NATIONAL MUSEUM

The National Museum of Sana'a is housed in a palace of the old imam located in a courtyard surrounded by a monumental portal flanked by its left of a watchtower. The current collections are exposed in part to the museum, with reservations containing many other objects intended to be welcomed into a two-storey wing in the course of the development. There is currently a cooperation project between the Louvre and the National Museum of Sana'a in the area of the restoration of objects and mainly bronze works.

Ground floor. Large rooms in the South-Arabiques realms. Left, alabaster and limestone stelas present an example of the art of the time, the complex writing of its twenty-nine letters, and the use of the ibex as a divine figure in cultuels buildings. In front and right, pieces of monumental bronze statues, work of craftsmen sabéens or qatabanéens. It is probably here that will return the bronze man restored by Le Louvre and exhibited in Paris until October 2007.

First floor. Objects from the South-Arabiques kingdoms of Saba, Qataban, Aussan and Abin. Left, pieces of bronze, very often too deteriorated to be restored like a very large ibex. Decorative necklaces made of shards, perles, amethysts and agathes perles.

In the long left-hand piece, terracotta statuettes found in the Abin, both zoomorphes and anthropomorphic; jolis bronzes too restored to English fashion to which the colour too chocolate has been restored. In the long right-hand piece, many épigraphiques pieces give a fairly complete idea of the use of writing on stelas or limestone bas-reliefs (for dedications of an important character to a deity), or on wood sticks (including administrative acts). Right-wing piece, protohistoriques objects, including necklaces in shards eggs, or different pottery.

Second floor. Objects of Islamic art. On the left, arms collection such as rifles or swords, cottes of meshes or helmets, made of metal with fine gold decoration. In the central room, splendid domestic bronze objects of rassoulide and Ottoman periods. In the parts of the bottom, some pages of Koran, household objects of the same periods.

Third floor. Customs and traditions of people's Yemen. As in all the country's museums, the National Museum sacrificed the presentation of more recent objects in its history.