NATIONAL MUSEUM OF TRIPOLI
Do not leave Tripoli without visiting the National Museum, designed in collaboration with UNESCO, which brings together the wealth of the Libyan archaeological heritage as part of the prehistory, the Libyan peoples of Antiquity, the Punic, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods, and one floor is devoted to the contemporary period. The rooms of the Roman Statuary are particularly sumptuous. Each room contains general explanations in English of periods and subjects, but the different collections are lecoque in Arabic only, the museum opened for Libyans at one time (1988) where the tourists were very rare. As you will notice, Libyans are visiting him willingly, and it is not uncommon to cross classes of pupils or students who come with their teachers. Count two good hours for a full visit. At the time of colonization, the Italians had destroyed part of the Tripoli castle to drive the road from the coast, under the current entrance door to the museum.
In the lobby, on the left, a great mausoleum from Ghirza (th century), and bas-reliefs discovered on the same site are hung on the walls. Libyans romanisés from rich farms in Ghirza sculptaient their funeral monuments reminiscent of their daily lives: vineyards with grape clusters, palms, farm animals… On the right, a beautiful statue of Venus was repatriated from Italy to Libya in 2000. On the wall behind the statue, the central panel of marine animals of a Roman mosaic is surrounded by a frise showing scenes of games in the amphitheatre of Leptis Magna (th century. The villa of Dar Buk Amera in Zliten). Here you will notice a series of musicians, those who played at the opening of the games. We will also note the two death sentences attached to small tanks and to be eaten by two savage captives. According to some archaeologists, these two prisoners of war would be Garamantes, the warrior people of the Fezzan who came to the assistance of Oea (Tripoli) against Sabratha in 70. and whose combatants were severely punished by the Romans after the defeat of the Oea, as would be illustrated by this frise. On the left wall, a painting from Tripoli in the th century. In two niches, two statues come from the Leptis Magna thermal baths: on the left the God Apollo, on the right an athlete.
At the bottom of the hall, a large map of the country allows you to visualize, thanks to light signals, the location of the various archaeological sites, the route of the caravan roads or the country's twenty museums. Before taking the left door leading to the halls dedicated to Libyan Prehistory, we will certainly take a look at the little Volkswagen led by Colonel Gaddafi during the revolution.
Rooms 2, 3 and 4 are home to a collection of great flint stones from the acheuléenne period (Lower Paleolithic); tools used by the men moustériens and atériens (Middle Paleolithic), which followed in the cave of Haua Fteah in Cyrenaica, inhabited 80 000 years ago; an educational map on prehistoric ages; a fossilized tree trunk found in the Libyan Sahara (in the centre of room 2); at the exit of Room 2, a photograph of Uan Amil's rock painting, with their strand of hair in front (5500-4000 BC, Village); a large ceramic pot discovered in Village from - 8000 - 3700; in Room 4, reproductions of cave engravings from the Neolithic era of the Messak Settafet and the Wadi Wadi and the skeleton of a prehistoric child discovered by Professor Mori in the Wadi Wadi.
Room 5 is devoted to the traces left by the first Libyans: in the centre of the coin, a royal grave of the tribe of Garamantes, the great founding tribe of the town of Garama in Fezzan (present town of Germa) who attacked Leptis Magna in the first century; on the left hand side, the casts of the sculptures of Suluntah (Cyrenaica, Roman period), which we do not know at which indigenous burial rite they were consecrated; on the wall before the exit, the Mausoleums tombs of Ghirza (th century) adorned with bunches of grapes and scenes of agricultural life, including a man leading a camel herd.
Room 6 houses some of the few remains left by the Punic civilization: statue of lion found in Monterrey (Tripoli), burial stele with the sign of the goddess Tanit, heads of Punic deities, perhaps those of Baal Hammon and his wife the goddess Tanit.
Room 7 shows a model of the agora and temple of Zeus in Cyrene (in the centre of the room), the statues of Dionysus (right, before room 8) and the goddess Fortune (left, before room 8) of Leptis Magna.
In little room 8, a fine sculpture of the Three Graces (th century, Cyrene); a statue of Athena (Leptis Magna); two mortuary busts (th century BC) from the necropolis of Cyrene, with and without face. Such busts adorned most of the tombs discovered in the vast cyrénéenne necropolis. They are found nowhere else in the Greco-Roman world. They may be goddess Persephone, who spent half of the year on earth, before joining her husband in the kingdom of hell.
Room 9 presents an impressive statuary from Leptis Magna and Sabratha. It is divided into three sections. The model in the middle of the first section is that of the forum and the basilica under the reign of Septime Severe at Leptis Magna. On the right hand side, a statue of Diane hunter occupies the angle, flanked right by the goddess Aphrodite se, and on the left, by the statue of Artemis of Ephesus, dating from Hadrian's reign and updated in the sanctuary of the Amphithéâtre Magna amphitheatre.
The goddess of Fertility presents three rows of wells and a torso with the signs of the Zodiac. The wall is adorned with a splendid mosaic of the four seasons of young female coiffures, framed by nilotics scenes (Roman villa of Dar Buk Amera de Zliten). The statues of the two executors of Punic origin of Leptis Magna are exhibited in niches: on the right, that of Hannibal Tapapius Rufus, who offered Leptis Magna his market and theatre; on the front of the mezzanine, the inscription in the Latin and Punic language, which was above one of the gates of the Leptis Magna Theatre and celebrates its patron Tapapius Rufus.
In the second section of the room is a beautiful mosaic pavement with, in the centre, a medallion with a head of marine marine (villa des Néréides, in Tajura). on the left side is lined with busts of Roman emperors Hadrian, Marc Aurèle and Lucius Verus, as well as those of their wives.
The last section shows the forum model and a large photograph of the Sabratha theatre. On the right wall, a mosaic of the Villa du Nile (Leptis Magna) presents cupidons to the port on board a frigate, another of the fishermen in a nilotic scene (on the banks of the Nile), another, coming from the house of Orphée (Leptis Magna), where Orphée charms the animals with his lyre. These mosaics date back to the th and th centuries and testify to the opulence in which the notables of Leptis Magna lived. Between the arcades of the wall on the left of the room, you can see three medallions à of Medusa from the Sévérien Magna forum. Coming out of the room, on the left, we will notice a mosaic of the Byzantine epoch with two riders engaged in a lion hunt, then the protective Giles to the head of Medusa (second century) which protected invasions the arc d'Antonin at Leptis Magna.
On the 1 st floor in Room 10, in the centre of the row of statues (right wall) is the graceful statue of the Caracalla child, the same one who, in adulthood, killed his brother Geta to rule in solitary confinement (he will be emperor from 188 to 217 before being murdered) and removed most of his statues. However, one of the few preserved representations from Geta in Room 11 is found before visiting the windows of room 10 with their collection of coins and oil lamps. By going to room 11, one passes before Punic amphorae (from the fourth to the first century BC).
Room 11 is dedicated to the arc de Septime Severe (203 apr. in Leptis Magna, whose model is in the centre of the room. The walls are exposed to the original Attica marble decorations (top of the arc above which statues were laid) and the original of a winged Victory holding the crown of Laurier and the palm of the victory which marked the angles of the arcades. On the entrance wall, Septime Harsh and his wife attend the sacrifice of a bull. On the next wall (opposite, on the right), Septime holding the hands of his two sons, Caracalla and Geta. On the wall on the left by entering, the victorious procession of the emperor with his wife Julia (on a quadriga.
In essence, Room 12 brings together vestiges of the Byzantine era, including some pictures of the colourful mosaics of the Nineveh Libya church (Cyrenaica). The Byzantine church windows incorporated into the wall come from the church El-Khadra (town of Tarhuna).
On the 2nd floor, the Islamic period is discussed (rooms 15 to 19). In Room 16 there are the models of the En mosque in Tripoli and the six tombs of Zouwayla of the Bani Khattab, Chefs Chiefs from the th to the th century. The beginning of Room 19 is devoted to the Tripoli Castle, with a model and, basically, its representation on a map of the Middle Ages. Later in the room, behind pottery and oil lamps kept in windows, we will see a mosque door dating back to 1699. Then, until Room 21, there will be internal reconstructions: inside a Maison house, a long showcase with models dressed in different traditional costumes of the regions of Libya (Benghazi, Tripoli, Mourzouk, Tuareg suits, etc.).
Room 21 is dedicated to the Tuareg.
Room 26 presents a olive press and a large jar to collect the oil, both characteristics of jebel Nefousa; a bas-relief from a Mausolée mausoleum (th century) depicts the work of the fields (labour, harvest).
Room 27 provides interesting information on the different types of traditional wells in Libya, as well as on certain techniques of local agricultural production.
Contemporary history begins on the 4 th floor with a room that tells the Libyan tribes struggle against Italians. Weapons, photographs and personal objects of national heroes: Omar Moukhtar, who will be executed by Italians in 1931, or Suleyman el-Piqueras. The following rooms are dedicated to the glory of Gaddafi (a series of photographs of the leader acclaimed by the people and tribes, or to meet with his Arab counterparts) and to the success of the regime of the Jamahiriya in the economic and social fields, where the advancement of women is promoted: women in arms but also educated women. Also a translation into English of the Declaration of the Authority of the People (1977). The museum's visit ends with a small natural history exhibition: geology, fossils, specimens of a Libyan fauna.