Rabat Archaeological Museum Morocco OFFICIAL Tour guide

The Rabat Archaeological Museum (French: Musée archéologique de Rabat) is an archaeological museum in Rabat, Morocco. Opened in 1932, it contains the most extensive collection of archaeological artifacts found in the country. The museum holds prehistoric and pre-Islamic collections, including many objects uncovered by archaeologists working in Volubilis, Banasa and Thamusida, which were first put on display in 1930-1932. This includes human remains from the middle Palaeolithic period (probably Neanderthals) to the Neolithic (4000 BC). A further find in 1957 saw the museum expand considerably, after which it became a National Museum and it has housed the National Museum collections since 1986. Pre-Roman and Roman civilisations are well represented in the museum with a number of notable Hellenistic-style bronzes such as the Dog of Volubilis, and the marble 'Ephebe Crowned With Ivy, a CATO bust and Head of a Young Berber. The Roman collection of the museum is derived from sites that include Volubilis, Banasa, Thamusida, Sala and Mogador, and which are organized by theme. The displays such as cooking utensils like plates, dishes, glasses and knives reveal much about every day life and Mediterranean relations in earlier times particularly between Morocco and Carthage. There are also the remnants of terracotta piping used in Roman public baths in Morocco. The museum has a noted collection of antique bronzes found mainly in Volubilis, including a bust of Cato the Younger from the 1st century and above all, the Lampadophores (nl) Ephebe Crowned with Ivy bust which depicts an ephebe, a young soldier in training naked, wearing a crown of ivy and holding a lamp in his left hand.[1] The Lustral Ephebe is also on display, discovered in Volubilis in 1929, as is the bust of Juba II dating back to 25 BC, originally imported from Egypt. The Dog of Volubilis was found in 1916, dating back to Hadrian in the early 2nd century. The museum also has a number of notable marble statues from Roman times, notably the Head of a Young Berber from Augustus's reign, the Sleeping Silenus and a Sphinx. Numerous figures of Roman gods are on display including Venus, Mars and Bacchus and Egyptian deity figures such as Anubis and Isis.