Chad National Museum

The Chad National Museum (Musée National N'Djamena) is the national museum of Chad. It is located in the capital city of N'Djamena at near Avenue Felix Eboue, with a mailing address of BP 638, Fort Archambault. The museum was established on October 6, 1962 in temporary quarters under the name of Chad National Museum, Fort-Lamy, reflecting the earlier, colonial name of Chad's capital. In 1964, it moved to the former town hall, near the Place de l'Independence.

At the time of its establishment, it had four rooms:

• Prehistory
• Protohistory
• Archives
• Folk arts, crafts and traditions^[1]

The prehistory room, at least in 1965, included items related to pebble culture, including material from the Amgamma cliff, Stone Age implements, axes with helve-holes, nether millstones, and quartz and obsidian arrowheads. The museum at one time included a full-sized ochre reproduction of a hunting scene from the first millennium B.C. The collection also included baked bricks, some attributed to Boulala and Babalia people, items discovered at the Bouta-Kabira sanctuary including human masks, bronze objects and bone tools.^[1]

Many of its artifacts have been lost due to the instability in the country. It has a notable collection of musical instruments.^[2]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Jean-Paul Lebeuf (1965). "The Chad National Museum, Fort-Lemy" (in English) (PDF). Museum (UNESCO) XVIII (3 (The Role of Museums in Contemporary Africa)): 150–153. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001273/127389eo.pdf#11593. Retrieved 2007-03-10. 
2. ^ N'Djamena, Chad SIBMAS International Directory of Performing Arts Collections and Institutions