page_title: Culture of Tunisia
section_title: Museums
hierarchical_section_title: Culture of Tunisia / Education / Museums
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Statuette de Ganymède, exposée au musée paléo-chrétien de Carthage English: Ganymede statuette, exposed at the Carthage Paleo-Christian Museum
context_page_description: Tunisian culture is very diverseTunisian culture is a product of more than three thousand years of history and an important multi-ethnic influx. Ancient Tunisia was a major civilization crossing through history; different cultures, civilizations and multiple successive dynasties contributed to the culture of the country over centuries with a varying degrees of influence. Among these cultures were the Carthaginian – their native civilization, Roman, Vandal, Jewish, Christian, Arab, Islamic, Turkish, Europeans, and French, in addition to native Amazigh. This unique mixture of cultures made Tunisia, with its strategic geographical location in the Mediterranean, the core of some great civilizations of Mare Nostrum.
  The history of Tunisia reveals this rich past where different successive Mediterranean cultures had a strong presence. After the Carthaginian Republic, the Roman Empire came and left a lasting effect on the land with various monuments and cities such the El-Jem Amphitheater and the archaeological site of the ancient city of Carthage, which is classified as a world heritage site. El Jem is just one of seven world heritage sites found in Tunisia.
context_section_description: The Bardo National Museum is one of the largest institutions of its kind in the Mediterranean, consisting of archaeological treasures from over several millennia by many cultures. The museum officially opened on May 7, 1888, and offers one of the finest and largest collections of mosaics of ancient Rome. The Archaeological Museum of Sousse, founded in 1951, has the second largest collection of mosaics after the Bardo. The Oceanographic Museum of Salammbo, with its 11 rooms, is the main Tunisian museum dedicated to the sea. The National Museum of Islamic Art in Tunisia has several collections of pottery, pieces of Korans and calligraphy dating from when Raqqada occupied the Aghlabids capital, from the 9th century.
  In the 1970s, a program was implemented in cooperation with UNESCO. It provides four types of museum: museums synthesis, regional museums, local museums and specialized museums. The Bardo Museum is a good example of museum synthesis since this type of museum is expected to house objects from all periods of the history of Tunisia without taking into account the origin of these.
  The existence of these museums is justified by the fact that they illustrate the evolution of artistic creation over the civilizations. Regional museums are limited to chief towns and governorates, specializing in the history of each region. As for local museums, they are part of a policy of decentralization of culture to participate through museum education of the masses by encouraigng more and more people to visit the museums. Some local museums exist in Makthar, Utica, Carthage and Monastir. Finally, specialized museums themselves can be divided into two other categories of museums: the museums dedicated to a historical period and museums specializing in a given subject. In the first category, there is already the Dar Hussein museum, entirely devoted to the medieval Tunisia. In the second category, two projects were selected: the mosaic museum and a Paleo-Christian museum. The mosaic museum is fully justified by the richness of Tunisia in art museums and provides an evolution both thematically and chronologically on the subject. As for the Paleo-Christian Museum, it is now located in Carthage.
  Other specialized museums are also considered as museums of culture and science museums. These are used to trace the history and evolution of technology.
caption: Statuette of Ganymede in the Carthage Paleo-Christian Museum
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