commune-tunis.gov.tn-ثقافة وترفيه

Mansions and museums

The national institute of the...

Address : Dar Hussein, Castel Square Tunis
Phone . : (216 71) 561 622 / (216 71) 561 259
Fax : (216 71) 562 452

The National institute of the Inheritance is a scientific and technical institution charged to establish the inventory of the cultural ,archaeological, historical, civilisationnel and artistic heritage, study of this inheritance, its safeguard and its development.

The shortly after independence in 1957, the National institute of Archeology and Art, become National institute of the Inheritance (since 1993), is installed in a palate of the medina of Tunis located in the district of Bab Menara, Dar Hussein. Occupying the site of the castle of Blessed Khorasan (11th century), this palate was the successive dwelling successive princes, deys and beys. Rebuilt by Ismail Kahia, minister and son-in-law of Ali bey (1758-1781), it was occupied by famous Youssef Sahib-And-Tabaa, minister of Hamouda Pasha at the beginning of the 19th century.
In 1858, it sheltered the first municipal council of the town of Tunis from where its name of “Dar el Achra” (house of the ten) by reference to the ten notable ones which formed this council. The general Hussein, large reformer, near to the Khéreddine Prime Minister, and president of the Municipal council, lived the palate which bears its name thus. During protectorate French 1881-1956 it sheltered the general headquarter of the French Army.
Dar Hussein is regarded today as one of the most beautiful palates of the medina for its architecture, the richness of its decoration, and the beauty of its room of pageantry. The palate reflects the different ones and important times of Tunisian architecture, of the Khorassanide time until those Turkish and colonial.
The National institute of the Inheritance role is :

To preserve and restore the historic buildings and to safeguard and emphasize the cultural sites and the historical urban monuments

To organize and undertake research, the excavation, the inventory and the prospection in the fields of the archaeological, historical inheritance and civilisationnel through the various times.

To collect the traditional inheritance and popular arts, to reveal their civilisationnelle value, to inventory them, to study them and to expose them

To undertake all, safeguard, protection, restoration and the exposure research tasks of the documents having an historical value, civilisationnelle, scientific and artistic.

To create museums, to safeguard their collections and to promote the methods of exposure there.

To publish the scientific research and cultural and to diffuse them.

To take part in the development and the animation of the inheritance and its promotion by all the audio-visual and written means, by the organization of the exposures, the congresses and the meetings on the national scales and international.

To form the executives, to recycle them and exert them with work of the various scientific and technical sectors.

The new orientations:

To give the priority to the general inventory of the inheritance, bases of any planning
To develop the excavations of protection
To form the technical experts and to recycle the agents in function by the means of continuing education.
Exploitation of new technologies in research, the safeguard and the museographic exposure and in particular the focusing of a data-processing plan including all the sectors of the inheritance and in particular that of the general inventory.
Development of a “plan of protection” and of a chart of the sites most threatened in accordance with the “code of the historical and ethnographic archaeological inheritance” with an aim of creating formed “archaeological reserves” by the sites of the medina in order to integrate itin the plans of urban development.
To give the priority to the “Upgrade” of the existing Museums and realization of the “National museum of Civilizations”; to bind the creation of new museums to the imperative conditions Tél.les that the existence of the collections, a room meeting the modern standards of the museography and prehistoric.

Publications

The National institute of the Inheritance is an institution of scientific research which contributes by its publications to enrich the national and international library historical and archaeological.
Periodicals
AFRICA :
Launched in 1966, Africa is today with its 18th volume, in addition to the studies and prehistoric, ancient and Islamic research, it publishes work of inventory, safeguard, development and museographic presentation of the inheritance.

Reminding:
Re-examined Punic Phoenician studies and libyques antiquities, it is with its 11th number.

Top of the page

THE REVIEW OF ARTS AND POPULAR TRADITIONS

It is with its 12th number and contributes under investigation of the various manifestations of the traditional life: know-how, tools, habitat, habits, jewels, beliefs popular, ritual social, etc

Top of the page

CSAD

The Bulletin of the Center of Studies and Archaeological Documentations of Carthage is designed like a newsletter on the excavations with Carthage, the archaeological park, the museum as well as the recent publications of the teams working within the framework of countryside UNESCO.
It is with its 19th number.
In addition to these periodicals, the I.N.P. publishes theses, catalogs and monographs. It takes part in co-editions with scientific institutions as well national as international.

Read more

Top of the page