National Museum of Somalia (Garesa Museum)

The National Museum of Somalia, housed in the Garesa Palace in the Shangani district, was one of East Africa's more significant regional museums before the civil war reduced it to ruin. The Garesa building itself — a two-storey Italian colonial structure built in the early 20th century — has been partially restored, and the museum has been painstakingly rebuilt with the help of international heritage organisations.

The current collection, much reduced from what it once was, includes traditional Somali objects (weaving, metalwork, musical instruments), photographs from the colonial period and early independence, and some archaeological finds from Somali sites. It is not a large or comprehensive collection compared to what existed before 1991, but it is the principal institution for Somali material culture in the country, and visiting it supports both the collection's survival and the work of its staff. Opening hours are irregular — check locally before making a special trip.

things to do museum
A story
At the height of the civil war, the museum's collection was looted almost entirely. Artifacts that had been accumulated over decades — ancient Somali manuscripts, traditional objects, colonial-era photographs, natural history specimens — disappeared into private hands, the international art market, or simply destruction. The few items that survive in the collection today represent a fraction of what was there in 1990. The restoration effort is part archaeology, part diplomacy: trying to locate and recover pieces scattered across the world.

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