The Bardo National Museum

    The National Museum of Bardo is a national museum located in the city center of Algiers, Algeria. It was built in the late eighteenth century by a wealthy Tunisian known as Hadj Ben Omar to serve as a summer residence for the reception of local dignitaries. Then in 1879, during the French colonialism, it became the property of Pierre Joret who used it as place to give his concerts .After that, it was inaugurated in 1930 on the occasion of the 100 years of French colonization in Algeria. This museum, which has been classified as UNESCO World Heritage since 1985, consists of two parts, one dedicated to prehistory and another to ethnography.

   The Bardo National Museum is a spectacular attraction in Algiers with its superb and typical architecture, decorative design, exquisite fountains, and small pleasant gardens .It represents the traditional elements of the Ottoman architecture (precious wood, earthenware, wrought iron, low doors, baffles, green inner courtyard and its marble fountain basin, etc.).  It is also a perfect way to discover the magnificence of past eras and the Algerian cultural heritage. It houses some of the best and most exclusive artifacts and unusual items not only Algerian but also foreign that visitors are ever likely to see. 

   Bardo displays a myriad of interesting of prehistoric artifacts collections of remains mostly discovered during excavations in Algeria. It has also very interesting collections from the Maghreb and the Sahara; ancient fossils, pottery and some of the pieces include a spectacular collection of rock paintings and rock carvings that were discovered in the Tassili N’Ajjer region, copper tea pots, stone collections, leatherwork, saddles, jewelry, idols, wooden furniture, costumes and weaponry like shields and daggers, in addition to other Paleolithic and Neolithic tools. Besides, it contains the fragments of jaw and parietal of Atlanthropus Mauritanicus, who lived about five hundred thousand years ago in Ternifine, in the region of Mascara (Algeria), the Protohistoric pieces like bronze rings, engraved slabs ..., Tinhinan tomb; the legendary ancestor of the Tuareg, whose skeleton was found in 1926 near Abalessa in the Hoggar. A showcase reveals the jewels of the queen found in the tumulus sheltering her tomb. The ethnographic part consists of an urban section; brassware, rifles, sabers, Berber jewels, pottery and traditional costumes of Constantine, Algiers, Tlemcen, kabyle, etc. Eventually, each gallery has its own unique pieces on which visitors marvel at. 

The Bardo National Museum (Written by ARAB Sabrina)