National museums vital for celebrating Arab cultural heritage

Arab News

20-04-2025

https://arab.news/ztqsg
National museums serve as repositories of our collective memories, preserving the fascinating stories and civilizational achievements of the Arab world across millennia.
The Arab world was home to a constellation of ancient civilizations, from the Sumerians, Babylonians and the Egyptian pharaohs to the Phoenicians, Nabateans and Islamic empires. Their legacies in terms of language, trade, architecture, horticulture, music, sciences, medicine and the arts continue to influence the ways in which we live, think and create.
There is growing excitement around cultural institutions today, not only as repositories of artifacts but as vibrant spaces where the arts shape cultural identities and inspire new forms of creativity.
In July, the Grand Egyptian Museum, located a mile north of the Pyramids, will officially open. It will be the largest museum in the world dedicated to a single civilization. Containing more than 100,000 artifacts, many of them on public view for the first time, it will offer a sweeping narrative of Egypt's astounding ancient history, which spans 700,000 years.
Beyond its main galleries, the museum unfolds into a tapestry of rooms containing a wealth of attractions, from the world of the children's museum to serene outdoor gardens and vibrant cafes, restaurants and specially curated shops.
Visitors can marvel at many priceless artifacts, including the Hanging Obelisk, a colossal 3,200-year-old statue of the pharaoh Ramesses II, the Victory Stele of King Merneptah and the statues of a Ptolemaic king and queen.
This year, we will also welcome the long-awaited opening of the Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi, a tribute to the life and legacy of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, founder of the UAE. Within its galleries, visitors will be able to trace the richness of Emirati history and culture, from the earliest human presence in the area, some 300,000 years ago, to the present day.
In Riyadh, the National Museum of Saudi Arabia continues to evolve as a dynamic cultural landmark. Other cities, including Doha, Manama and Muscat, have also established national museums that reflect the vibrant heritage of their nations.
More than simply cultural powerhouses and repositories of history, museums increasingly function as vibrant economic engines. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, for example, contributes significantly to the local economy through tourism, research and education. Louvre Abu Dhabi, which opened in 2017, is a relatively young museum but has already become a cornerstone of the UAE's cultural-tourism strategy, attracting millions of visitors each year.
The region's existing museums, many of which hold extraordinary collections, are ripe for global branding and exposure.
Sara Al-Mulla
The region's treasures continue to fascinate cultural institutions worldwide and, although these institutions are geographically distant from the origins of many of their exhibits, they attract global audiences eager to connect with the rich tapestries of civilizations from the Middle East and North Africa.
For instance, the British Museum in London — renowned for its extensive collections of objects from the MENA region, including significant Islamic artifacts — attracted about 6.5 million visitors in 2024. Across the Channel, the Louvre in Paris attracted 8.7 million visitors in 2024, with entire wings dedicated to Islamic and Egyptian art. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which displays masterpieces from Mesopotamia, Egyptian art and Islamic art, welcomed more than 5.5 million visitors during the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2024.
It is essential that we carry this storytelling journey forward, honoring the richness of our heritage and evolving our story. And yet, across the MENA region, cities steeped in millennia of history remain conspicuously absent from the global constellation of cultural institutions. Despite centuries of human civilization, many of their most significant artifacts remain scattered in museums around the world or, in some instances, undiscovered, neglected or limited in exposure.
As such, it is vital that governments in the MENA region bolster their investments in national museums. Economically, they attract cultural tourism, support creative industries and enterprises, and create jobs. Culturally, they celebrate and help to reclaim our rich heritage, while also elevating civic pride. And historically, they function as essential custodians of collective memory, ensuring that the sheer beauty of MENA civilizations is not only preserved but presented in novel and engaging ways.
Establishing and supporting national museums in cities across the region requires a multilayered approach that combines vision, investment and strategic partnerships. Governments can begin by financing the development of world-class infrastructure, while also leveraging public-private partnerships to bring in corporate sponsors, philanthropists and international cultural foundations.
Governments can also establish national acquisition funds dedicated to the enrichment of museum collections through the addition of significant local and regional works. It is also advantageous to establish repatriation units that can help recover key artifacts housed abroad, starting with a series of curated and meaningful exhibitions.
As such, the creation of a regional museum alliance could help pave the way for shared exhibitions, research and the development of resources to highlight the unique cultural voices of the Arab world and ensure that there are active platforms for education and engagement.
At the same time, the region's existing museums, many of which hold expansive and extraordinary collections, are ripe for global branding and exposure. Equally vital is a creative workforce to spearhead all this work. Partnerships with global cultural institutions could help build the expertise of Arab museologists, curators and conservators.
Additionally, sustained investment is needed to support scholarly research and high-quality publications, which deepen the understanding of museum collections and illuminate the discussions around the region's historical and cultural treasures.
Moreover, institutions could benefit immensely from reinventing their visitor experiences, especially with the advent of emerging technologies in this realm. This could translate into curatorial innovation, multilingual storytelling, digitization, online platforms and immersive programming that engages both local audiences and international visitors.
To broaden public access and pique global interest, national museums should digitize their collections to make key artifacts and exhibitions available through virtual platforms.
Through such initiatives and collaborations, museums in the MENA region can position themselves as dynamic centers of heritage. By establishing or revitalizing national museums, we will be amplifying our voices as we promote the region's unique, rich and marvelous historical and cultural legacies.
• Sara Al-Mulla is an Emirati civil servant with an interest in human development policy and children's literature. She can be contacted at www.amorelicious.com.