Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
Damascus,SANA- The Damascus National Museum is one of the most important in the world and contains archaeological pieces that tell stories about human life on this earth and illustrate the chronology of events from thousands of years of Syrian history.
It was established in 1919 at the Al-Adiliya School in the Al-Kallaseh neighborhood, north of the Umayyad Mosque, and consisted at that time of two galleries and four exhibition halls.
The current building was built in 1936 and designed by the French architect Ecochar, with new sections added in 1956 and 1975.
The façade of the historic Al-Hayr al-Gharby palace was moved from the historic desert city of Palmyra to the museum where it was reconstructed and became the museum’s main entrance.
The museum houses around 5,000 clay tablets engraved in cuneiform script. The vast majority (about 3,000) are considered to be from the Old Babylonian period and were found in the royal palace of the ancient city of Mari, while about 1,500 tablets come from Ugarit (Ras Shamra) and are classified as Middle Babylonian, 600 of them are recent finds, mostly in the Akkadian language.
The museum’s park includes many ancient pieces from different civilizations.
MHD Ibrahim
