Libya’s national museum, formerly known as As-Saraya Al-Hamra or the Red Castle, has reopened in Tripoli, allowing the public access to some of the country’s finest historical treasures for the first time since the revolt that toppled Muammar Qaddafi.
The museum, Libya’s largest, was closed in 2011 during a NATO-backed uprising against longtime ruler Qaddafi, who appeared on the castle’s ramparts to deliver a fiery speech.
Renovations were started in March 2023 by the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU), which came to power in 2021 in a UN-backed political process.
“The reopening of the National Museum is not just a cultural moment but a live testimony that Libya is building its institutions,” GNU Prime Minister Abdulhamid Al-Dbiebah said at a reopening ceremony on Friday.
Built in the 1980s, the museum’s 10,000 square meters of gallery space features mosaics and murals, sculptures, coins, and artefacts dating back to prehistoric times and stretching through Libya’s Roman, Greek and Islamic periods.
