Museum sights in Kuwait City
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Tareq Rajab Museum
Housed in the basement of a large villa, this exquisite ethnographic museum should not be missed. It was assembled as a private collection of Islamic art by Kuwait's first minister of antiquities and his British wife. A pair of ornate doors from Cairo and Carl Haag's 19th-century painting of Lady Jane Digby el-Mesreb of Palmyra, who lived in tents in the winter and a Damascus villa in the summer, mark the entrance to an Aladdin's cave of beautiful items.
There are inlaid musical instruments, suspended in glass cabinets; Omani silver and Saudi gold jewellery; headdresses from the humble prayer cap to the Mongol helmet; costumes worn by princesses and by goatherds; necklace…
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A
National Museum
Once the pride of Kuwait, this museum is still under restoration. The centrepiece of the museum, the Al-Sabah collection, was one of the most important collections of Islamic art in the world. During the Iraqi occupation, however, the exhibition halls were systematically looted, damaged or set fire to.
Following intense pressure from the UN, the majority of the museum's collection was eventually returned, but many pieces had been broken in transit, poorly stored and, some suggest, deliberately spoiled. Nonetheless, this beleaguered collection has since been displayed in London's British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York while waiting to be restored in …
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Al-Qurain Martyrs' Museum
Located in the residential suburb of Qurain, a 20-minute taxi ride southeast of the city centre, this small museum is a memorial to a cell of young Kuwaiti patriots who tried to resist arrest in February 1991. Early in the morning, a minibus (the one that is still parked outside) drew up outside the house. When no-one answered the door, the Iraqis bombarded the house for hours with machine guns, bombs and eventually a tank.
Nine of those under siege were captured and tortured to death, while four hid in a roof space. General Schwarzkopf, who visited the house on 14 April 1994, commented that 'when I am in this house it makes me wish that we had come four days earlier then…
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Al-Hashemi Marine Museum
For proof that the Vikings made it to the Middle East, albeit only model ones, it's worth visiting this museum with its impressive collection of large, scaled-model dhows. A novel shop sells 21-piece knot boards (around KD25) and Gipsy Moth lanterns (around KD17) among other nautical souvenirs, such as barometers and sextants. You can even buy your own Nelson figurine, incomplete with one arm, at the bargain price of KD12.
On the wall of the museum is a certificate, dated 2002, from the Guinness World Records announcing that Al-Hashemi II, the huge and unmissable wooden dhow adjacent to the museum, is the largest wooden boat on earth, measuring a world record-breaking 80.…
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Scientific Centre
With time to do nothing else, it would be hard to beat a trip to the excellent Scientific Centre. Housed in a fine, sail-shaped building on the corniche, the centre's mesmerising aquarium is the largest in the Middle East.
The IMAX cinema includes a sensitive feature entitled Fires of Kuwait, charting the post-invasion cleanup. Discovery Place is an interactive learning centre for children, who can make their own sand dunes or roll a piece of road. There is a pleasant dhow harbour, where the Fateh al-Khair, the last surviving dhow of the pre-oil era, is moored.Admission prices vary, depending on which parts of the centre are visited. Opt, for buses 15, 17, 24, 34 and 200,…
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B
Popular Traditional Museum
Forming part of the National Museum complex, the quaint Popular Traditional Museum - variously described as Heritage Museum and Culture Museum - is in Building 2, in the rear of the museum complex. It illustrates daily life in pre-oil Kuwait through a diorama of full-sized figures going about their various businesses - be sure to see the bead maker and what the museum booklet describes as the 'men's over-robe tailor'.
Buses 12 and 16 (departing from the main bus station) stop a couple of blocks from the museum.
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C
Science & Natural History Museum
For an eclectic range of exhibits from electronics and space paraphernalia to fossils, stuffed animals and an 18m whale skeleton, this museum, near Liberation Tower, also has a planetarium with a Galaxy Skyshow at 18:00.
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Kuwait House of National Memorial Museum
This innovative museum encapsulates the horror of the Iraqi invasion and honours the sacrifices that ordinary Kuwaiti citizens, the Kuwaiti military and the allies made in order to beat back Sadam's forces. The exhibits comprise a set of well-crafted models of the city that are illuminated in time with an audio recording in English.
Despite the nationalist propaganda, the experience of walking through the darkened corridors, lit only by simulated gun blasts and mortar attacks, and focusing on the heroism of the few for the safety of the many, has a contemporary resonance that transcends the exhibit's narrow remit. The museum is best reached by taxi and can be combined wit…
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