National Museum Oman

Around National Day, the National Museum of Oman offered 2 free entry days to all nationals and residents.  Therefore, we took a Saturday morning to go check it out.

The museum is in Old Muscat across the road from the palace.  It is a large building with two floors displaying the history and culture of Oman.  When we walked in, we almost started to the right, but a guide explained that you start in the middle then head to the back and work your way counterclockwise through the exhibits.  This route will finish at the stairs to the upstairs where you again work counterclockwise.

On the steps of the museum looking at the palace.

A sample of traditional Omani outfits.

The center area displays artifacts of Omani culture including clothes, doors, and chests.  At the back, there is a theater, I think.  I don't know, we didn't watch a show there.  We continued around to see weapons, ships, cultural comparisons between Oman and similar items around the world, and many historical artifacts.  There is a small theater in one of these rooms that is round and shows a film in English and Arabic.  Since the English show was about to begin, we enjoyed a video history of Oman.  It was very informative, and I learned a lot about ancient times, the Magan empire, and the trade routes.  This is a great activity for kids that don't want to read all the signs.

Oman has often been sea dependent for trade, so much of the museum featured boats throughout their history.

A recreation of a Magan empire boat

Upstairs, there are more rooms as I mentioned.  My memory may be quite fuzzy on these rooms as we were getting hungry so we hurried.  There were rooms dedicated to spices and frankincense, furniture, their ties with Zanzibar, and previous sultans.  The last room discusses the renaissance period of Oman under the current sultan.

The museum has a nice mix of "don't touch" items, displays to read, and hands on activities for kids.  They also had braille books in each room.  I thought that was a nice touch for those who are visually impaired.  All of the labels, by the way, were in English and Arabic.  The only problem I occasionally had was understanding which numbered label corresponded to which item because the order didn't always seem very sequential.  Maybe they tended to move right to left like Arabic words?

There was something about the lighting at this old stone anchor.

A puzzle activity of sorts where you try to create the various boat shapes.

By the way, the museum isn't all that expensive under normal circumstances.  We will probably go back sometime since we rushed through the second floor because we were hungry (bordering on hangry).  We should probably plan on picnic lunches more often so we don't have a dire need to get back home to eat.  It would have been good if the museum had opened before 10am.  Going when it opens leaves little time for exploring before lunch time.