Saturday 04 / May / 2024
Muscat: The number of visitors to Oman Across Ages Museum during the year 2023 reached more than 350,000, of whom 95 percent were Omanis.
Engineer Al Yaqzan bin Abdullah Al Harithi, Director General of the Oman Across Ages Museum, said that the presence of the museum in the Wilayat of Manah, which enjoys a strategic location in the heart of the Al Dakhiliyah Governorate, gave momentum to the museum. In addition to its proximity to many tourist attractions in the governorate. Visitors come from all governorates on trips to the museum, other trips organised by various institutions, and student trips from schools, colleges, and universities.
Al Harithi added that the museum halls, which transport the visitor on a narrative journey through time, deal with the geological formation of the land of Oman, its history, heritage, modern renaissance, and future vision, and showcase the Stone Age represented by the early settlers pavilion, the Bronze Age represented by the Majan Civilization pavilion, and the Iron Age represented by the Kingdom of Oman pavilion. In addition to the wings of conversion to Islam, the Ya'aribah state and the Busaidi state. This huge amount of content attracted all those interested, and the presence of the Sultan’s collection in the museum was a major reason and attraction for the Oman Across Ages Museum .
The Director General of the Oman Across Ages Museum announced the museum’s intention and readiness in the coming months to display a new group of collectibles in the museum’s exhibition halls, most notably the stick that His Majesty Sultan Haitham Bin Tarik gave to the museum when he inaugurated it in March last year, and it is the stick that was with Sultan Qaboos bin Said when he kindly laid the foundation stone for the museum.
" By February end, the museum will host the “Museum Building Conference,” which is an international conference that will travel the world. The museum will also be on the schedule of visits by participants in the conference, which deals with heritage and tourism, and will soon be organised by the German University and some government institutions."
Al Harithi stressed that the museum seeks to target such conferences, as it participated in the meeting of the World Council of Museums, which was held in Doha last year, and the Museum Building Conference, which was held in Belgium, with the aim of introducing the museum and finding ways to cooperate with international institutions, and attracting those institutions to hold a group of activities, exhibitions and conferences in the Sultanate of Oman.
The Director General of the Oman Across Ages Museum said: “The museum has one of the largest restoration, preservation and preservation laboratories in the Sultanate of Oman currently, and we are working on restoring a large group of his possessions, and we have special programs for restoration and we seek the help of experts around the world for restoration work. It also has a program for documentation in the field of manuscripts and the registration of collectibles.During the month of January, the museum will host an international photographer, who specialises in photographing collectibles to hold a training course that includes a group of national cadres in the museum sector in the Sultanate of Oman.”
Al Harithi continued, saying: “Also, with our partners in government and private institutions, we held a wide range of activities at the museum, and we celebrated international and local events such as International Museum Day and Arabic Language Day, and we held the Oman Across Ages Symposium and various other activities, targeting all segments of society. We held a large group of educational workshops for students, and this wide variety of programs led to occupying the spaces in the museum and strengthening their belonging to it, as it is a place for everyone.”
He pointed out that “the museum’s knowledge center holds many weekly activities and on major occasions that add new experiences. There is close cooperation with the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism to establish various programs for tourists and target them during visits to the Al Dakhiliyah Governorate.
The museum also hosted a meeting of tourism ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.” From this meeting, the proposal for the city of Sur as the capital of Arab tourism 2024 began.
Engineer Al Yaqzan Al Harithi explained that the Omanisation rate in the museum reached 100 percent. The recruitment process focused on the youth group, which gave vitality to the museum through the creativity that these young people presented that they are proud of, which was evident in the movement that appeared clearly during the past nine months.
