1) Location and history of reconstruction
The museum is an old building built during the Ottoman period in 1861. It was previously used as a house for companies and was used officially as a museum on 10/24/1981. The museum is located in the city center in a square known as Museum Square. The museum is built of bricks, and it is composed of two floors. Its halls are used for exhibition, offices for employees of the Department of Antiquities and Museums of Raqqa, and a warehouse for preserving artifacts.
2) Divisions of the museum
The museum is divided into two parts
- The first section includes the discoveries of the archaeological missions operating within the province of Raqqa and its history
- The second section in which the antiquities of Raqqa during the Abbasid period, the Bronze Age site of Tuttul (modern Tal al-Baya ‘), in addition to founds of Raqqa in the third millennium BC
Significant exhibits of the museum include
- Fragment of a stele, found at the site of Tell Halawa which is an important Bronze Age site that was excavated in 80.s the stele represents a scene composed of two armed men, preceded by four pictures of women carrying offerings to the gods, and at the bottom there is a picture of two goats climbing a palm tree and a goat sucking their newborn. Underneath the figure is a frieze underneath an animal pulling a plow driven by a man?The limestone relief is similar to alabaster and is incomplete in most of its aspects, (Height: 44,5 cm, Width: 36.5 cm )
- A large group of cuneiform tablets from several archeological sites such as Tell al-Sabi Abyad, Tell Hammam al-Turkman, Tell al-Baya ‘, Tell Chuera, and Tell Munbaqa, and a large number of pottery objects
- Ostrich eggshells, which were available in the region of Tell Chuera and they reflect the ancient fauna
- A large number of animal and human clay figurines found at several locations in Raqqa Governorate.
- A full-fledged clay mask with empty eyes, with embossed decorations on his forehead, and two holes used for hanging it on the face. It is large in size as the size of the child’s face. One of the Munbaqa excavation 1989, its dimensions are 16 x 14 x 9.2 cm. (Height:16 cm, Width: 14 cm, Depth: 9.2 cm )
- A significant number of cylindrical seals representing different objects, they were found at several archeological sites in Al-Raqqa Governorate
- A long pottery model with vegetal motifs at its base, with a polygonal body, used as a clothes hanger from the Tal al-Bayaa site in the 1990 season. (Length: 24 cm, , Width: 6.4 cm(
- Mosaic panels displayed on the first floor at the entrance to the museum. From Tell Halawa site, they contain multiple themes
- A ceramics jug from Islamic period with brown writing on it, and it bears blue decorations. The neck is semi-cylindrical with blue linear stripes and has a broken and restored handle, (Length: 19cm, , Width: 6.7 cm(
- A small glass bottle from the Islamic period, with a long neck and relatively high, with a swollen belly with traces of blackness inside. Its restored, (Length: 24 cm, , Width: 6.4 cm(
- A deep plate from the Islamic period with a flat lip and a ring base, painted and decorated with vegetal motifs of a golden metallic color, (Length:10 cm , width : 35 cm)
- A conical bowl from the Islamic period with a blue ceramic heel, decorated with black, inside it is a floral decoration divided into four parts, separated by a whale-like band, protected from the bottom and top by a black thread with a wide lip, decorated with black drops above the black string. The bottom is decorated with a whale in the middle.
- Four twisted bracelets from the Ottoman period, made of silver and in good condition.
- Small gold earrings.
- Coins of various metals.
- Glass bulbs in the form of a cup belonging to chandeliers of various sizes and sizes from the Islamic period.
- A large green coffin, made of ceramic
