Morocco: The National Jewelry Museum reopens its doors to the public after years of restoration
After two years of restoration and renovation, the National Museum of Jewelry in the Kasbah of Loudaya in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, finally opened its doors to visitors. One of the most important features of the displayed group is the oldest known jewelry in the world so far.
Morocco has added a new destination to its tourist and heritage attractions with the opening of the National Jewelry Museum in the capital, Rabat.
The museum includes a permanent exhibition of thousands of jewelry dating back to different eras of the country's history. About 3,500 pieces of jewels belonging to the ancient Amazighs are presented in this new museum, along with many rare pieces.
The museum is located in the Kasbah of the Udayas in Rabat, a historical monument that is listed with its Andalusian garden as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Ornamental jewels in the Moroccan heritage
"Dialogue, respect and coexistence already exist in our country. We highlight this with things that everyone can identify with and unite in love," notes Hoda Qotbi of the National Foundation for Museums.
Ornamental jewels are among the essential components of Moroccan heritage. So the fair honors the craftsmen who made them and the people who owned and wore them.
After restoration workshops that caused its closure since 2020, the National Jewelry Museum in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, will return to open its doors to the public in 2023. It will display about eight thousand masterpieces and receive more than eleven thousand visitors per day since its reopening.
Each region of Morocco has its own gems. Experts can determine the location just by looking at the ornaments. Morocco is famous for its traditional Amazigh and Tuareg jewels. Visitors to the National Jewelry Museum will see many of them formulated hundreds of years before Christ.
History of Moroccan fashion
The museum also contains a section dedicated to the history of Moroccan fashion. It hosts a temporary exhibition of caftans and contemporary jewels that blend ancestral techniques with modernity.
The designer, Albert Uiknen, explains that this museum includes stories from different regions of Morocco, and he came as an innovator to present his collection and the imprint of our current era. He said in an interview with Al-Araby: “We are part of the history of the future, here with the technologies of our ancestors and modernity. Today’s fashion uses new materials and colors and everything that makes fashion.
The exhibition represents a space for preserving cultural heritage and history and enriches the painting of Moroccan museums.
Heavy turnout
For her part, the deputy governor of the National Museum of Jewelry, Zineb Diouri, explains that "the establishment of this museum comes in the context of Rabat, the capital of culture and within the framework of the strategy of the National Foundation for Museums, which aims to democratize the cultural issue in Morocco and valorize the cultural heritage."
"We were surprised by the large crowds," she says in an interview with "Al-Araby" from Rabat, as 11,000 visitors entered the exhibition in one day.
She points out that this museum is a space of life for the city's residents before it was a museum, and it was an opportunity to reconcile with this place that had been closed for many years for restoration.
The exhibition includes perforated shells that were recently found in the cave of Bismu Nestoura. And "it dates back to about 150,000 years. It is the oldest jewelry item found so far," according to Durie, who confirms that most of the jewelry in the exhibition was found by archaeologists and researchers in several locations in the country.
Source: websites