg, Detail of a Roman era mosaic
File:Strutting bird Damascus Museum (4115518804).jpg, Detail of a Roman era mosaic
File:Damascus National Museum - mosaic.JPG, Inscription from a Greek era mosaic
File:IshtarDamascusMuseum.jpg, The Goddess Ishtar
Inanna, also sux, 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒀭𒈾, nin-an-na, label=none is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine justice, and political power. She was originally worshiped in Su ...
in a 3rd-century Palmyrene bas-relief
File:Damascus, National Museum, Hypogeum of Yarhai (6362299863).jpg, 3rd century Palmyrene funerary sarcagrophi
File:Damascus Museum stone couple.jpg, Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
era funerary relief of a couple
File:Gravestone in Damascus 01.jpg, Roman era funerary relief of a man
File:Damascus Museum lion.jpg, A Palmyrene Lion statue
File:Allat-Minerva.jpg, Basalt
Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...
statue of the goddess Al-lāt
Al-Lat ( ar, اللات, translit=Al-Lāt, ), also spelled Allat, Allatu and Alilat, is a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess worshipped under various associations throughout the entire Arabian Peninsula, including Mecca where she was worshipped alongs ...
-Minerva from As-Suwayda
As-Suwayda ( ar, ٱلسُّوَيْدَاء / ALA-LC romanization: ''as-Suwaydāʾ''), also spelled ''Sweida'' or ''Swaida'', is a mainly Druze city located in southwestern Syria, close to the border with Jordan.
It is the capital of As-Suwayda ...
File:Hittite Lion statue, National Museum of Damascus.jpg, Hittite Lion statue
File:ناووس روماني.JPG, Roman sarcophagi with details of a battle
File:Dhushara.JPG, Statue of an ancient Nabatean god
File:Mordecai and Esther.jpg, Wall painting from Dura Europos synagogue
File:Samuel e david.jpg, Wall painting from Dura Europos synagogue
File:Duraeuropa-1-.JPG, Wall painting from Dura Europos synagogue
See also
*Deir ez-Zor Museum
The Deir ez-Zor Museum ( ar, متحف دير الزور) is a museum devoted to the archaeology and history of northeastern Syria, an area more commonly known as the Jezirah, or Upper Mesopotamia. The museum is located in Deir ez-Zor, the capita ...
*National Museum of Aleppo
The National Museum of Aleppo ( ar, متحف حلب الوطني) is the largest museum in the city of Aleppo, Syria, and was founded in 1931. It is located in the heart of the northern city on Baron Street, adjacent to the famous Baron Hotel and ...
* List of museums in Syria
References
{{Authority control
National Museum of Damascus, The
Buildings and structures in Damascus
Museums established in 1919
Syria
Museums of Ancient Near East in Syria
Tourist attractions in Damascus
1919 establishments in Asia
Syrian culture