The National Museum in Tripoli, formerly known as the Red Castle, has been reopened to the public, allowing people to see some of the country's most stunning historical treasures for the first time since the uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi. The museum, the largest in Libya, was closed in 2011 during the NATO-backed uprising against Gaddafi, who once gave a fiery speech at its walls. Renovation works began in March 2023 by the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, which took power in 2021 in a UN-backed political process. "The reopening of the National Museum is not just a cultural moment, but it is a living testimony that Libya is building its institutions," Prime Minister of the Government of National Unity Abdelhamid Dbeibah said at the reopening ceremony on Friday. The museum, built in the 1980s, has exhibition halls covering an area of 10,000 square meters, housing mosaics, frescoes, sculptures, coins, and artifacts dating from prehistoric times and spanning Libya's Roman, Greek, and Islamic eras. The collection also includes mummies thousands of years old from ancient settlements in the Acacus mountains in the deep south and near the eastern border with Egypt. "The program now is focusing on empowering schools to visit the museum in the current period until it is officially opened to the general public," museum director Fatima Abdallah Ahmed told Reuters. Libya has repatriated 21 artifacts smuggled out of the country after Gaddafi's fall, mainly from France, Switzerland, and the United States, Chairman of the Board of Antiquities Mohamed Farj Al-Shakshuki told Reuters before the opening. He added that talks are underway to recover more than 20 artifacts from Spain and one from Austria. In 2022, Libya received nine artifacts, including stone funerary heads, jars, and pottery pieces, from the United States. Libya is home to five sites listed on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage list, and the country said the five sites were listed on the list of World Heritage in Danger in 2016 due to instability and conflict.
