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Mansions and museums

National Museum of Bardo

Address: National museum of Bardo, Bardo - 2000 Tunis
Phone (+ 216) 71 513 650
Schedule : 9h30 - 16:30 (November-April)
9:00 - 17:00 (May-October)

Placed in an old palate beylical, the National museum of Bardo is the most important of the archaeological museums of the Maghreb and one of richest of the world in Roman mosaics.
Create in 1882 and inaugurated in 1888 under the name of “Alaoui Museum”, it took in 1956 the title of National museum of Bardo.
Its collections quickly developed thanks to the inexhaustible archaeological fruitfulness of the Tunisian ground, and are divided into six departments corresponding at the great stages of the history of Tunisia.

Department of prehistory

Located at the ground floor, it gives an outline on the richness and the variety of the prehistoric sites of Tunisia. This period lasted from the paddle of quaternary to the arrival, towards the end of the 12th front century J.C. Phoenician sailors bringing with them the use of the writing

Punic department

It groups a set of rooms at the ground floor (room of Baal Hammon, ceramics room, and a corridor where are exposed neopunic steles) and a room on the first floor devoted to an invaluable collection of jewels. These objects come in particular from the sites from Carthage, Hadrumète, Utique, Cape-Good…

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Roman department

The most important of the museum. It shelters sculptures, objects out of ceramics, jewels… constituting an alive testimony on the evolution of art in Tunisia at the time Roman. This last is characterized, in the field of the sculpture in particular, by the coexistence of a traditional current, attached to the Libycopunique past, and of a traditional official current, especially developed in the strongly romanized cities.
But, it is especially an impressive collection of mosaics - most important of the world - which makes the prestige of the National museum of Bardo.
These mosaics constitute a marvellous picture book which provides invaluable information on the social life, economic, religious and cultural of Tunisia of this time.
Let us quote inter alia masterpieces, the mosaic of Virgile writing Eneïde, and that of the Julius lord.
The mosaics all come from the excavations practiced in the various ancient sites of the country.

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Christian Department

Besides some sarcophagi, this department contains primarily squares of terra cotta and many mosaics, which testify to the vitality of African Christianity. The squares had been used to decorate the walls and the ceilings with the basilicas and offer biblical, hagiographic topics or simply symbolic systems.
The mosaics are consisted by some pavements of religious buildings using of the topics borrowed from the new worship, and especially an important collection of tomb flagstones appearing the image of the late ones. But, it is the baptistry in mosaic of Kélibia, which constitutes the jewel of this department.

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Arabo-Moslem Department

He is placed partly at the ground floor, partly on the 1st floor in a palate older than that sheltering the ancient museum, with which he communicates. Its collections are divided into two sections:

A section of the Moslem Middle Ages. .

A section of arts and popular traditions

In the first various objects are talks coming from the excavations of the sites of Rakkada and of Sabred in the area of Kairouan: glassmaking Fatimid of the 11th century, ceramics fragments with sometimes illustrated decoration, astrolabes, coufic inscriptions, layers of coran, bindings and fabrics originating in Egypt going of the preislamic time until the Abbasid time

In the second section one can admire objects out of marTél.é copper, a collection of weapons and musical instruments, objects silver, jewels and elements of ornaments town and rural as well as clothing of pageantry of various areas of Tunisia.
This section shelters also a remarkable collection of squares and china bowls glazed, originating, not only of Tunisia, but also of minor Asia and Spain.

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Department of the underwater excavations of Mahdia

The objects of Greek art of this department, were found with broad of Mahdia, in the wreck of a boat which ran in 86 av. J.C. Three excavation campaigns (between 1907 and 1954) were necessary for the reassembly of the cargo of this boat.
This one was primarily made up by works of art out of bronze and marble, originating in Athens from which some are authentic masterpieces. It is the case for example of Agôn to the Hermès-pillar signed by Boéthos de Chalcédoine.

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