Musée National Boubou Hama

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Musée National Boubou Hama is Niger’s national museum, located in Niamey. It opened on December 18, 1959, as Musée National du Niger. The first conservator, Pablo Toucet, designed the museum as part of Niamey’s Culture Valley, a plan proposed by Boubou Hama. In the valley nearby are the Franco-Nigerien Cultural Center and the Center of Linguistic and Historical Studies by Oral Tradition. The museum sits in a park and includes a cultural section, a scientific section, and a zoo; it also hosts temporary exhibitions. The park is a popular place for recreation. A famous exhibit is the Arbre du Ténéré; its remains have been in the museum since 1974 and the tree has been housed in its own mausoleum since 1979. The museum features an arts and crafts center, a zoo with about fifty species, and five traditional houses representing the Fulani, Hausa, Songhai, Tuareg, and Zarma peoples. Sculptor Issoufou Lankondé created a bust of Boubou Hama and giraffe sculptures for the museum. Most exhibits focus on ethnology, archaeology, and culture, including traditional Nigerien dwellings. In 2013, about 170,000 visitors came to the museum each year.