National Museum of Beirut

Residents are rightly proud of Lebanon’s top museum, which was built in the 1930s to house antiquities from Lebanon’s rich history such as Roman frescoes and statues from Baalbek and Egyptian vessels and friezes. The Museum sat on the Green Line, dividing the city during the Civil War, and many of its greatest treasures, including Roman statues and Egyptian sarcophagi, were encased in concrete to protect them during the years of strife. A massive restoration between 1995 and 1999 restored the heavily damaged building as well as its contents, and the Museum reopened in 1999.