The Saudi National Museum

About :

The National Museum is one of the largest museums in Saudi Arabia and was opened in 1999. It is located east of the King Abdul Aziz Historical Center in the Al-Murabaa district, in the center of the capital Riyadh, and it is an excellent strategic site that attracts many people. The museum has a huge area because it was built over 17,000 square meters.

It also contains about 8 exhibition halls, divided at the level of development that has taken place in the Arabian Peninsula at the religious, political, cultural, humanitarian, and natural levels, up to the development of the Saudi state and its path through its three stages 

The number of artifacts in the exhibition is about 3700 historical and antique artifacts, and the National Museum contains 900 photographic tools, a total of 45 films and sound effects, as well as 45 Sculptures.  

The National Museum's most essential aspect is how it interprets and treats human history, which is taken from the facts offered by Islam, which speaks about the genesis of the creation of Man and the architecture on Earth, as well as its progress.

Furthermore, the National Museum's main interest is to highlight all of Saudi Arabia's regions and show what distinguishes each city in its different culture, while also being very keen on diversifying the exhibits in the museum and doing a kind of inclusiveness under the roof and framework of cultural and geographical unity.

The development of the National Museum is part of Al-Murabba development plan, which aims to refine the entire area surrounding the old historical Al-Murabba Palace to carry out the Saudi celebrations that are held every year, and the completion time has been set to be 1999 with about 36 months left to complete the construction of the museum, although the idea of establishing the National Museum is old and dates back to the 1980s 

The Saudi National Museum was constructed by architect-engineer Raymond Moriyama, who was inspired by the shapes of the red dunes beyond Riyadh and directly west of the museum, which look like a gentle ocean of dunes on the outside borders and are shaped like a crescent to represent Mecca.

The northern portion of the museum specializes in pre-Islamic history and is linked to the southern wing by a bridge that displays Islamic history.

There are also two halls in the museum through which special exhibitions are held, in addition to the presence of educational exhibitions, which are somewhat different from other halls as they are designed to explain and show some unclear points where there are a lot of non-original pieces of different sizes, as they are used in learning and explanation to keep the pressure off the original pieces and protect them from damage and loss. 

Objectives of the Saudi National Museum 

Being an important landmark of the state of Saudi Arabia 

Enriching the education process and raising awareness to develop a sense of belonging to the ancient civilization for contemporary generations 

Providing an educational environment to explain and teach many groups, which are not few, like specialists, researchers, families, and children. 

Supporting the preservation of ancient historical objects by restoring them and holding many cultural conferences on ancient national history 

and finally, one of the most important goals of the National Museum is to be one of the most important historical references through which visitors can combine education and enjoyment, and be able to support community interdependence by giving a sense of belonging to one civilization, such as the Islamic civilization, the history of the ancient city of Najd, and many others