The National Museum of Latakia

A museum in Latakia, opposite the port and a few steps from the sea. The building was not put up as a museum: it is a 16th-century Ottoman khan, known as Khan al-Dukhan, the “khan of smoke”, because it served the tobacco trade. Under the French Mandate it was used as the governor’s residence, and it opened as a museum in 1986.

Getting there

On Jerusalem Street, across from the port gates. It is a walk from the town centre, one street back from the corniche. From outside it does not look like a museum but like an old house with a garden — if you are hunting for the door, follow the garden wall.

Is it open today

The honest answer on this page: ask before you go. The halls were closed in 2011 to protect the collection against the risk of trafficking, and the closure lasted a long time. The garden stayed open through it, and the building went on hosting exhibitions and fairs. No fixed visiting hours are published; asking in town gets you that day’s answer.

What to see

Six halls follow the city’s history in order. The first two are given to Ugarit, Ebla and Ras Ibn Hani; the third to the Seleucid and Roman periods; the fourth to the Islamic period; the last to contemporary Syrian and Arab artists. The cases hold inscribed tablets from Ugarit, jewellery, coins, figurines and pottery, along with mail shirts and swords of the early Arab and Crusader periods.

How long it takes

An hour. The halls are small and run one into the next; add half an hour if you linger in the garden.

What most people miss

The building itself. A two-tier arcade runs around the courtyard: the vaulted arches of the khan below, a columned gallery above — a yard built for camels and cargo, in its present state. Column capitals, sarcophagi and statues stand in the open in the garden, and they can be seen even when the halls are shut.