Bahrain celebrates International Museum Day

Manama

Bahrain yesterday celebrated International Museum Day with visitors enjoying free access to all the Museums around the Kingdom.

The Bahrain National Museum opened its door to both residents and tourists with two exhibitions currently being held - The Fables Across Time exhibition, inspired by the famous tale Kalila and Dimna, and The Sicily of the Leopard in Piraino’s Collection exhibition, which features clothing and accessories from the mid-19th century up to the advent of the 20th century.

Visitors at the museum had the rare opportunity to take a short five-minute boat trip to the Muharraq coast and visit the Pearling Heritage Trail Visitor Centre at Abu Maher Fort. The fort is currently enclosed by the Coastguard Directorate and only accessible by boat from the museum.

The site has excavations of buildings dating to 1840, when it was originally built. It was then the main pearling harbour and gateway to the sea for Bahrain.

The fort itself gives birds-eye views across Manama, Juffair and Muharraq. A number of old cannons are set up outside its walls, adding to the heritage and cultural side.

The Fables Across Time exhibition shared with the visitors the famous tale of two jackals Kalila and Dimna. It was originally composed in the third century BC in Sanskrit and is an ancient Indian collection of interrelated animal fables in verse and prose, arranged within a frame story.

It is reputed to be the most frequently translated literacy product of Bahrain.

Graphic illustrations of three stories are on display - The Story of the Lion and the Ox, The Story of the Four Friends and The Story of the Three Fish.

According to scholars, over 200 different versions of the tale exist in more than 50 languages.

Also on display are an early 20th Century copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and a figure of a storyteller.

The other exhibition features, dresses, tunics, hats, shoes (including children’s), boots and purses from Sicily in Southern Italy.