The total area of the exhibition halls is 4000 square meters (the area of the football field). The exposition is conventionally divided into 9 sections; almost the entire exposition is located in the underground premises of the fort, where once an arsenal was. Antiquities are exhibited, scenes from the life of Dubai residents of old times have been restored.
The exhibition also includes artifacts recently found at excavations of the Hafeet, Umm-an-Nar, Wadi Souk cultures, dating back to 3000 BC. Read about these cultures in our article “History of the Arab Emirates”. Since Dubai has been a center of trade since ancient times, the exposition includes many ancient items from Persia, India, Africa – those countries which Dubai traded with.
Be sure to see in the courtyard of the fort the traditional arish house, built entirely made of palm leaves. This is not a shabby hut, but a real house with several rooms and a wind intake system for ventilation. Ordinary Dubai people had been living in these houses before the oil era.
Expensive houses were made of coral stone, which was very rare and expensive. The Al-Fahidi fort is made of coral stone as well.
A separate room shows the life of the Bedouins of the desert. Here Tripety travelers can learn about their methods of star orientation. Indeed, in the desert, as in the sea, it is extremely difficult to navigate – wherever you look, everywhere the same sand. This amazes many tourists, but the Bedouins knew a lot about the stars, knew how to masterfully navigate them.
On some figures of women, you can see “battula” – this is a golden mask. The origin of these masks is unknown, they were probably borrowed by the Gulf Arabs from India in the 18th century. Long ago, these masks were an obligatory part of women’s clothes, even in everyday life, and not only on holidays. Girls started wearing the battula at the age of 9.
There is a very interesting hypothesis associated with this mask. It is believed that Arab women deceived their enemies with these masks. The battle-mask is shaped like a mustache. Thus, from afar it seemed that it was not a woman, but a man with a mustache. It seemed to the enemies that there were 2 times more combat-ready people in the settlement than in reality.
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