Nabu Museum Soars with Two Wings: Jawad Adra and Zeina Akar
The Nabu Museum, located on the waterfront of the Al-Herri area near Ras Al-Shaqa in northern Lebanon
It is one of the distinguished and rich cultural museums. It is an ideal place to explore Lebanon’s ancient history and prominent modern and contemporary artworks.
Named after the god Nabu, the deity of wisdom and writing in Mesopotamia, the museum houses an impressive collection of more than 2,000 exceptional artifacts permanently on display. This collection spans various historical eras, featuring notable pieces from the Bronze and Iron Ages, as well as Phoenician, Roman, Greek, and Byzantine periods. Additionally, the museum boasts a collection of rare manuscripts and ethnographic items.
The museum also contains a rare collection of cuneiform tablets dating from 2330 to 540 BCE, encompassing literary works, and comprehensive social and economic records. These tablets provide detailed and extensive information about the history and culture of the Sumerian and Babylonian peoples who lived in Mesopotamia.
This beautiful museum prompts a single question in the mind of every visitor: Who founded this museum?
The Nabu Museum was established by Jawad Adra and Zeina Akar Adra, providing a space to exhibit artworks and serving as an institution to maintain community connections to their culture through educational programs, training sessions, organized tours, public lectures, and guided exhibitions.
Zeina Akar, whose appointment as the Minister of Defense in Hassan Diab’s government set a precedent for the importance of involving women in political and military life, is considered the first female defense minister in the Arab world. Upon her appointment, Zeina Akar said, “I wished that the share of women in the new government was larger.”
During her tenure, Zeina Akar was a prominent advocate for women’s rights, which legal, financial, and societal barriers had hindered from participating in political life in Lebanon. She held continuous meetings with Claudine Aoun, head of the National Commission for Lebanese Women, to coordinate the implementation of the National Action Plan to apply UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security. She also discussed practical steps the Lebanese state should take to enhance women’s role in achieving peace and security, recognizing the UN resolution’s importance of women’s involvement in the military and their role in building societies and leading reform processes.
Zeina Akar is noted for being the first Lebanese woman to hold three key positions
Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense, and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates. Additionally, she plays a significant role in managing the Nabu Museum in northern Lebanon, which acts as an institution to maintain community ties to their culture through educational and training programs, organized tours, public lectures, and guided exhibitions.
Jawad Adra, one of the founders of the Nabu Museum, emphasized in a special interview that, at its inception, the founders considered “art as resistance, resistance for exiles in their homeland and abroad, and Palestinians are exiles in their homeland and abroad.” Adra believes that “the Palestinian cause cannot be separated from the region we live in; the entire Arab world is interconnected,” according to Adra.
Therefore, the Nabu Museum supports the Palestinian cause, especially amid the ongoing war of extermination in the Gaza Strip. When discussing support, “Nabu” continuously launches artistic and cultural activities in support of the Palestinian cause.
It is noted that Jawad Adra and his partner in managing the Nabu Museum, Zeina Akar Adra, consider art a means of resistance and survival. Thus, the Nabu Museum administration, in cooperation with the “Theatre of Beirut,” launched a solidarity week with Gaza last January under the title “Peace to Gaza,” which included theatrical, cinematic, and musical dance performances. On the sidelines of the evenings, financial donations were collected for the “Ghassan Abu Sitta Fund for Children,” recently launched by Jawad Adra, Fida Jdeed, and Badr Al-Hajj.
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