Bardo Museum, Tunis - Tunisia
It is the oldest and most important Tunisian museum. More than a century ago, it was built in a Beylical palace, built for the most part around the middle of the 19th century, and which still bears the pomp of a princely residence. Partially redesigned several times to accommodate larger collections and increased visitor flow, it is currently undergoing a major restructuring plan to improve visibility and route.
Thousands of artefacts from excavations throughout the country during the 19th and 20th centuries are on display. These objects, grouped by departments and distributed in about fifty rooms and galleries, reflect the various stages traversed by Tunisia, from prehistory to the middle of the last century. These are, in chronological order: prehistory, the Punic Libyan period, the Roman and early Christian periods, with the vandal and Byzantine sequences and, finally, the Islamic period that runs until the contemporary era.
The Bardo Museum has earned a worldwide reputation for its collection of mosaics, considered the richest, most varied and most refined and which finds among its most beautiful illustrations paintings depicting Virgil surrounded by muses, or the pavement representing Dionysus giving the vine to Ikarios, or the other celebrating the triumph of Neptune, to name just a few of the key pieces. But this is not the only wealth of the museum.