My trip to the National Museum of Ras Al Khaimah!
Of all the museums in the UAE one of the smallest and yet one of the most interesting of them is the National Museum of Ras Al Khaimah (RAK). As a matter of fact I used to give tours there, and so this post I decided to take all of you on a tour of one of the most worth while attractions in RAK.
Located on Al Hisn Road، Sidroh in Ras Al Khaimah the National Museum of RAK is somewhat out of sight; unless you heard about it from a handy dandy friend or you read about it in some tour book, it is very unlikely that you will just stumble across it. So when you arrive at the museum like I just mentioned it doesn't leap out at you, in fact it is actually connected to a police station and when you're looking for parking it can be perturbing to keep running into police parking only signs. The museum building itself was originally built in the 17th century; around the time that the area would be under attack from the Persian empire, and it is estimated that the fort was destroyed twice and rebuilt once by the Portuguese and then by the British later on. Over the years that it has been around it has served as a fort, then as a living area, then as a police station, then just as a prison, then as a museum, then a living area again, and finally the museum it is today.
When you enter the museum the first thing you see as usual is the desk where you get your ticket (which is super cheap), and then a winding hallway that leads to a ramp that goes to the top floor and a door way that leads into the courtyard. Upon entering the courtyard directly to your left is the Natural History gallery, then a little further down on the left side is the Archeology gallery which is definitely the biggest, then on the right side is the ethnography gallery and a stair case that goes to the top floor. The first room we went in was the natural history room which featured a bunch of shells, rocks, some toys, and some hardened coral that would have been used to make the original building.
After dipping into the information in that room we went on to the biggest section which is the archeology section. The archeology section is cut up into rooms starting from the stone age going all the way to the late Islamic period with separate rooms highlighting each stage in between. The first room features some spear heads and pottery and other interesting artifacts found dating back to the stone age. The second room is the start of the iron age and it contains my favorite display in the whole museum, which is a set of four dates that were dated to about four thousand years ago which is pretty old, even for a date. This room also features some more pottery and spear heads as well as a few beads and a pendant that might have belonged to a wealthy woman, which is currently on loan to the Louvre in Abu Dhabi.
The third room has some finds from the archeological site in Shimal that i visited last post, and some artifacts that have been correlated to the first signs of trade with India. The fourth room highlights the first signs of Islam in RAK and includes a large collection of coins from the Muslim empire. One interesting thing about these coins is that some of them have been cut up into pieces and that is because sometimes instead of counting payment with the number of coins some people would just use the weight, and so when they just owed a little bit extra they would simply cut a piece of a coin and use that.
Rooms number 5 and 6 are the last of the rooms and put simply they highlight the period of conquest of RAK, mostly focusing on Portuguese control. Contained in these rooms are some beads from Africa and India as well as some china from China including a very interesting plate that was found shattered; upon being reassembled it was discovered that a small piece was missing so the museum hired a specialist to make a replica piece and in the meantime sent out a notice in the paper. By some miracle a nice gentleman claimed that he had the piece and offered to return it to the museum and now the plate with the replicate put in is on display as is, with the real piece and a small sign next to it telling people about this funny little story.
So after that we trekked through the third and last of the galleries which is the Ethnography gallery focusing on the local practices and way of life in old RAK. There are three rooms in this section of the museum room one just has some pictures and information about the winter and summer homes of the people of RAK when there was no heating or air conditioning. The second room showcases RAK's huge investment in pearl diving which was the primary source of income for the better part of the 18th century, touching on both the merchants' and divers' points of view. The third and last room is dedicated to farming and fishing in RAK, mainly date trees for farming and small fish for fishing; the most interesting items in this room in my mind would be the replica of a fishing boat, a local fishing net, and some farming utensils used for tending palm trees.
After we were finished with the last of the galleries we went up the stairs to see one of the towers that is the only untouched part of the museum that has lasted through all the changes in ownership and refurbishings and still retains its scratchy look and the noticeable coral pieces that were used to build it. While up there we also popped into the wind tower, which is one of only two authentic working wind towers in the UAE (the other one also being located in RAK}.
That does it for this post. All in all I really like the museum of RAK. Of course like I mentioned before I have worked as a tour guide there before and still pop by every now and then to help out, so I may have just a tiny bit of bias but I think it is well founded. Anyway hope you guys enjoyed this post, make sure to let me know in the comments what you thought and your own opinion about the museum of RAK now that you have read this, and make sure to come back next time for whatever new adventure we decide to embark on.