The Béchar Museum holds the modest but valuable archaeological and ethnographic collection of the Saoura region — the Saharan zone of which Béchar is the administrative centre. The strongest part is the prehistory: stone tools, ceramic fragments, and copies of the rock art that survives in the nearby massifs of the Tassili and the Saoura, recording a wetter Sahara of hunters, herders, and large mammals.
The ethnographic rooms cover the recent past — Saharan jewellery, weaving, leather work, and material from the nomadic and oasis cultures that still shape life in the surrounding desert. The collection is small and the labelling is in Arabic and French, but a quiet hour here is the best preparation for visiting the oases to the south.