The National Museum of Damascus

It stands in central Damascus, right beside the Takiyya al-Sulaymaniyya, and holds the whole known past of Syria under one roof: tablets from Mari and Ebla, the alphabet found at Ugarit, a synagogue lifted out of Dura-Europos and rebuilt here. It was founded in 1919 and is the country’s oldest cultural institution.

Getting there

On Shukri al-Quwatli Street, between Damascus University and the Takiyya al-Sulaymaniyya. From the west end of the Al-Hamidiyah Souq it is about twenty minutes on foot heading west; coming from Marjeh Square is the same distance. The garden opens onto the street and the entrance sits behind it.

What to see

Look at the doorway first: the facade of Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi, an Umayyad desert palace of 727, was taken apart in the steppe and rebuilt here as the museum’s entrance. Inside is the clay tablet from Ugarit that carries the earliest known alphabet. The same section holds the oldest piece of written-down music. The Dura-Europos synagogue was brought in piece by piece in the 1930s and reassembled with its wall paintings; the Palmyra hall has funerary reliefs and textiles that the desert sand preserved.

Is it open

This is the most important line on the page. The museum closed in 2012 and most of the collection went into hidden stores. Four of its five wings reopened on 29 October 2018. On 7 December 2024 the museum closed again. Ask before you set out; the answer changes within a year.

What most people miss

The Hypogeum of Yarhai, an underground Palmyrene tomb taken from the Valley of the Tombs and moved here in 1935, is in the basement. You reach it by the stairs from room 15, and most visitors walk the ground floor and leave without seeing it.