DAMASCUS: Syrian officials, foreign archaeologists and restoration specialists attended the reopening ceremony of the Syria’s National Museum in the heart of Damascus on Sunday, more than six years after the prominent institution was shut down and emptied as the country’s civil war encroached on the capital.
The reopening of the museum was hailed as a return to normal life by Syrian officials, eager to cash in on the Syrian armed forces’ military victories against armed groups, who had only recently shelled Damascus and threatened the seat of the government in the capital, coming only miles from the presidential palace.
Over successive military advances, and with the backing of allies Russia and Iran, Syrian troops moved in on rebel holdouts on the outskirts of Damascus expelling the armed groups to the north and restoring calm.
“The opening of the museum is a genuine message that Syria is still here and her heritage would not be affected by terrorism,” Syrian Minister of Culture Mohamed Al-Ahmad told reporters and visitors. “Today, Damascus has recovered.”
Among the antiquities on display are murals from the 2nd century Dura-Europos in Syria’s east, textiles from central Palmyra and statues of the Greek goddess of victory from the south.
Syria’s conflict, raging since early 2011, has been detrimental for the country’s rich heritage.
Authorities shut down museums and safely stored away over 300,000 artifacts, but some sites were still destroyed by Daesh, damaged by the fighting or looted.
Head of the General Directorate for Antiquities and Museums, Mahmoud Hammoud, said four of the five sections of the museum will be opened to showcase hundreds of archaeological findings that date back to the prehistoric, historical, classical and Islamic eras. He said some artifacts restored or seized by Syrian authorities will also be on display.
More than 9,000 artifacts were restored and reclaimed since the war began, he said, noting that the museum needs renovation and funds. He said hundreds of thousands of important artifacts and sculptures were smuggled abroad during the crisis.
Visitors would be able to watch as specialists restore hundreds of artifacts reclaimed from Palmyra, which Daesh militants overtook for months destroying some of the world’s most famous monuments.
Bartosz Markowski, a Polish specialist in conservation of stone sculpture and architectural detail, said he had been working in Palmyra before the war broke out.
“I am saving heritage, mostly in Palmyra, where I have been working before the crisis,” he told The Associated Press. “I came right after liberation and helped with urgent conservation and protection of destroyed objects in Palmyra... There is still a lot of damage in Palmyra.”
For Markowski, reopening the Damascus museum was “symbolic.”
“When life is coming back, we are opening the museums,” he said.
Claus Peter Hasse, the director of the Islamic Art Museum in Berlin, said he felt safe traveling between Damascus and Aleppo, Syria’s commercial heart and ancient city, also damaged by the war.
“Of course, it’s a tragic situation to see so many tragedies around, but at the moment, we don’t see difficulties,” he said.
The former Directorate-General for Antiquities and Museums, Maamoun Abdul-Karim, who had overseen the campaign to hide artifacts in safe places, said the country needs years, major capabilities, and millions of dollars to reopen all museums nationwide.
He said hundreds of artifacts would return to the classical wing inside the museum, including those relating to the Greek and Roman period, while other wings would reopen soon.
“In fact, this was a very big victory for the country,” he said. “When all museums reopen nationwide, then we can say that the crisis in Syria ended.”
Shut for over 6 years, Syria’s national museum reopens
Shut for over 6 years, Syria’s national museum reopens
- Syria reopened a wing of the capital’s famed antiquities museum
- The museum was closed six years ago to protect the artifacts from the civil war
Hear them out: The best Arab alternative albums of 2025
- Bojan Preradovic’s pick of records released by indie artists from the Arab world this year
Saint Levant
‘Love Letters’
With his sophomore LP, the Palestinian artist matures from viral breakout to more vulnerable, multilingual pop and R&B, shaping a compact set of love songs with a firmly Palestinian center. He braids sleek synths, North African grooves, and earworm melodies into pieces that drift between late-night infatuation and clear-eyed reflections on home, distance, and belonging. “DALOONA,” a collaboration with Shamstep pioneers 47Soul, and “KALAMANTINA,” featuring Egyptian rap star Marwan Moussa, both lean into joyful release, while “EXILE” sits with the emotional cost of separation and absence. “Love Letters” threads romance, memory, and identity into understated, exceedingly replayable art.
Zeyne
‘Awda’
Rising Palestinian-Jordanian star Zeyne uses her debut LP to alchemize the last few years of upheaval and her meteoric ascent into a 13-track map of who she is and where she comes from. Folding contemporary R&B and pop into playful rhythms, dabke pulses, and Arabic melodic turns, she sings of home, pressure, and stubborn hope on tracks that feel both diaristic and cinematic. The record shifts between tenderness, unease, and quiet celebration, while guest appearances from Saint Levant and Bayou mix perfectly with the record’s unique flavors rather than overpowering them. This is an exhilarating, soul-searching foray into Arabic alt-pop that treats vulnerability and pride as two sides of the same coin.
Yasmine Hamdan
‘I remember I forget’
A quietly piercing LP from the indie icon about what we choose to carry and what we try to erase. Recorded with her trusted musical confidant Marc Collin, the album folds muted electronics, trip-hop beats, oud, and Arabic strings into songs in which personal memory, folk echoes, and her country’s never-ending tumult blur into one. Album closer “Reminiscence” lets the record fade like a long-held breath, reminding us that Hamdan is still one of the few artists capable of molding private anxieties into a shared, luminous language.
Kazdoura
‘Ghoyoum’
The Toronto-based duo’s debut weaves a story of migration and fracture into a quietly dazzling Arabic fusion record. Vocalist Leen Hamo and multi-instrumentalist John Abou Chacra root everything in Levantine maqams, then let the songs drift toward jazz, psychedelia, and dream pop without ever losing sight of the tarab they grew up on. From the yearning of opener “Marhaba Ahlen” and the fiery feminist chant of “Ya Banat” to the reworked folk of “Hmool El Safar” and the woozy sway of “Khayal” and “Titi Titi,” they sculpt homesickness, resilience, and slow healing into something genuinely transformative.
Tamara Qaddoumi
‘The Murmur’
On her first full-length album, Tamara Qaddoumi stretches the trip-hop and shadowy pop universe she explored on 2021’s EP “Soft Glitch” into a deeper, intensely moving world. Written with longtime collaborator Antonio Hajj, and produced by indie mainstay Fadi Tabbal, “The Murmer” leans on low-end throb, smoldering synths, and incisive guitar lines that feel both intimate and vast. Her voice hovers between confession and spell, circling questions of identity, grief, and attachment that evoke her own hybrid Kuwaiti, Palestinian, Lebanese, and Scottish heritage. The result is a delightfully cobwebby, absorbing LP that lingers long after it ends.
Sanam
‘Sametou Sawtan’
Recorded between Beirut, Byblos, and Paris, “Sametou Sawtan” – Arabic for “I heard a voice” – is a poignant, unsettled collision of noise rock, free jazz, and Arabic folk that fizzes with tension. Produced by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, the eight tracks by the art-rock sextet are anchored by Sandy Chamoun’s remarkable vocals, which move from murmured prayer to visceral intensity, drawing on classical Arabic poetry and prose and her own lyrics to inhabit figures who are bewildered, grieving, or stubbornly alive. From the opening surge of “Harik” to the slow burn of “Hamam,” Sanam distill personal and collective unease into work that’s urgent, physical, and impossible to ignore. This is an act on the precipice of wider, global renown.
Nabeel
‘Ghayoom’
On “Ghayoom,” the Iraqi-American songwriter — real name Yasir Razak — firmly plants the flag of an audacious musical explorer venturing across roads less traveled. He sings in Arabic over a wall of distorted guitars and slowcore drums, enveloped by captivating, shoegaze-colored soundscapes. The artwork, built from worn family photographs, hints at what the music is chasing. These eight tracks pair devotional tenderness with the grit of DIY rock. Opener “Resala” aches with unsent words; “Khatil” hits with uneasy momentum; while the elegant flicker of pop-tinged moments scattered throughout the album maintain a raw and bruised edge.
Malakat
Al Anhar Wal Oyoon
On its first showcase, Jordan-based label Malakat gathers seven Arab woman artists and enables them to pull in seven different directions that end up flowing as a single current. “Al Anhar Wal Oyoon” (‘The Rivers and the Springs’), moves from Intibint’s hauntingly inspired vocalization to Liliane Chlela’s serrated electronics, and from Sukkar and DAL!A’s skewed pop to Sandy Chamoun’s voice-led piece, and Bint Mbareh’s closing track, developed in dialogue with visionary producer Nicolas Jaar. Mixed across Amman, the UK, and New York, and mastered by the highly-sought-after Heba Kadry, this is a deeply textured statement of intent from a label quietly redrawing the map of experimental Arab music.
