NATIONAL MUSEUM

The museum itself was created in 1958 with its first pavilion called «classical pavilion», renamed later «Pavillon Boubou Hama» and inaugurated on 18 December 1959 by the first Nigerian president, Diori Hamani. The work was undertaken by Boubou Hama, politician, man of science, man of culture - 24 hectares are currently occupied by the museum - with the permanent support of Pablo Toucet, the French co-worker, archaeologist who had experience of the Members museum in Tunisia. The Boubou Hama National Museum has seven pavilions, a Mausolée tree mausoleum and traditional habitats.

The Boubou Hama pavilion is the first exhibition room in the museum. This hall houses ethnographic collections of the different ethnic groups in Niger.

The Pablo Toucet Pavilion, inaugurated in 1962, has the dual advantage of showing a typical traditional architecture and traditional costumes of different ethnic groups. It also offers some traditional handicraft productions.

The musical instruments pavilion, created in 1969, presents a representative sample of musical instruments played in Niger, including modern music.

The Albert-Ferral Cave Art Pavilion, built in 1969, presents rock art in the Sahara and the Niger River region. The idea was to revive and revisit the ingenuity of artists and artisans of prehistoric and historical periods.

The pavilion of paleontology and prehistory, built in 1973 in the framework of French cooperation, houses the first dinosaur skeleton discovered in Niger by Professor Philippe Stopper, researcher at CNRS. The latter assembled a fresco on the origins and evolution of man. There is also Neolithic tooling, lithic industries. It is a real educational support for teachers and schools, although its chronology is sometimes exceeded.

The archaeological pavilion, built in 1980 and designed to be a temporary exhibition pavilion, today houses a permanent exhibition on the results of archaeological excavations in the Dallol, Liptako, Aïr and Ténéré regions. These include funéraire and lithic industries, copper metallurgy and some of the burial elements.

The uranium pavilion, built in 1985, thanks to the financial and technical support of Cogema, (Somaïr, Cominak) and SNTN, presents the process of uranium research, exploitation and export in Niger, as well as life in mining cities in Arlit and Akouta, all enriched by indices of certain minerals exploited or exploitable in Niger, such as the Niger. coal, gold, oil.

The mausoleum of the tree of Ténéré, built in 1979, houses this tree, whose remains were transported to the museum in 1974 by the national armed forces and which was the only marker of travellers, caravaneers, tourists or other expeditions in the desert of Ténéré, and the only tree in the world carried on a continental map. It also presents traditional habitats that illustrate the architecture used by some populations in Niger.

Other wonders of the museum. Exposure of dinosaurs was conducted in 2005. It offers unique historical and scientific specimens, represented in two major families: the. and the. These dinosaurs regularly make the "one" of scientific journals such as National Geographic or Terre sauvage and testify to a constantly renewed engouement. The artisan centre contributes to the preservation, promotion of handicrafts and traditional craft techniques. A school of crafts is also reserved for disabled people. A zoo, set up from the creation of the museum, today hosts 50 animal species (lion, monkey, hippopotamus, porcupine, kouri cattle, reptile, royal eagle, crocodile) totalling 162 individuals, scattered in a botanical garden. Ngos are currently working to improve the lives of those residents within the museum. We can take a situation, the local beer, and the good skewers in the shaded bar of the museum.