My trip to the Etihad Museum!
In the nineteen hundreds many great things happened, especially in our very own middle east. One of these great things was the banding together of seven little known tribes to form what we now call the United Arab Emirates, and today I'm taking you guys to a place that talks all about it, the Etihad Museum. "Etihad" is (as you should have guessed by now) an Arabic word that means "union", and that is why it has been given to this museum that is devoted to talking about the UAE's "union". The Etihad Museum was opened in 2017 and it has been built right next to the location where all the seven emirates came together to sign the final treaty that created the UAE all the way back in 1971. It's located on Jumeira street right where it intersects with Diyafah street.
The day that i went to the Etihad Museum there wasn't much in the way of traffic, in fact I was the only visitor there up until a group came in as I was leaving. I assume that's just because it was a weekday and it was around one in the afternoon so (as you can imagine) people going to museums at that time are usually a dime a dozen. In any case it was all the better for me because i was free to roam the museum and record videos for the vlog, free of disturbance.
The whole facility itself is pretty big because it houses the original building where the treaty to unite was signed; it then has a garden and another similarly sized building that I was told was used for presentations and educational events. After passing all of this at the end of the "gated" area you reach the actual museum. Although when you are passing by the museum looks rather large it is an illusion of sorts because as you can tell when you enter (like I did), what is displayed inside is not extremely abundant. Not to say that the museum is lackluster or anything like that, I'm just saying that it has a lot of, how should I put this, "elbow room".
When you first enter the museum you are met with the reception desk to your right as well as a large marble slab that (I think) has engraved in it a part of the UAE's constitution. On the left your eyes meet with a stair case that leads you up to a sort of "platform" where you can look at some old pictures of the UAE sheikhs and take care of your "business". Much like the Frame, there was a lot of security at almost every step of the way through this building, checking tickets, and I assume if there were more people they would also be holding back the crowd so it didn't get too jumbled. As I mentioned before when I was there it was just about as empty as empty can get so the guards simply checked my ticket and were just very pleasant in general.
Anyway, moving on, when you are done looking at the old photos and getting comfortable there is another flight of stairs that takes you down a little and you find yourself in the museum. There is a little help desk immediately in front of you, and then exhibits to the left and right of you. I was informed that it was recommended to start on the right and then loop around back to the start so that's what I did. The first and most obvious thing you see on the right is this line of giant pictures of each of the seven emirates' founding fathers, each with a small glass case holding some of their personal belongings, and a computer screen that has more info about their family tree.
I personally thought that these little informational stands were pretty cool, and I enjoyed looking at the family trees and connecting the different emirates' rulers. After looking through this line of "stands" there was a room on the right that was dedicated to temporary exhibits, and when I was there it contained an exhibit about some Indian photographer (whose name I have forgotten) who devoted his life and his talents to photographing all the important points in the UAE's early history. I thought this was a nice exhibit because not only did it have interesting pictures that he took and the cameras he used to take them, but it also had several interviews of his where he talks about how it was for him back then and I found it kinda interesting.
Once I was done there I went into the room right next to it and it had a massive screen that was showing a guy who used to serve Sheikh Zayid being interviewed about the agreement that was made between him and the ruler of Dubai to start the whole "union" process. So I'll just tell y'all now, that was the last of the rooms; now I know what you must be thinking; "wait a minute only two rooms? didn't he say the museum was big?", and you would be right to say that but I would request that you also remember what I was saying about "elbow room". So yeah after leaving that cinema room there was a bunch of stand alone desk like structures that had touch screens talking about the different challenges of trying to bring all seven emirates together.
Then there was this little area sort of sectioned off from the main hallway by a small wall that had what in my mind was the coolest part of the whole museum. It was a set of three tables each with about eight blocks sitting on them, and each block had something written like "life style" or "agriculture" for example. So I was pretty confused as to what these were meant for but upon closer inspection it became clear that this table was a touch screen in and of itself and the blocks were movable! So clearly the next most logical thing to do was move a block and when I did there was an animation where the center of the table formed a square and started trying to connect digital "strings" to the block that just moved. Once again following simple intuition I decided to pick the block up and move it onto the square that had been formed in the middle of the table and boom there it was. I was surprised to see the wall to my left came to life and suddenly there was a video and some writing talking about the thing that was written on the block I had just centered. I don't have any pictures of this because i was too enthralled in trying to properly video it, so if you wanna see the tables with blocks you can check out the vlog that comes with this post.
So after I managed to tear myself away from that little area there was another little area with a bunch of pictures and writing talking about each of the emirates, their rulers, and what caused them to join the UAE.
After looking through those pictures there was one last stretch before I would reach the entrance again, and this stretch had tall stands lined up in a row similar to the ones at the start except these ones had artifacts from different sectors of the UAE. For example there was a uniform and weapons used by the first UAE police officers and there was a case with a bunch of coins that would have been used in the years before the UAE's founding. Something interesting I'd add about those coins is that most of them were from Europe because apparently countries there like Austria and Poland used real silver to make their coins so locals here would simply use them in a weighing fashion. So if something was just a little more expensive than a single coin could buy, then have no fear, simply lob of a bit of another coin to break even.
I feel that I should also mention that at the end of this stretch just before you reach the exit/entrance they had the original copy of the UAE's constitution on display.
With that I said my goodbyes to the security and made my way home. All in all I enjoyed the Etihad Museum, as I mentioned before it does not have a plethora of things to look at but the tickets aren't very expensive and it's always interesting for me at least to see what lead to a nomadic people like ours deciding to join forces and settle down. Anyway hope all of you enjoyed and make sure to pop in for my next post.