The Chad National Museum () is the
national museum
A national museum can be a museum maintained and funded by a national government. In many countries it denotes a museum run by the central government, while other museums are run by regional or local governments. In the United States, most nati ...
of
Chad
Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North Africa, North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to Chad–Libya border, the north, Sudan to Chad–Sudan border, the east, the Central Afric ...
. Since November 2010, the national heritage has been highlighted in modern premises opposite the Palace of January 15, seat of the National Assembly, and next to an identical building housing the National Library.
History
The
museum
A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...
was established on 6 October 1962 in temporary quarters under the name of Chadian National Museum,
Fort-Lamy, reflecting the earlier, colonial name of Chad's capital. In 1964, it moved to the former town hall, near the Place de l'Indépendance.
At the time of the Chadian National Museum's establishment, it had four rooms for
palaeontology
Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geo ...
, prehistory, protohistory, archives, folk arts, crafts and traditions.
Many of its artifacts have were lost and looted during the unrest of the
Chadian–Libyan War
The Chadian–Libyan War was a series of military campaigns in Chad between 1978 and 1987, fought between Libyan and allied Chadian forces against Chadian groups supported by France, with the occasional involvement of other foreign countries an ...
between 1978 and 1987, with a notable collection of
musical instruments
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...
among the looted artefacts.
Initiated in 1996 under the aegis of the National Research Support Center (current CNRD), a paleontology room was opened there in 1999 in connection with the prestigious discoveries of fossils made in the
Djurab Desert.
Description
The museum mainly brings together collections relating to popular arts and traditions, archaeology, history, paleontology and Islamic heritage.
[''Le Tchad aujourd'hui'', Éditions du Jaguar, Paris, 2010, ] Many windows are dedicated to the culture of the Sao. A room dedicated to paleoanthropology allows you to observe casts of ''
Tchadanthropus uxoris'', d'Abel (''
Australopithecus bahrelghazali'') and
Toumaï (''
Sahelanthropus tchadensis'') fossils.
The prehistory room, at least in 1965, included items related to
pebble culture, including material from the Angamma cliff (in the Borkou),
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...
implements, axes with helve-holes, nether millstones, and quartz and obsidian
arrowheads
An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, or sometimes for special purposes such as signaling.
...
. The museum at one time included a full-sized
ochre
Ochre ( ; , ), iron ochre, or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colou ...
reproduction of a hunting scene from the first millennium B.C. Its collection also included baked bricks, some attributed to Boulala and Babalia people. These items were discovered at the Bouta-Kabira sanctuary including human masks, bronze objects and bone tools.
See also
*
List of museums in Chad
References
{{Authority control
Museums in Chad
National museums
Museums established in 1962
Buildings and structures in N'Djamena
1962 establishments in Chad