Open since December 1987, the IMA museum aims to present Arab-Islamic civilisation from its origins to the present day.

The museum began by first of all housing mostly objects from the French national museums (the Louvre, the Decorative Arts Museum, the Museum of Arts of Africa and Oceania) and a few pieces from private collections.

Arab countries associated with the IMA also participated with long-term loans from their own collections. These loaned works are from their reserves, and are mainly the results of recent archaeological digs, or illustrate current historical research. This is why a programme of publications accompanies the cycles of presentation of the works.

Syria and Tunisia were the first countries to become associated with this enterprise by lending 180 objects and works (dating from pre-historic times to the 18th century). Other loans should soon be granted to the IMA, which will establish the museum as a reference point born of the common will of the founding countries.

THE MUSEUM

The 184 objects loaned by Syria and Tunisia are currently integrated in the permanent collection areas of the museum - 7th, 6th and 4th floors, and are displayed at the heart of the IMA's collections.

The pieces are distributed according to a chronological thread that narrates the development of Syria and Tunisia - lands where multi-secular civilisations meet - in the general context of the history of peoples.

Flint tools, a bedstone, a cuneiform tablet, a cylindrical seal, etc. bear witness to the pre-historic era and the Bronze Age. These items show visitors the important role played by Syria in the history of humanity. At the end of the second millennium, Phoenician sailors left to conquer the Mediterranean. They established numerous colonies and trading posts on its banks. Carthage, the "new city", was founded in 814 B.C. Cinerary urns, masks and steles, mostly from Carthage, bear witness to the beliefs and rituals of the city's inhabitants.

In 146 B.C., Rome destroyed Carthage, annexed its territories and created the province of Africa. Tunisia, at the heart of proconsular Africa, experienced a new period of prosperity. The number of towns increased, the arts bloomed - the bust of the emperor Lucius Verus, the stele dedicated to Saturn, the mosaics - which previously decorated the house of a rich patrician of El Jem - are testimony to this.

In 64 A.D., it was Syria's turn to integrate the Roman Empire. The country experienced a golden age in the 2nd century. A city, Palmyra, and a region, the Hauran, are represented here respectively by funerary statues and architectural decorations.

From the 2nd to the 3rd century, Tunisia became one of the bastions of Christianity in the West, with figures such as Saint Perpetua, Tertullian and Saint Augustine.

From the 4th century onwards, numerous churches were built. Two mosaics, from churches in the region of Sbeitla, (central Tunisia) mark, in the museum layout, the end of Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Muslim Tunisia is represented by a wealth of objects dating from the 9th to the 19th century. Frescoes and consoles in cedar from the Kairouan mosque, stuccoes from the palace of Sabra al-Mansouriya, funeral steles, Hafsid ceramics, jewels and costumes evoke the wealth and diversity of Islamic art in Tunisia, from the Aghlabid period to the Ottoman period.