Museums

Museums

Museums in Lebanon are proof of its rich and bountiful history, offering eclectic architecture and designs from numerous succeeding empires, including Egyptian, Persian, Assyrian, Hellenistic, Roman, Eastern Roman, Arab, Seljuk, Mamluk, Crusader, and the Ottoman Empire.

While the museums are dispersed throughout the country, it’s not uncommon to find ruins from ancient times in the capital and other cities. A walk in downtown Beirut offers remains from the Phoenician, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader and Ottoman periods. Crusaders’ traces can be seen in Byblos, which has the world’s first established harbour. Remains of Roman temples can be found in the majestic north-eastern city of the sun, Baalbeck.

Regarded as one of the most significant Near Eastern museums because of its rich collection, the Beirut National Museum features various relics, buildings and monuments from Prehistory, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Hellenistic Period, the Roman Period, the Byzantine Period and the Mamluk period.

The Sursock mansion in Achrafieh is a museum you should visit to see the various exhibitions.

In Zokak El Blat – Beirut, you’ll find the Robert Mouawad Private Museum, which features a collection of rare jewellery, metal work, antiquities, Islamic pottery, Chinese porcelain, carpets and books.  

On the outskirts of Deir El Qamar, you’ll find Moussa Castle, which features clay animated figures representing different scenes of the old Lebanese village life.

In Jounieh, you can visit the Museum of Holography and everything 3D, after which you can take a ride on the famous Lebanese teleferique up to Our Lady of Harissa, a place of holy significance, with a stupendous view of Jounieh and its bay.

In Bsous, near Wadi Chahrour (15 Km east of Beirut), you can find the Bsous Silk Museum, whose collection includes live silkworms, and domestically made finished silk products, such as traditional Lebanese evening dresses and silk trousers that were worn by princesses in the nineteenth century. Visitors on a tour of the museum can also see images of farmers working in the production of silk and silkworm picking and collecting.

The work of famed essayist, novelist, poet, and painter Gebran Khalil Gebran is all displayed in his home near Bcharre, which is open to the public.

The Museum of Birds and Butterflies is in Kobayat, 145 km (90.10 mi) to the North of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

Zouk and Byblos both house Wax Museums filled with silicon figures of famous people from the region and the world.

Lebanon’s history goes back more than 5,000 years. When visiting, make sure to extend your stay long enough to see and experience it first-hand.