HISTORY. The AUB Museum, founded in 1868, is the third oldest Museum in the Near East. Begun with a donation from General Cesnola, the
American Consul in Cyprus, the collection has since then grown steadily. Today the Museum exhibits a wide range of artifacts from Lebanon and
neighbouring countries tracing man's progress in the Near East from the Early Stone Age to the Islamic period.HISTORY.
The AUB
Museum, founded in 1868, is the third oldest Museum in the Near East. Begun with a donation from General Cesnola, the American Consul in
Cyprus, the collection has since then grown steadily. Today the Museum exhibits a wide range of artifacts from Lebanon and neighbouring
countries tracing man's progress in the Near East from the Early Stone Age to the Islamic period.
ORGANIZATION. The Museum is divided into two galleries: the first contains material belonging to the Stone Age (500.000-3000 B.C.) and the
Bronze Age (3000 B.C.-1 200 B.C.), while exhibits in the second gallery are from the Iron Age (1200-330 B.C.), the Hellenistic period (330-64
B.C.), the Roman Period (64 B.C.-5th c. A.D.), the Byzantine Period (5th-7th c. A.D.), and the Islamic Period (7th - 13th c. A.D.).
COLLECTIONS. The Museum's wealth comes from the variety of categories its objects belong to. Besides the collection of pottery (the largest
category), the following are represented: Prehistoric flint tools, bronze figurines, tools and weapons, gold jewelry, Phoenician and
classical sculptures and bas-reliefs, Egyptian alabaster vases from Byblos, cippe from Tyre, lead deity figurines from Baalbeck, precious and
semi-precious stones intaglios, decorative bone items, hair pins and musical instruments.
Beirut National Museum
If Lebanon is admired for its seven millennia of history, the Beirut National Museum is at the same time its window and refuge. Built between
1930 and 1937, its collections reflect the extraordinary wealth of an exceptional heritage.
HISTORY. The heritage, which saw the light of day in 1930 and comprises the first antiquities, was quickly enriched with the numerous
excavations carried out since then. Entirely renovated by the National Foundation for Heritage between 1995 and 1999, the Beirut National
Museum is a huge edifice where blocks of ochre stone and columns open onto a two-story space of impressive proportions open to the
public.
COLLECTIONS. From the first step across the doorway, it’s a journey through the ages that the visitor undertakes. The more you walk along the
aptly lit alleys, the more astonished you get. From Prehistory to the Bronze Age, from the Hellenistic period to the Roman period, from the
Byzantine period to the Mamluk period, it’s all the incredible diversity of Lebanon’s influences that reaches out for you. Under the charm,
one cannot feel more alive when such a heritage is so subtly developed.
VISITS. A visit to the Beirut National Museum, both magical and didactic, begins with one of the master pieces of the collection, the
Sarcophagus of Ahiram (10th century. BC). One quickly understands that if this heritage is Lebanese, it, none-theless, addresses humanity for
its walls are not less revealing than the Phoenician alphabet, ancestor of modern alphabets.
Step after step, the resounding names seem too familiar, like a common heritage, yet far from revealing all its secrets. Ramses, Alexander,
Europe… profusion of glories & legends, the cradle of which became the banks of the Mediterranean. More than ever, the famous expression
“Crossroads of Civilizations” takes here all its meaning.
